In a previous article, we discussed who Trustees are, what they do and how people can find trustee opportunities. In this article, we discuss the ways in which charities can recruit trustees.

Look at your existing volunteers and/or beneficiaries

The ideal charity trustee is someone who is passionate about the charity's aims and purpose. Whilst external candidates may have the desired skills, it may be the case that your charity could benefit from someone with a greater knowledge and/or passion for the charity making up for the lack of skills with a greater desire to support the charity and with opportunities for upskilling, the ideal person could already be involved in your organisation, either as a volunteer or as a beneficiary.

In both cases, having individuals with different experiences of your organisation can add great value to your trustee board and ensure that when decisions are made, your volunteers and beneficiaries are considered.

Reach out to your networks

If you have looked within your organisation and not identified anyone who would be interested in becoming a trustee, how about speaking to staff, volunteers and beneficiaries and seeing if there is anyone they know who may be interested in becoming a trustee for your organisation.

People know people and are happy to share recruitment adverts to their contacts. You might find they know the perfect person for your organisation and they can help facilitate an introduction for you.

Engage with your local business community

Some trustees roles require certain legal or financial skills and therefore suits a specific individual. You might not know anyone with the right skills to become your treasurer or to provide legal advice for your charity. As a result, we would recommend reaching our to local businesses to see if their staff would be interested. We know that many businesses are keen to engage with charities as part of their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy so seeing if your local accountancy or law firm maybe interested.

If you have not done so already, we would encourage you to speak to our colleagues within the Watford and West Herts Chamber of Commerce. As well as supporting the business community in Watford, they work hard to connect businesses with charities and we believe their network could help you find a specialist trustee. For more information about Watford and West Herts Chamber of Commerce, visit their website here.

Advertise your roles online

We expect that you are already using social media to advertise your vacancies but have you used either Golden Volunteer or Go Vol Herts? Both sites are ideal places to advertise your trustee roles and you never know who might see your advert and realise that your role is ideal for them.

Golden Volunteer is designed specifically for individuals living within the Watford and Three Rivers area and Go Vol Herts is ideal if you are looking for volunteers from across the county. If you have not already registered for either platform, click here to register for Golden Volunteer and here for Go Vol Herts.

There will be plenty of other ways to advertise your trustee roles and to ensure that the right candidates are apply for them so please do not hesitate to contact the CVS Team if we can support your organisations with recruiting new trustees or developing your trustee. You can email us at [email protected] or call 07908 209908.