I want to be a charity trustee. I have time to give, am passionate about the voluntary sector and have the skills and attitude to match – but I can’t find a charity to take me on.
I’m a 30-year-old woman with more than 10 years’ experience in charities and public sector organisations. I have worked abroad and in the UK, have a masters’ degree and my current work focuses on governance and leadership.
Yet, application after application, interview after interview (five within the last three months) I get the same response: “Lots of quality applications, not successful this time”. And I am not the only one. A friend who has a PhD and years of experience has applied for 10 trustee positions and only been interviewed for three of them. And another colleague was asked to be a trustee after six interviews but was then asked to write the funding applications, not give strategic insight.
So what exactly are organisations looking for? I am at a loss as to what skills, expertise and personality they require.
It may very well be that I simply didn’t connect or give a good interview. Perhaps I was over-enthusiastic when pointing out where I could help the organisation improve. But my worry is that organisations are only looking within a small pool of people they know, or are unsure what they are looking for. For too many organisations (especially the bigger and more established ones) the traditional, male, middle-aged, white, professional stereotype is still the norm.
One board made up entirely of men said I would not be a good fit and during an interview I have been asked if I have enough experience to lead an organisation, being so young.
I have also found that organisations favour certain professions. Most of the charities I have interviewed for hired an accountant, lawyer or HR specialist, despite not stating that this is what they were looking for in the application process. Sometimes a willingness to learn, to ask questions, think strategically and to look at what the organisation does and why with a critical eye is far more helpful than being a lawyer.
So perhaps my failure to find a position is because I am a young woman who has never been a trustee, because I am not connected enough or because I don’t have manager or CEO in my job title. I just don’t know.
What I do know is that I, and my colleagues, have so much to offer. I think there is a lot of room for more diversity on boards, for thinking about skills not just in term of professional qualifications but in terms of what can a person bring to the conversation and the organisation.
With so many people who have the potential to be excellent trustees, it feels as if a culture change is needed when thinking about who, and what, we consider to be a good fit.
Confessions of a charity professional is the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network’s anonymous series where charity workers tell it how it is. If you would like to pitch us an idea, click here.
