New research from The Charity Commission of England and Wales and Pro Bono Economics out today shows that trustees are disproportionately old, white, male and wealthy. The last time this research was done was 2017, and overall, there has been no meaningful increase in trustee diversity.
I can see why people think paying trustees could help. But it is far from evident that this would improve diversity, and it could in fact entrench the problem. This is because, buried in the same report, is the fact that only 1 in seventeen trustees found the role via an advert. Over half were asked by a trustee, or nominated.
Advertising would make a huge impact on board diversity. Reach analysed the diversity of people applying for trustee roles through our service last year. There were 9,299 applications (so a decent sample size) and these applicants were very diverse across a range of characteristics:
- Age: 44% were under 40 (CC report: 4%)
- Ethnicity: 52% global majority (CC report: 8%)
- Gender: 50% women (CC report 43%)
- Sexuality: 10% LCBTQ+ (CC report 4%)
So there is a diverse pool of people applying for trustee roles. The single most impactful change would be for more boards to recruit openly. Whilst advertising might not be right for some small and very local groups, in the vast majority of cases, advertising will increase the diversity of the pool of applicants, and bring in a wider range of skills and perspectives.
Paying trustees when the majority of trustees were recruited by being asked or nominated by existing board members would make charities look like a closed shop, and would seriously undermine trust and credibility. It looks even worse when you consider that only half of trustees have a fixed term of office (another finding of the report), so it could be a ‘job for life’. And we do not know if the trustees themselves recognise the lack of diversity on their boards as an issue. If they are happy with the status quo, they will continue to recruit people who look like them and paying will only make things less equitable…
A better way to improve inclusivity is for charities to get much better at paying expenses. 26% of trustees said that they were not clear if they could claim expenses. This is a real problem, and even more worrying if you consider that the majority of the survey respondents were Chairs and Treasurers who really should know. This culture of not paying expenses is really exclusionary. Positive encouragement to trustees to claim childcare, travel and other expenses would make a real difference and is easy to do.
Open recruitment and paying expenses are not enough in themselves to address the lack of diverse leadership in the charity sector. There are deeper, more nuanced questions about how aware trustees are of the diversity gaps, and how resolved they are to do something about it. There needs to be a willingness to change. The board needs to be determined to adapt and grow if it is going to be truly inclusive of new trustees. And maybe payment has a role to play for a small group of trustees. We need to explore whether it really would increase diversity, how small charities (which are of course the majority of charities) could afford it, and what impacts it would have on public trust.
Let’s start with the basics that will make a proven difference. We need to get these in order before all else. Recruit openly and fairly, and think about how to make your existing board culture more inclusive.
