A few weeks ago I joined the board of CAST, an amazing organisation which helps other charities make the most of digital and AI. They help charities to critically engage with this rapidly changing world while staying focused on the people and communities they work with.

I’ve sat on boards before, and chaired one too. As a CEO I spent years on the other side of the table, building relationships with trustees and making sure they had what they needed to make good decisions. I’ve seen how much more a charity can do when trustees and staff work well together. So I said yes again, and am loving it.

Nearly a million people across the UK are trustees, giving their time in the evenings, after work and around family. That time is precious. Yet it’s easy for a board meeting to spend two hours on the leaking roof and the electric bill, and five minutes on the charity’s future. The
roof matters. But so do the questions about who will use the building, and what they’ll find
when they get there.

During my Master’s at the Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Bayes Business School, I came across Governance as Leadership by Chait, Ryan and Taylor. It gave me a useful way of thinking about the different conversations a board needs to have. They describe three modes of governing:

  • Fiduciary: are we looking after the charity’s resources and meeting our responsibilities?
  • Strategic: where should we put our effort, time and investment?
  • Generative: what are we assuming about the problems we exist to address, and do those assumptions still hold true in an ever changing world?

Good boards move between all three, often in the same meeting. The skill is knowing which one to use and when. There’s a useful summary here, but get your hands on a copy and read it in full.

I see this most clearly in my fundraising work. One small charity asked me to look at its fundraising. It had lovely staff, real impact and a funding gap that was keeping everyone up at night. The turning point came in the boardroom. One evening the trustees put the reports aside and talked honestly about what the charity was for and what it could become. You could feel the room change. A few weeks later the Case for Support was far easier to write, because at last it sounded like them.

Back to that roof. At a community centre in London, trustees planning a capital development programme had to look hard at the numbers alongside the funding prospects (put together by yours truly and the CEO) and decide which risks they could accept. Working these through together gave them a plan they understood and owned, and something solid to take to funders.

Some of these conversations are hard. At a founder-led charity that had grown quickly, I facilitated an away day that helped the board and founder work out how to share the leadership through its next phase. It took courage from everyone in the room, and they left with a clearer sense of their roles and of each other.

So this Trustees’ Week, a big thank you to everyone giving up their evenings for a cause they care about.

And a suggestion. At your next board meeting, set aside 30 minutes for one big question. It might be about changing needs in your community, uncertainty about your funding or a decision nobody feels ready to make. Is your board having the conversation your charity needs right now? If you’re not sure, we’d love to help. Get in touch with us at first@craigmyle.org.uk