Crisis - Trustee

Trustee

Brief

Welcome

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in becoming a Trustee of Crisis UK.

I was delighted to take up the position of Chair of Trustees for Crisis in September 2020 and I am one of 12 people responsible for the strategic direction and governance of the organisation. We are privileged to help make a real difference to the lives of people who are experiencing homelessness, whether through direct services from 11 locations or our leadingedge research and influencing work in England, Scotland, and Wales. Crisis exists to make sure everyone has a safe and settled place to call home and we are determined to achieve lasting solutions to homelessness.

This is a critical time for Crisis’ Board of Trustees, with our new CEO, Matt Downie in place, and as we prepare for our next organisational strategy in summer 2023. The need for our services is increasing, with the cost-of-living crisis upon us, and so we must adapt what we do to achieve maximum impact, as well as building the political and public case for change. Our Board will also help ensure Crisis is fit for the future as an entrepreneurial and agile organisation, leading developments in fundraising, enterprise and venturing, and in digital innovations across the organisation.

We are a values-based organisation, and our Trustees are a critical part of an organisation that is people-centered and forward-thinking. This includes ensuring decisions are made alongside people who have experienced homelessness.

We are actively seeking to bring more diversity of perspectives and experience to our Board, including those with knowledge and experience of homelessness.

More than ever, it is important that we have the strong strategic leadership and governance required to make our mission to end homelessness a reality.

We are looking for three exceptional people, with the right skills and expertise, and look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely, Tristia Harrison Chair of the Trustees

About us

mission:

Together we will end homelessness.

values:

In word, spirit and deed, Crisis is a values-led organisation, bringing together staff, volunteers, our members, and many partners and allies around 6 values:

Crisis is the national charity for people facing homelessness. Our activities are all about ending homelessness, whether through direct services from 11 locations throughout Britain which ended homelessness for more than 3500 people in the last 12 months; our local and regional partnerships and grant funding; our research; our understanding of and dissemination of the best practice; our investments in 3rd party organisations committed to ending homelessness; our leading-edge policy influencing and development work with the governments in England, Scotland and Wales; the work to embed homelessness prevention in the health system led by our subsidiary Pathway - the health and homelessness charity; or the iconic Crisis at Christmas program which supports thousands of people and engages thousands of volunteers each year.

The charity has grown rapidly in terms of both scale and impact over recent years and is planning for a turnover of £65m in the coming year. Our aim is to be no longer required when homelessness has ended, and this is beginning to look possible in some parts of Britain, but we know that we are going to be needed for many years to come until some of the key policies that cause and perpetuate homelessness are addressed. With rapid growth comes challenges and opportunities and we are working hard to ensure the fabric of workplaces, ways of working, use of data, digital and technology are all up to the task for an ambitious organisation, and ensuring we invest in the resource mobilisation, fundraising and enterprise to support the achievement of our goals.

Our strategy

Our priorities for 2018-2023:

The strategic goals focus on ending homelessness and are designed to work together. They have the greatest possible impact on ending homelessness when combined. This interdependence demands both a much more multidisciplinary approach (working across the various goals to achieve each one), and increased rigour in making sure everything we do is backed by the evidence.

• Ensure that the policy changes needed to end homelessness are adopted.

• Ensure that governments in England, Scotland and Wales adopt national plans for ending homelessness.

• Demonstrate that homelessness can be ended in local areas.

• End the homelessness of more people through our direct services.

•

End homelessness for more people who are excluded from help or have complex needs.

We have also agreed the themes that underpin the strategy. These are the areas we need to continue to develop to make sure we achieve our goals over the next five years. These themes describe the sort of organisation we need to be and how we need to grow our capacity to achieve the strategic goals.

• Member involvement and experience of homelessness.

• Influence and brand.

• Collaboration we will not end homelessness alone.

• Engagement and funding.

• Leadership and culture.

• Effectiveness.

• Change and transformation.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Crisis is committed to putting the lived experience of homelessness at the very heart of all that we do, and has made great progress in this area in recent years, however there is much more to do to move from a range of great projects that involve our members, to embedding lived experience in the fabric of the organisation.

To this end, we are working with our Experts by Experience panel to create our new strategic plan and current the Board of Trustees recently agreed unanimously to reserve a place on the Board for a nominee from the Experts by Experience panel.

Similarly, the organisation is making more progress on diversity and inclusion, with three clear objectives for ensuring we represent the communities we work with and for, that all staff colleagues have the same positive experience of working for Crisis, and more broadly addressing the discrimination and inequality that cause and perpetuate homelessness. We have developed a new EDI strategy putting those most marginalised at the heart of our work and collaborated with our vibrant staff networks on ground-breaking policies to support colleagues at risk of homelessness, paid disability leave, those experiencing domestic abuse, and the menopause. We are undertaking research into the links between race and homelessness with a view to challenge the structural and systemic barriers to housing and support our client’s experience.

Our vision is to be an organisation that is diverse and inclusive, where equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are embedded into our core purpose, the DNA of who we are and how we do our work. We want to recognise and celebrate diversity, valuing the differences and unique insights of all our staff, volunteers, and members. We want to create an environment where everyone can thrive and achieve their full potential without experiencing prejudice, discrimination, harassment, or victimisation.

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Role description

Job title: Crisis Trustee

Remuneration: Crisis will cover any reasonable expenses

Location: Great Britain

Reporting to: Chair of the Trustees

Key responsibilities

The Crisis Board of Trustees currently comprises 12 members who meet at least six times a year to review strategy, business plans and operations. The Trustees also support and participate in a range of committee meetings to enhance our Governance including the Audit and Risk Committee, the Finance and Investment Committee, the Client Services Governance Committee, Strategic Marketing Group Joint Negotiating Committee and the Nominations Committee. Each member is appointed on a three-year term, after which they are eligible for re-election to serve a second term.

As a Trustee you will ensure the charity is well governed and will need to:

• Ensure you understand the charity’s purposes as set out in its governing document.

• Plan what your charity will do, and what you want it to achieve.

• Comply with the charity’s governing document and the law.

• Act in the charity’s best interests.

• Manage the charity’s resources responsibly.

• Act with reasonable care and skill.

• Ensure your charity is accountable.

Person specification

We are looking for inclusive leaders with an open and collegiate style that has both a keen eye for good governance and can empower those around them. We need people who will broaden our range of skills and perspectives, bring energy and challenge, be collaborative and inclusive in approach, be forward looking and impact focused.

These are roles for leaders with deeply held values consistent with the Crisis values and a passion for social justice and inclusion. Working closely with our talented Boards of Trustees and senior staff, it requires people with the ability to build and mobilise the resources and relationships needed to end homelessness.

Trustees need to be able to navigate the scale and complexity of our organisation now and going forward, the direction of travel the charity is taking and the process to develop the next Crisis Strategic Plan for 2023 – 28, the primary importance of staff wellbeing, members and lived experience involvement and the equality and diversity agenda.

The work we do to build the diversity of the Board should enhance the overall strength of the Board. Each time we recruit Trustees we do an assessment of the key skill areas we need to emphasise so that the overall Board reflects as many of the skills we need as possible – not to replicate the SMT skills but to enable the Board to provide strategic leadership and governance for the organisation.

We undertook a skills audit in autumn 2021 and the skills profiles we define in our Trustee search should both fill any existing gaps based on a view of the experience and contribution of our current Trustees, as well as those who will step down in the coming years.

In the context of our current strategic challenges, future ambitions, and gaps on the Board, the next three to four Trustees we recruit must bring the following skills:

• HR and employee relations.

• Finance and accounting.

• Charity fundraising and marketing across a diverse range of channels.

• Data, digital and technology, particularly person centric transformation programmes.

• Housing and homelessness expertise, service leadership or commissioning.

• Charity governance, risk, and assurance.

How to apply

To apply for the role you can either upload your CV together with a supporting statement (of no more than 1000 words) onto the Prospectus website via the link, or you can apply by post to:

Executive Search Prospectus (Head Office) 20-22 Stukeley Street Holborn, London WC2B 5LR

Please ensure that you have included a telephone number, as well as any dates when you will not be available or might have difficulty with the recruitment timetable.

If you wish to apply using an alternative format please contact Prospectus on 020 7691 1920 or email executive.admin@prospect-us.co.uk

Applications via the Prospectus website should be made at: https://jobs.prospect-us.co.uk/jobs/details/ HQ00181845

At Prospectus we believe passionately that a truly inclusive workplace leads to increased social impact. We are committed to supporting our clients build more inclusive teams. To understand how we are performing, we ask that you kindly complete the brief equal opportunities questionnaire when you submit your application via our website. Please be assured that your responses are kept confidential, separate from your candidate record, are not part of any application you make, and that the consultants never see individual responses to the questionnaire.

Recruitment timetable

Deadline for applications: 11.59pm on 31 October

Interviews with Prospectus: 3-15 November

First stage interviews with Crisis: Monday 21 November

Second stage interviews with Crisis: Monday 28 November

Queries

If you wish to have an informal discussion about the opportunity, please contact our retained advisors Jess Stockford or Emily Hayman at Prospectus on 020 7691 1920, or email: jessica.stockford@prospect-us.co.uk emily.hayman@prospect-us.co.uk

If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact Prospectus on 020 7691 1920 or email: executive.admin@prospect-us.co.uk

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