TRUSTEESHIP

We have spent the past two decades or more establishing trusteeship as the modern purpose of our membership, and positioning The Clothworkers’ Company as a grant-maker and a champion for change and improvement to charity sector governance across the UK.

TRUSTEESHIP AND MEMBERS

Service is one of our primary objects as a company, both for members and for the organisation. Clothworkers come together in friendship, giving their time and expertise to serve others and to make a positive and sustained impact within our livery company, the City of London and beyond. They fill positions on our Court of Assistants (our governing body) and take on community roles – more than 36% have reported serving as trustees or school governors, and as volunteers. It is our aim to inspire and to nurture that spirit of service at all levels of our organisation. While the majority of Clothworkers may not be connected to the textiles industry by profession, we know they all have experience, expertise and skills that can be directed towards making a difference within our company and within their communities.

Our flourishing partnership with our grantee and partner Reach Volunteering provides a platform that enables us to promote trustee vacancies to Clothworkers, which we publish directly to the Members’ Area and highlight in our monthly e-newsletter. The Trustee Leadership Programme, which we co-fund with Close Brothers Asset Management, is offered free of charge to members. For those already on trustee boards, a number of seminars are offered by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), which members are invited to attend.

We also encourage Clothworkers to consider other areas of service. Members interested in volunteering as a school governor are directed to opportunities through the Livery Schools Link. Clothworkers can use their experience and time to help mentor and advocate for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds through the Catch22 Inspiring Connections programme, which The Company has sponsored from the founding of the programme and renewed that funding commitment in 2021. Finally, other opportunities for one-time volunteering or fundraising are also promoted to members as and when they arise.

CHARITY GOVERNANCE ACROSS THE UK

We are proud to sponsor and host the annual Charity Governance Awards, celebrating best practice among boards and rewarding trustee leadership throughout the UK. The awards are made possible through the partnerships we have forged with NPC, Prospectus and Reach Volunteering. We are grateful to our Clothworker members for continuing to actively to participate in the Charity Governance Awards, volunteering for the first-round evaluation of submitted entries.

In May 2021, the sixth annual Charity Governance Awards ceremony was held virtually on Zoom, so that we could continue to showcase exemplary leadership by charity boards and to support the sector in recovering from the extraordinary challenges of the pandemic. The ceremony included an inspiring keynote address by Ndidi Okezie OBE of UK Youth and a panel discussion among the four winning charities, facilitated by Ayesha Tariq of All Ways Network (and a grants officer at The Clothworkers' Foundation). In addition to the £5k unrestricted grants to winners, runners-up received a £1k unrestricted grant as well. The Company also sponsored a one-year membership to the Association of Chairs for chairs and vice chairs and a training opportunity with Cause4 for a new or inexperienced trustee for each shortlisted charity.

We know from our external five-year review of the awards, in 2020, that they remain a unique opportunity to celebrate the importance of good charity governance, and they are perceived as a valuable way to recognise the work of charity trustees and draw attention to important issues faced by charity boards.

However, we know that it is not enough to simply shine a spotlight on exemplary trusteeship. The Company has established itself as a significant grant-maker to support better charity governance across the UK. Working with our partners, we support efforts to increase participation of would-be trustees, to improve diversity and inclusivity on boards, and to enhance the capability of those already serving. While those serving are making a meaningful contribution, most charity boards are not reflective of the communities they serve, and more than 100,000 trustee vacancies go unfilled year on year.

A charity’s service users are dependent on its trustees for the leadership required to keep the organisation capable, nimble and sustainable. This means having the right breadth of talent, lived experience and range of skills at the table. Being a trustee is hard work and challenging, but 93% of trustees say it is immensely fulfilling. And yet, charity boards still struggle to develop policies or create environments where equity, diversity and inclusion thrive and to recruit the expertise, experience and talent they need to govern effectively.

Recognising these challenges, we continue to invest in and support the Cause4 Trustee Leadership Programme and related seminars. Normally a five-week programme that ends in a charity-trustee matching event, the programme successfully adapted to the constraints of the pandemic for online delivery this past year as a two-day virtual seminar. Our partners at New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) also converted the charity and trustee training seminars we fund into virtual webinars throughout 2021 as restrictions and caution about meeting continued.

The Company has maintained its support of the Reach Volunteering TrusteeWorks recruitment service. An estimated 8,970 people registered on the platform as volunteers or trustees in 2021. As a result, a record-breaking 1,322 trustees were appointed via Reach and another 2,637 volunteers were placed. The estimated value of that volunteer time is approximately £55 million. Reach investigated whether its open recruitment platform was impacting diversity on boards, and found that they were making progress closing gaps with ethnic, age, and gender diversity. Public Health Pathways said, 'Volunteers found through Reach have technically, graphically, and socially transformed our organisation.'

However, Reach also identified areas where it could do more to support its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion goals with recruitment. Part of its solution to this was the Trustee Recruitment Cycle project – with partners at the Association of Chairs, Small Charities Coalition and Getting on Board – to provide guidance, tools and tips for more diverse and inclusive recruitment practices.

Above: Tim Varney, Chair of EdUKaid, proudly shows us his Charity Governance Awards trophy from 2021.