All registered charities must, by law, be governed by a board of trustees.
The trustee board is tasked with setting the strategy for the charity which the executive is then tasked with delivering. The board is accountable in law to the charity’s donors through the Attorney General and the courts, and is ultimately responsible for everything the charity does.
There is normally a chair of trustees, and in bigger charities smaller groups of trustees often form committees to examine particular topics, such as audit or risk management.
For many years most trustees tended to be appointed because they knew someone who was already a board member, but more recently lots of charities have attempted to be more professional about the way they recruit board members, conducting skills audits to identify gaps and then advertising publicly for suitable candidates.
Paul Stallard has joined the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association as its first paid chair, succeeding Michael Naidu who has been acting chair since 2008.
Nigel Kershaw, chief executive of Big Issue Invest, says too often charity trustees who are enormously skilled in their day jobs lose this edge in board meetings, as they define business as one thing, and charity and philanthropy as another.
Inadvertently disempowering members
The committee members of a learning disability charity recently transferred all the assets and liabilities to a charitable company to protect themselves from personal liability without informing the membership of the unicorporated charity. A charity lawyer and governance consultant respond.
Never stop learning
Hugh Duberly, chairman of the Papworth Trust and Adrian Bagg, CEO, discuss their big governance issues.
Volunteering England has appointed both the Samaritans and British Waterways' chief executives among its five new trustees.
The Charity Commission has urged charities to invest in their trustees as its latest survey reveals that 40 per cent of applicants to the charity register offer no training or support to their board members.
Tesse Akpeki attended the BoardSource 2011 Leadership forum, and was left inspired by a new American approach to charity governance.
Half of the public do not know what a charity trustee is, but more than a tenth would be interested in becoming one, according to the latest research conducted for Getting on Board, which promotes board-level volunteering.
It may be natural to freeze in a crisis but Martin Farrell says that is exactly when the board needs to act.
Martyn Lewis, chair of NCVO, has said that both he and NCVO believe paying trustees is the wrong direction to take, and that people should celebrate the voluntary nature of trusteeship.
Sarah Hodgkinson outlines the benefits that businesspeople can bring to trustee boards.
The chair and the chief executive run the show
The long-standing chair and chief executive have forced two trustees to resign, a chief executive and governance consultant respond.
Nightmare board for merged charities
The members of a merged board are still acting in the interests of their old charities and not the new charity. Rosie Chapman offers advice.
What to do with trustees who don't do anything
In this article Jan Masaoka looks at short-term and long-term strategies for trustees known as dead wood or worse.
Unexpected consequences of having the chief executive on the board
A chief executive questions whether it is still in the best interests of the charity for them to continue to be a member of the board.
My boss makes me deputise for her
Nicola Roscoe advises an employee who is deputising for their boss at board meetings.
The case for young trustees
Look around the table at the board meetings of many charities, and one familiar element will stare back at you; experience. Experience often comes hand-in-hand with age, but not necessarily.
Risk-averse trustee boards are holding back progress on finding new ways of fundraising, according to fundraisers debating the value of innovation at the International Fundraising Congress.
Alex Swallow is one of that rare breed – a young trustee. He is determined to spread the word and encourage more young people to get involved.
Charities would suffer from lower incomes if trustees were to be paid, warns VAT specialist Socrates Socratous, commenting on Lord Hodgson's claim last week that payment of trustees was inevitable.
Payment of trustees is coming whether we like it or not, according to president of NCVO, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbott.
Tesse Akpeki highlights a new report which links good governance and a healthy gender balance on boards to better performance and profits on corporate boards.
A woman, who was the sole trustee of a public hall in Scotland, has been found guilty of embezzling £800 in charitable funds, after a three-year inquiry by the Office of the Scottish Regulator into the Scalloway Public Hall Trust uncovered the fraud.
New Philanthropy Capital has appointed Dan Corry, a former head of the Number 10 policy unit and senior adviser to Gordon Brown on the economy, as its new chief executive, starting in October.
The Community Development Finance Association has appointed Jonathan Diggines, chief executive of SME venture capitalists EV Group, as its chair.
The Wiltshire Air Ambulance Appeal, which has always been under the control of the NHS-funded Great Western Ambulance Service, is to become a separate charity next month.
The MS Society has appointed Hilary Sears as its new chairman. She will take over from Tony Kennan CBE, who is stepping down after six years on 9 September.
Married couples as trustees
A married couple who are trustees for the same charity are taking the term 'other half' rather literally. What are the rules on sharing a trusteeship? Jayne Adams advises.
Boldly pause and go
Boldly pause and go where no trustee has gone before – and face up to the elephant mess in the gloom, says Martin Farrell.
Two trustees have hit out at plans for over half of the Shetland Charitable Trust's board to be selected by fellow trustees rather than publicly-elected, arguing that it doesn’t need “experts in accountancy or the finer points of law”.
