Playing a fulfilling role as trustee
When I was first asked to write this article my immediate reaction was “why me”! Relative to many others, I am a mere novice in the trustee role, having spent some 40 years primarily in the accounting and consulting profession with a most interesting assignment latterly at the Foreign Office.
During these years, I had seen others take on roles for their former school, a foundation or a charity, usually one with some relevance to their friends or family. But, maybe unfortunately, it was only in the latter years of my career that I started to spend time on the issue of “giving something back” other than in purely financial terms.
My first involvement as a trustee was in 2006 when I was asked to serve on a board that was restoring the Benjamin Franklin House near Trafalgar Square. I was involved with the building through the end of the capital project and its opening as a museum, and handed the finance aspect over to others once the museum was operationally up and running.
When retirement beckoned
But it was only when retirement beckoned in 2010 that I really gave proper thought to the future and what the new balance of my life should be. I decided on a “three thirds formula”: one third as a board member of a major PLC; one third doing pro bono work; and one third doing other things I had always wanted to do.
I decided that the “pro bono stuff” had to be in a “space” that really interested me. This was fundamentally the area of art and design and no sooner had I developed my “plan” than Nicky Goulder, my assistant some 20 years previously at KPMG, approached me to head the development council of Create, a charity she had formed in 2003 to bring the transformational benefit of the creative arts to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in our society. I later became a trustee.
I accepted the role not just because Nicky is very persuasive but because it fitted into my view of what was relevant to my plan – something of interest, something of value, somewhere I could make a difference. But what could I really contribute to an ambitious, award winning creative arts charity run by a team of ten, based on a previous career working in a multinational corporate with 140,000 professionals?
The first thing I found is that we, as individuals, underestimate what we have built over the years. For several years, I had brought people from my personal life and my business life (which have always overlapped) to Create’s annual fundraising gala dinner at Mosimann’s. Sure enough some of them too were hooked by the relevance and importance of Create’s work and became supporters. Indeed one of my guests in 2010 was Eddie Donaldson, a long time friend and colleague.
In 2012 Eddie agreed to become Create’s chairman, bringing his considerable knowledge of how charities work to Create’s board. Just as in business, it is through networks and events that such fortuitous things often come about.
Bringing energy to the task
As well as bringing networks, a trustee on a smaller charity needs to bring energy to the task. It’s not just a matter of turning up at board meetings. Smaller charities arguably need a much more active involvement of the trustees on a day to day basis in specific areas. The role extends from the macro strategy to the micro activity of preparing letters to potential funders; from financial oversight to meetings with supporters; from sponsorship to visits to the charitable projects themselves. I’m not saying it’s onerous but it is more than I originally expected - and that level of commitment is hugely enjoyable and rewarding.
As chair of the development council my main aim has been to develop a cadre of fellow council members who can bring their skills, creativity and energy to the table, and some of those skills developed in other fields are hugely relevant. For example, one of the new development council members gives her time to coach and mentor Nicky as chief executive. Another is bringing the expertise and talents of his organisation to our branding and public image. And as a group we are trying to be creative and innovative in finding different ways of enabling the charity to develop and grow.
So how have I found the journey so far? Well first it is important to say that, whatever the size or importance of your previous role, this stuff is not easy. It’s not easy to get a Development Council up and running from scratch. You can’t assume that your friends and contacts are doing nothing and just waiting for your call to arms for your own particular charity. It’s a surprisingly slow and challenging process getting the right team together but we are making progress.
Reaching out with tailored proposals
As raising funds is such a highly competitive process in what is a very saturated market, it has been important to reach out with carefully tailored proposals to key prospects who have the power and the will to make things happen. This can be those who run foundations which share Create’s goals, corporates for whom Create’s message and purpose match their own corporate responsibility objectives, and individuals whose interests align with Create’s passion for transforming lives.
Having selected some of these prospects (and this involves professional research by Create’s excellent executive team) it is then about follow-through which itself is a combination of the efforts of the charity’s executives, development council members and trustees. It’s essential for a small charity to be highly selective and we need to achieve a high conversion ratio. Just as in business, the leader cannot do this alone. He or she needs highly professional support and follow-through, in our case from the CEO and the development director and indeed from the other trustees, development council members and wider team.
In the past two years we have developed a series of important new relationships that we could hardly have dreamed of previously, from organisations as different as the Rank Foundation and the Queen’s Trust, KPMG and Brandpie to name but a few. Also our CEO was recognised as Clarins Most Dynamisante Woman of the Year in 2013, an award that brought with it a cheque of £30,000.
But it’s not all about planning and focus. It’s amazing how some of these opportunities have come from members of the team just being out there talking passionately about Create. Just through engaging in the right places, opportunities arise sometimes quite indirectly and not always from obvious potential sources. Our CEO, for example, met what is now one of Create’s new corporate partners at her godson’s bar mitzvah!
Working collaboratively with partners
The essential thing is to work collaboratively and creatively with these partners and to deliver to the highest standards the projects they are funding while at the same time building on them to develop an even broader base of sustainable support. The good news is that the word spreads and with appropriate leverage of our internal skills and external networks, each success builds towards further progress.
So what does good look like? First I believe that, for a relatively small charity, it is about high but realistic ambitions. Second, it is about understanding the art of the possible and not overpromising or getting distracted by fundraising projects with a low reward to effort ratio. Third, it’s about leveraging effectively the networks you have rather than having precisely the perfect networks. Fourth, it’s about evaluating rigorously. Fifth (or perhaps first?) it’s about making it fun and rewarding. If it’s not enjoyable and fulfilling for the Development Council, for the executive professionals and for you as a Trustee it’s not sustainable.
Now, as time goes on, there are ever greater demands on one’s diary. The “Three Thirds Model” is under pressure! The important thing is to do a little, often. To try to do something every week that “helps move the ball down the pitch”, and to share in the enthusiasm and commitment of the founder and her team, are what really make all this happen.
So what is making a success of being a trustee all about? Well it is often hugely rewarding. Seeing a project at first hand and how the charity’s efforts help people find their confidence again, communicate with others, suffer less from loneliness, rediscover their creativity and many other, sometimes unintended, benefits is a wonderful, moving experience. In ten years, Create has helped improve the lives of approaching 27,000 disadvantaged children and adults, and I feel privileged to have been able to play my part since I first got involved four years ago.
I also find that having more than one Trustee role helps to bring perspectives gained on one charity’s issues to another’s challenges, even if the charities are in quite different fields (in my case from a significant museum in London to home care nursing in a local community). And certainly some of the disciplines and values learned over many years in a professional or commercial career are relevant and seem to be valued in this world, such as the importance of clear management information, proper budgeting and financial rigour.
Helping overcome very difficult issues
Perhaps the overall thing a trustee can do, particularly for a smaller charity, is help resolve very difficult issues, to see the bigger and longer term picture and to help the charity “jump the curves” to use some consultant jargon (old habits still die hard!). Sometimes just getting the charity the introduction or a seat at top table gives it the opportunity to develop beyond its previous boundaries.
Recapping my introduction where I questioned “why me?”, the intrepid reader who has reached this far may now be wondering “why him”? I know many people, I hear you say, who have made much earlier and greater commitments as trustees. I agree. I see them each time we meet.
But that is part of the story too, continuing to meet with others who - by their expertise, creativity and commitment - make this all, as an American friend of mine says, “a continuing growth learning experience.” This at the end of the day is part of the reason a diehard career professional would choose to spend time as a trustee, giving something back while still growing further oneself. It’s “a win win” situation, if you’ll excuse one final piece of jargon.
