Through our Volunteer Centre, we regularly meet people who are interested in giving something back but have never considered becoming a trustee.
I first became a trustee more than 20 years ago, in my 30s, which at the time was considered quite young for the role. Since then I have been a trustee of a wide range of organisations, from small local charities through to national ones. I spent five or six years as Vice Chair of a national organisation and ten years as Chair of Governors at a primary school. Today I am a trustee of VSSN, the Voluntary Sector Studies Network.
Looking back, trusteeship has given me more than I expected when I first put my hand up. It has helped me professionally: I have learned about governance, finance, strategy, risk and the sometimes difficult business of making decisions collectively, and I have had the chance to understand sectors I had never worked in myself. That has probably been one of the most useful parts of the experience. When you spend time around an organisation, listen to the people working in it and start to understand the issues they face, you begin to see things from a slightly different angle. Do that across several organisations and sectors over two decades and it broadens your perspective considerably. It has helped me personally too. I have met people through trusteeship who have become lifelong friends. None of that was why I became a trustee in the first place. I wanted to contribute, and the rest followed from that.
You don't need to know everything
One of the things I hear when we talk to people about becoming trustees is some version of "I don't think I know enough." I understand why. Look at a trustee vacancy and you can quickly find yourself reading about legal responsibilities, financial oversight, safeguarding, risk, strategy and organisational performance. It can sound as though you need to arrive already knowing almost everything.
Trusteeship does carry real responsibility. Trustees are responsible for the overall governance of a charity. They need to understand what the organisation is trying to achieve, satisfy themselves it is being run properly, ask appropriate questions and act in the charity's best interests. But you are part of a board, and you are not expected to know everything yourself. Good boards work because people bring different knowledge and experience to the table. One trustee may understand finance particularly well. Another may know the community the organisation serves. Someone else may bring experience of people management, technology, communications, education, health, business or public services. Sometimes what a board needs most is someone prepared to ask a straightforward question: why are we doing this? How do we know it is working? Who have we actually spoken to? What could go wrong? Have we thought about the people who might experience this differently? Those questions don't require twenty years of governance experience. They require curiosity, judgement and a willingness to listen.
Difference is not always visible
When people talk about diversity on boards, the conversation can become too narrow. It matters who is around the table, and whether boards reflect different ages, backgrounds, communities and life experiences. It matters whether people can see people like themselves in positions of responsibility. But diversity is not only about what is immediately visible. Some difference is hidden: family experiences, financial backgrounds, caring responsibilities, disabilities, routes through education, experiences of work or of using services, or simply different ways of processing information and different comfort levels speaking in formal meetings. That matters, because a board where everyone has followed a similar path, knows similar people and reads a situation in a similar way may feel comfortable, but it may also miss things.
Good governance needs more than agreement. It needs constructive challenge, independence of thought and the ability to listen properly. It needs people who can see risks that others miss, ask questions from a different starting point and help the organisation understand the people it exists to serve. That is why I am wary of treating diversity as a box-ticking exercise. A board can look diverse in a photograph while still bringing very similar perspectives to its decisions. What matters is whether different experience, knowledge and judgement genuinely shape the discussion.
There is also an element of allyship in good trusteeship. Sometimes that means noticing whose voice is missing from a discussion, or creating space for someone who is less confident around the table, or using your own position to question an assumption that might otherwise pass without challenge. It doesn't mean speaking for other people. It means listening, noticing where power sits, and helping to create the conditions in which other perspectives can genuinely influence the decision.
You may have more to offer than you think
There are people who would make excellent trustees who have probably never considered applying. Some think they are too young. Some think they are not senior enough. Some assume trustees need to be accountants, lawyers or retired chief executives. Some have valuable lived experience but don't think of that as expertise. Others simply look at the people already sitting around board tables and don't see themselves reflected there. We need to make it easier for those people to see trusteeship as something they could do.
Charities need people with different backgrounds, ages, experiences and ways of thinking. Boards make decisions about organisations serving real people and real communities, so a range of perspectives around the table matters. When I became a trustee in my 30s, I did not have all the experience I have now. Part of that experience came from being a trustee in the first place. This matters because we sometimes create a circular problem for ourselves: we ask for people with previous board experience, which makes it harder for people without board experience to get their first opportunity. Everyone has to start somewhere, and someone has to be willing to give them that start.
It can give something back to you as well
Volunteering is rightly talked about in terms of contribution - you give your time, knowledge and energy to something you care about - and that's true of trusteeship too. But it's also fair to say I have gained a great deal from it. I have learned from fellow trustees, chief executives, staff, volunteers, teachers, governors and the communities organisations have worked with. I have sat around tables discussing issues I knew very little about when I first arrived, and gradually learned enough to contribute. I have made mistakes, changed my mind, and learned that the person asking the most basic question in the room has sometimes spotted something everyone else missed.
For anyone earlier in their career, trusteeship can also provide experience that might otherwise take years to acquire through work alone. You see how organisations make decisions, how strategy is developed, how finances are scrutinised and how difficult choices get made, and you learn that organisations rarely operate in the neat way an organisational chart might suggest. That lesson alone has served me fairly well over the years.
Perhaps you could be a trustee
If you have ever thought about becoming a trustee and ruled yourself out because you don't know enough, I would encourage you to reconsider. You don't need to arrive knowing everything. You need to be willing to learn, to care about the organisation and the people it exists to serve, and to be prepared to read, listen, ask questions and occasionally challenge something that doesn't feel right. And it's worth remembering, as I said earlier, that the role comes with genuine responsibility.
There are thousands of charities that need good people around their board tables. Some need specialist skills. Many also need people who bring common sense, experience, curiosity and a different perspective. More than 20 years after becoming a trustee for the first time, I am very glad I said yes. It has allowed me to contribute to organisations I care about, learn about parts of society I might otherwise never have encountered, develop professionally and build friendships that have lasted for years.
If you are curious about trusteeship but not sure whether it's for you, talk to us. Our Volunteer Centre can help you explore it with no pressure to commit. We can talk through what trusteeship involves, what you might bring to a board, and which opportunities may suit you.
You can also explore volunteering and trustee opportunities through our Volunteer Centre.