Trustees are getting too bogged down by the bureaucracy of a charity to address the big, strategic issues, a new report by nfpSynergy founder Joe Saxton suggests.
The report, A Trusted Role, published today, based on Saxton’s 25 years of experience as a charity trustee, staff member and consultant, sets out his concerns about the skills of trustees going to waste on lengthy meetings and ‘rubber-stamping’ proposals.
It outlines four challenges that every charities has in trying to create an effective, strategic board: choosing the right trustees; using each trustee to the full; trustees playing multiple roles; and making strategic choices.
“My observation is that most trustees spend more time dealing with the small issues and the routine business of a charity than addressing the big strategic issues. This small stuff is an all important part of the fiduciary duties and ‘bureaucracy’ of a charity; approving accounts, signing minutes… all the other paperwork that can fill a board’s agenda,” the report says.
When trustees do deal with big, strategic issues, it is often through a presentation or paper by the executive, which they can either approve or not, it says.
Trustees often approve the staff recommendation, the report says: “Rubber-stamping maybe too harsh a term, but often trustees will struggle to ‘add value’ to a staff decision without appearing to reject it. Once a paper is written and presented to a board it is highly likely it will be approved.”
To be in control of big decisions, trustees should identify what the big issues are that affect the charity, what its strengths and weaknesses are and the opportunities and threats it faces, the report says. The board should be discussing the big issues in meetings and identify the major decisions it want to be involved with, it says.
The report lists fives things a trustee can to be more effective, these include: getting to know members of staff and other trustees; getting to know three specific areas of an organisation’s work; ask for non-financial as well as financial performance indicators; “be the grit in the oyster” in a particular aspect of the charity’s work by engaging in ‘constructive discontent’; and make trustee meetings make the big decisions.
Saxton says the report contains his personal views: “They are not rigorously tested, nor are they based on interviews or surveys.” He says many people will disagree with his observations and ideas, but he hopes they will prompt charities and trustees to look at how to make their boards more effective.
In a statement to mark the report’s publication, Saxton said: “Charities don’t exist for profit, they exist to do great work. This kind of ethos attracts some very talented and experienced people as trustees, but often charities don’t get the best out of them.
“Trustees need to speak up and actively listen, both in the boardroom and on the shop floor, to help charities achieve what they were set up to do. With more focus on making the big decisions and less on how many meetings a board has, charities will begin to make better use of one of their most valuable assets; their people.”
