Appoint and induct

You will have covered this in your trustee role description and in your interview but, at this stage, it is important that you make sure that the person you want to appoint fully understands the responsibilities they’re taking on as a trustee. This is especially important if this is their first trustee role. See the Getting on Board guide - How to Become a Charity Trustee.

• Confirm they are not disqualified from becoming a trustee, based on the Charities Act 2011 – find out how to check if a prospective trustee is disqualified.
• Ask them to sign the Charity Commission’s trustee eligibility declaration.
• Carry out Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks, if this is required for your charity.
• Collect and check references. 

Check that they meet the specific criteria for trustees set out in your charity’s governing document. This could include: 

• Trustees must be over 18.
• All trustees must be a member of the charity.
• Trustees need to be elected by the AGM.
• Trustees must be appointed at a board meeting.

The chair of the board should confirm the new trustee’s appointment in writing. This letter should include:

• The date of the trustee’s appointment.
• The length of the trustee’s term – often 3 years – as set out in your charity’s governing document.
• Whether a trustee can be reappointed at the end of their term – often trustees can serve a maximum of two or three terms.
• If re-appointment is allowed, how trustees can put themselves forward for re-appointment.
• How much notice is given for trustees meetings.
• A list of the information the charity needs from the trustee to update the Register of Charities – see a list of the information that is required.
• Information about the trustee’s induction

See some sample trustee appointment letters. 

There are a number of administrative tasks that you will need to complete when you appoint your new trustee.

Add your new trustee’s details to the relevant charity commission or regulator:

• The Charity Commission’s Register of Charities (for England and Wales) – your new trustee will be sent a useful welcome pack from the Charity Commission after adding their details
• The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland
• Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. 

You will need to add the following details about your trustee:

• Their title
• Full name as it appears on their passport or driving licence
• Any previous names
• Date of birth
• Address, telephone number and email address
• Details of any other trustee roles they have. 

What diversity means to me - difference. Strengths come with this but also challenges. It’s important to acknowledge this rather than ignore it. As a board you need to put things in place to help overcome those challenges. 

For example, if someone is joining the board from a background of low social capital and low income and is unlikely to know someone with a professional job, you need to think about some of the challenges they may have so that you can support them so that they can become an effective board member. Their induction will need to be different to other board members. Diversity is about understanding that and tailoring your approach to meet that person’s needs.  That is what I have seen on the board at Leap and it’s what I experienced when I joined. 

When I joined the board, I was given a buddy and that buddy supported me in understanding how I could: 

• Prepare for board meetings
• Contribute during board meetings
• Be an ambassador for Leap.

Peter Olawaye, former Trustee at Leap Confronting Conflict. Leap is a national youth charity that provides conflict management programmes and support to young people and the professionals working with them

The chair has a key role in welcoming and onboarding trustees, particularly because they are responsible for how discussions and debates are conducted, inviting people to speak and getting to know their individual ways of working. For example, one person may only feel able to participate in a discussion if they’re actively invited to speak, as they may feel anxious about interrupting more vocal board members. Another person on the same board may feel ‘put on the spot’ and under pressure if they’re asked directly if they have anything to say. We strongly recommend that the chair should meet new trustees and find out how best to include them.

Sophia Moreau, former trustee of SOS!SEN and author of How to Diversify your Charity’s Board

I was recruited six years ago as part of a drive to increase diversity on the board. The support I got when I started really helped me. I was able to talk to the team about what being a trustee actually means, which was really good for easing me in and easing some of my worries. 

At the time, I didn’t have much professional experience, which was fine because I was recruited as a young trustee. But I had lots of lived expertise and the team highlighted to me that this was as important as professional experience given the nature of the work that Leap does. 

Before I applied, the team gave me confidence that I wouldn’t be treated as a token young person on the board and that I would be able to contribute fully on the board.

Peter Olawaye, former Trustee at Leap Confronting Conflict. Leap is a national youth charity that provides conflict management programmes and support to young people and the professionals working with them

The chair held a social event about a month before my first board meeting as part of my induction. I met the three other new trustees beforehand and we went through some introductory slides about the charity and played some getting to know you games. After the social we were added to the trustees WhatsApp group. This paid dividends at the board meeting as I already had a feel for the social dynamics.

Suneet Sharma, former trustee at Safe In Our World and It Gets Better UK

This could be face to face or on the phone. Meeting the chair gives a new trustee the opportunity to: 

• Ask questions they weren’t able to raise before their appointment.
• Share initial thoughts about what they can offer. 

The chair should: 

• Welcome the new trustee.
• Talk through the new trustee’s induction plan.
• Outline initial expectations of the new trustee.
• Brief the trustee ahead of their first board meeting so the trustee gets an understanding of the context of the topics that will be discussed.
• Discuss training that could help - particularly if this is their first trustee role. 

Give your new trustee the information they need to know about your charity. This could include:

• Your charity’s history
• Past work
• Current priorities and challenges
• Relevant acronyms
• Key stakeholders
• External factors affecting your charity. 

Provide the following documents before the trustee’s first board meeting: 

• Your charity’s governing document
• If papers are online, access to minutes and board papers for the last few years or paper copies from the last few meetings
• Financial information, such as your trustees annual report and accounts for the last financial year
• Current strategy
• Board-approved policies, such as policies for safeguarding and conflicts of interest. 

Provide the following documents, if your charity has them:

• A description of the roles and responsibilities of all board members
• Job description of the CEO
• Board terms of reference or code of conduct
• Business plan
• Organisation chart including different committees, governance structure and operational/management structure
• Terms of reference for any committees of the board
• Scheme of delegation and/or financial thresholds for expenditure.

Staff and volunteers: new trustees can learn more about your charity’s current priorities and to gain an overall picture of how your charity works by meeting staff and volunteers. 

Trustees: create an opportunity for new trustees to meet with the full board. This could be part of their first board meeting. Informal social occasions such as a board dinner, or lunch before a meeting are also a good idea.

Service users: giving new trustees a chance to participate in your charity’s activities and meet with service users is very important in helping new trustees to fully grasp your charity’s purpose. It can really help to fire up their enthusiasm for what your charity is trying to achieve.

• Give new trustees access to any board portal or shared drives (and remove former trustees access) so that they can access documents electronically and/or obtain the latest versions of policy and other documents.
• Invite new trustees into any closed trustee communication groups such as on Whatsapp etc.
• Share contact details for key individuals including other trustees and the CEO.
• Ask new trustees to complete a register of interests. This makes it easier to manage potential or actual conflicts of interest or loyalty. All trustees should be asked to update this annually.
• Give your new trustees the name and contact details of the person who oversees the logistics of trustee meetings.
• Provide a copy of the expenses policy and claim form and details of how to submit claims and an expectation of payment terms. This signals that claiming expenses is normal and expected, and creates a more inclusive environment.
• Provide details of upcoming events and important dates, such as board meetings and the AGM – include the date, time and location.
• Share information about your trustee indemnity insurance policy, if you have one.
• Keep all of your trustee recruitment and induction resources in one place so that they’re easily accessible. 

During your trustee’s induction, identify training that will help them develop the skills they need to flourish as a trustee on your board. You should encourage a culture of learning amongst all your trustees and support them to develop their existing skills and acquire new skills that they need throughout their time on your board. Inducting a new trustee can be a good time to review training and support for all your trustees.

Trustees without experience of senior management or governance might find training and support in charity finance useful. Trustees that haven’t worked with charities would benefit from an introduction to the charity sector and how charities work. 

There are a range of materials, online courses, and events available to support charity trustees and whole boards. You can find a list here:

Training and learning for trustees

After a couple of months, the chair should have a follow up meeting or phone call with the new trustee to discuss how things are going so far. Possible discussion topics include: 

• How did the new trustee find the trustee recruitment process (see Evaluate)?
• Trustee induction – How is it going, what is helpful, what is unhelpful and what could be done to improve induction for future new trustees?
• How can the trustee best use their skills to help your charity/board?
• Initial ideas for how to develop the charity’s governance.
• Possible training needs for the new trustee. 

"Young trustees and experienced trustees regularly reviewed our board papers and suggested how they could be improved. This benefited everyone on the board because the quality of the board papers kept going up. Better board papers make better board meeting questions, discussions and decision making, which improves the quality and effectiveness of the work."

- Tom Lawson, CEO at Leap Confronting Conflict from 2010 – 2019 

"Every board meeting I've ever been to involves following board papers and a conversation at the same time. If you’re deaf and you use sign language, this is impossible to do because you use your eyes to listen. You can’t read at the same time. 

At Sign Health, there are six deaf people on our board and some of them use sign language, so this really challenges us to work with the board in a different way. I don't think we've reached a perfect solution yet but we do have a discipline in the way that we discuss issues and use board papers. We're trying to use board papers as more of a preparatory tool – something to read before the meeting. And then we use the board meeting to focus more on dialogue and discussion rather than referring to points in papers, which is a very inaccessible way of working for the people who use sign language on our board."

- James Watson-O’Neill, chief executive at Sign Health 2016 - 2025

We do a board review from time to time and we usually ask a young trustee to do this, which is a great initiation for the trustee. That young trustee will meet with every board member – either over the phone or in  person. They will talk to them about how they think the board is performing and what can be improved. 

As a result of our last review, we changed our board papers to make them shorter. Some of the trustees said that the papers could be a bit complicated, such as the finance papers. So the senior management team asked a number of trustees individually about how the papers could be made more readable, which worked really well.

Another thing we’ve incorporated as a result of feedback from the board is having pre-presentations before our board meetings. These can be about a particular Leap programme and they help keep the board updated about what’s going on on the ground. 

Another outcome from our board reviews is that we have a couple of socials a year.

- Peter Olawaye, former Trustee at Leap Confronting Conflict