Festival of Trusteeship — Day 2
Welcome to the second day of the second ever Festival of Trusteeship by Getting Onboard. There are multiple tracks they are focussed on and we’ll try to share our learning through the sessions in each track for the day.
Whilst there are key takeaways from each of the sessions, my overall summary would be that identify your uniqueness and celebrate that rather than feeling you are the odd one out, look for mentors/buddies and feel free to ask questions to truly give and get value as a trustee. The beauty of all the conversations and takeaways is that it applies to every sphere of life within the JSPF community and beyond.
Recruiting for diversity — How to find your new trustees?
Whilst the festival is centred around United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a lot of concepts and discussion points are global. Whilst the examples of board rooms filled with senior white males is relatable to the local populace, the idea that there is no diversity in boardrooms across the globe resonates with all.
Starts off with how we do trustee recruitment — 90% are hired via word of mouth which means a lot of different people and perspectives are missed out. 59% of UK charities said they didn’t have anyone on the board who had the lived experience for which the charity was working for.
Part of JSPF as we looked to recruiting panelists / mentors through word of mouth, we were facing similar challenges of getting diversity. Though when you think of diversity, you don’t focus on their diversity rather than their skills — a common pitfall a lot of processes fall for when focusing on the numbers.
Important to realise various barrier that block from getting diverse people because we expect everyone to be the best in terms of board experience and time commitment.
Potential Trustee — What is a trustee and what do they do?
Trustees are the people who lead the charity and decide how it is run — Charity Commission
Following up on the previous section of finding diverse trustees, a key question came up on where are they? Often times there is no clarity on the asks of a trustee that a lot of people are not aware and are afraid to raise their hands up or even reach out to be one. While there is an onus on the charities to explain their expectations of a trustee, it is also an onus on every individual to look out for those opportunities with organisations/causes you are passionate about. [Resource]
Being a good Trustee — You are a new trustee: what can you do to thrive in the boardroom?
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Run by Anj Handa, a strong takeaway was dealing with the imposter syndrome which impacts a lot of us in our day to day professional lives too. It is such a great opportunity to learn especially earlier on in your career by being on the board especially around finance, marketing, human resources etc which we may not be seeing.
Coming in new in any set up, we often don’t question because we think it might be a silly question. This reduces our impact of bringing in fresh perspectives because by the time we get a feel of the environment and setup, we might have been so indoctrinated that we would also miss the obvious that comes with new perspectives. Equally important to identify a mentor in the system to sound board your thoughts against and help you navigate the organisation for everyone’s benefit including yourself.
Mental health, taking care of yourself and setting boundaries are extremely important even as a trustee as you are probably using your free time to give back so you wouldn’t want to burn yourself out. So question yourself at any point for the time you are giving — what value are you getting and giving?
[Resource]
Refining Skills — Charity Fundraising: an introduction and the role of trustee in fundraising
Starting off with the American quote “Give, Get or Get Off”, Leah Selinger got off to a great start underlining importance of having a fund raising plan — the direction you plan to grow based on the organisational strategy and vision. This is followed by understanding your sources of funding — donor, investor, funder, customer and purchaser as this will help define how you balance the scales between mission and money for your cause.
On the earlier quote, a concept very American where trustees are expected to either donate funds, raise funds or leave the board. This is something not followed on the other side of the pond thankfully.
Discussions — Is Trusteeship for people like me? Stories from people who always wondered this.
A wide array of conversations based on generational diversity, person of colour , academic diversity which interestingly brings about the question of feeling lonely as you feel as the sole representative for a cross section of society.
If one is passionate about a cause, has skills or values they thing they can bring onboard, then they should totally ask for it seemed to be a common theme across the conversation. The fact that you may seem the odd one out or unique is all the reason more why you would add value to the conversation at hand for the board.
[Resource]
About the Author:
Vivek Shah is an Associate at the Diversity and Inclusion team at the Jitheshraj Scholarship for promising freshmen, an initiative by the AHEAD Trust. Vivek is a Vice President at Goldman Sachs and a graduate of NIT Trichy. This article is not reflective of or endorsed by Goldman Sachs.
