A toolkit for charity trustees – recruitment, retention and good governance
10/29/2025
The role of a charity trustee can be rewarding and demanding in equal measure – as many of the UK’s nearly one million trustees will no doubt be reflecting during Trustees’ Week (November 3-7).
The week will feature a series of online and offline events bringing trustees together to connect, celebrate their successes, and reflect on the challenges of their role.
In this article, we share tips for trustee recruitment and retention, including ways to identify and plug skills gaps, along with some tools and resources charities can use to support trustees in their role.
Addressing skills gaps on charity boards
Ensuring charities are governed effectively is a fundamental part of the role of a trustee.
A recent Charity Commission survey – Trusteeship – a positive opportunity: Understanding skills, experience and demographics in England and Wales – found a high degree of confidence around governance, with nearly 90% of charities reporting their board has either significant governance skills or at least some skills in this area. However, the report also highlighted areas where many charities either rely on external support or lack skills altogether. For example, more than one-third (38%) of charities have no in-house legal skills on their board.
While some charities hire legal expertise, responsibility for ensuring compliance with a charity’s governing document and applicable charity laws ultimately rests with its trustees. Trustees could also potentially face the risk of legal claims against themselves personally, if they are alleged to have mismanaged the charity’s resources or taken a decision that has led to a financial loss. Charity Commission guidance makes it clear that trustees should be taking reasonable steps to understand their legal requirements.
The NCVO has produced some useful guidance to help charity trustees understand their legal responsibilities. See also: Charity Commission guidance: The essential trustee.
Conducting skills audits
As well as legal skills, the Charity Commission’s survey, along with a separate study last year by the NCVO, identified skills shortages in other areas, including campaigning, marketing and communications, finance, and technology.
While these findings shine a light on some of the sector’s challenges, for charities it’s even more important to understand where skills gaps may exist within their organisation.
One of the recommendations from the Charity Commission’s report is to conduct regular skills audits to highlight skills shortages that may need to be addressed through training or recruitment processes.
The NCVO has some useful trustee skills audit resources, including template documents and board exercises.
Recruitment and retention
Finding and keeping trustees with the right blend of skills, knowledge and experience is one of the biggest challenges facing many charities today.
According to the NCVO, nearly two-thirds (62%) of charities have two or more board vacancies, while 93% say more needs to be done to encourage people to become trustees. Diversity on boards is also a problem, particularly a shortage of younger trustees (reported by 61% of charities) and trustees from diverse ethnic backgrounds (50%).
Tips for more effective and inclusive trustee recruitment include:
- Using skills audits to identify priority areas for recruitment
- Writing clear role descriptions, using inclusive, jargon-free language
- Explaining your commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion in role descriptions and adverts
- Offering flexible meeting times for interviews, and remote options to attract a more diverse field of candidates Advertising roles widely, i.e. not just relying on your usual networks. Recent research has shown that more than half (53%) of current charity trustees took on their role after being asked to do so by either the charity chair or another board member, while only 6% responded to an advert for the position.
Tips for more effective trustee retention include:
- Being upfront and honest in role descriptions/adverts about the likely time commitments of the role. According to an NCVO survey, concerns about time commitment are the biggest factor affecting trustee retention (cited by 51% of respondents). The NCVO has some useful tips on how to free up trustees’ time, including by managing meetings more effectively
- Providing a thorough induction process, including an orientation meeting to introduce the charity’s mission, values and key activities
- Ensuring new trustees have access to key documentation, such as governing documents, financial reports and strategic plans
- Following up regularly with trustees to understand their training and development needs.
The NCVO offers a regular calendar of training workshops for its members, as well as some useful resources on its website. Reach Volunteering’s Trustee Recruitment Cycle is also a useful tool that offers tips and guidance for the various stages of recruitment and retention, from advertising trustee roles to evaluating the effectiveness of recruitment programmes. The recruitment planning process should also incorporate an element of succession planning, as more than half (55%) of charities surveyed by the NCVO say they are expecting at least one or two trustees to vacate their positions in the next 12 months.
- We have produced a number of recent articles, whitepapers and guides on issues affecting charities and charity trustees.
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Recruit, manage and retain great charity trustees
We also provide insurance solutions to protect charity trustees against the risk of legal claims, as well as risk management support for charities through Zurich Resilience Solutions: - Trustee indemnity insurance
- Zurich Resilience Solutions
These include:
