Recruiting Charity Trustees: How to Find and Appoint the Right People

Most charities have never formally recruited a trustee. Boards tend to grow through personal networks — a friend of the chair, a useful professional contact, someone who attended a fundraising event and offered to help. This works up to a point: it fills vacancies quickly and brings in people who are already trusted. The problem is that it systematically narrows the board over time, as each new trustee tends to look like the people who recruited them.

The Charity Governance Code 2025 is explicit on this: Principle 7 (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) expects boards to draw on a range of diverse backgrounds, experiences and expertise to enhance decision making, and for trustees to seek out and value diverse opinion. That is a direct challenge to informal networks as the default recruitment route.

Formal recruitment does not mean a lengthy process with assessment days and external headhunters. For most small charities, it means writing down what you are looking for, advertising in at least one place beyond your existing network, and being consistent about who you meet and how you assess them.

Step 1: Identify what the board needs

Before advertising, assess the current board. The Charity Commission's guidance on finding new trustees (CC30) recommends boards conduct a skills audit before each recruitment round. The goal is not to find people who already know charity governance — that can be learned. The goal is to identify gaps in:

• Technical expertise: financial management, legal, HR, IT, property, clinical (where relevant to the charity's work)
• Sector experience: knowledge of the charity's beneficiary group, the policy environment, or the funding landscape
• Lived experience: personal connection to the charity's mission, as beneficiary, family member, or community member
• Demographic diversity: age, geography, background, perspective — the board should reflect the community it serves

A simple grid works: columns for current trustees, rows for skills and characteristics, a tick or X for each. The gaps become your recruitment specification.

Step 2: Check your governing document

Before advertising, check your governing document for:

• Maximum number of trustees — most governing documents set a ceiling (e.g. "no fewer than 3 and no more than 12 trustees")
• Appointment mechanism — does the full board appoint, or do specific parties have nomination rights (members, local authorities, partner organisations)?
• Terms — does your governing document specify trustee terms (e.g. three years, renewable twice)?
• Restrictions — are there age requirements, residency rules, or eligibility criteria?

A trustee appointed in breach of the governing document is technically invalid. If your document is unclear, take advice from your solicitor or the Charity Commission's guidance before proceeding.

Step 3: Check legal disqualification rules

Under the Charities Act 2011 and subsequent regulations, certain people are automatically disqualified from serving as charity trustees. This includes people with unspent convictions for dishonesty or deception offences, those who are bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order, and people previously removed from trusteeship by the Charity Commission or a court. The Charity Commission maintains a disqualification checker — all prospective trustees should use it before appointment.

A trustee who is disqualified and serves anyway is committing a criminal offence. Running the disqualification check is not optional.

Step 4: Write a trustee role description

Even for volunteer roles, a written description helps candidates self-select and helps the board assess fit consistently. A trustee role description typically covers:

• The charity's name, charitable purposes, and key facts (income, number of beneficiaries, geography)
• The trustee's legal duties in plain English (referring to CC3 is enough)
• What the board is specifically looking for in this appointment round (from the skills audit)
• Time commitment: number of meetings per year, expected reading time per meeting, any subcommittee or working group responsibilities
• Term length and any limit on re-appointment
• How to apply and by when

Keep it to one or two pages. Lengthy application packs deter exactly the candidates who have useful skills but no previous charity experience.

Step 5: Advertise beyond your network

Where to advertise depends on your budget and the skills you are looking for:

Free options:

• NCVO's trustee vacancies board — widely used, particularly for roles requiring governance or sector experience
• CharityJob trustee listings — free to post, reaches active job seekers interested in charity work
• Getting on Board — national charity focused specifically on trustee recruitment, with a free vacancy listing service
• Local CVS volunteer centre — good for community-facing charities recruiting local trustees with local knowledge
• LinkedIn — effective for professional skills (finance, legal, IT) where you can target by industry and geography

Targeted outreach: For specific skills gaps, direct outreach to professional bodies (local law firms, accountancy practices, NHS trusts, universities) often yields stronger responses than general advertising. A specific ask to a specific person is more effective than a vacancy notice.

Step 6: Shortlisting and meeting candidates

For a small number of applications, an informal conversation followed by a short board meeting is sufficient. For larger pools, a structured approach prevents bias:

• Shortlist using the skills specification you wrote, not gut feel about "fit"
• Use the same set of questions for every candidate
• Have at least two trustees involved in the meeting
• Brief candidates on the charity, its current priorities, and the time commitment before the meeting — so the conversation can focus on what they bring

The meeting is two-way. Good candidates will have their own questions about how the board operates, what the current challenges are, and how trustees are supported. A board that cannot answer these questions well will lose strong candidates to charities that can.

Step 7: Formal appointment

Once the board has agreed to appoint, the steps are:

1. Board resolution: record the appointment formally in the minutes, with the date and the term
2. Disqualification check: confirm the appointee has run the Charity Commission disqualification check
3. Update the Charity Commission register: inform the Commission of the new trustee through your My Charity Commission Account. Trustees have a legal duty to keep the charity's registered details up to date, so report the change as soon as the appointment is made rather than waiting. See the Commission's guidance on changing your charity's details.
4. Induction: provide access to the governing document, latest accounts, key policies, and the Charity Commission's Trustee Welcome Pack. A conversation with the chair about current priorities is the most valuable single induction activity. See our trustee training guide for a practical induction checklist.
5. Sign the code of conduct: if your board has one, the appointment meeting is the right time to sign. See our trustee code of conduct template.

Common mistakes to avoid

Recruiting under pressure: a trustee appointed quickly because of a governance crisis or a funding deadline rarely works out well. Effective boards recruit continuously rather than reactively — even when at full strength.

Informal appointments: a trustee who "started coming to meetings" without a formal board resolution is not validly appointed. This creates problems for insurance, bank account signatories, and regulatory filings.

Treating recruitment as a one-off: the Charity Governance Code expects boards to review their composition annually. A brief skills audit at each AGM is enough to identify whether to recruit and, if so, what to look for.

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This guide applies to charities registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. The Charities Act 2011 governs trustee eligibility and disqualification. This is general guidance, not legal advice.

Sources

• The Essential Trustee (CC3) — GOV.UK
• Finding new trustees (CC30) — GOV.UK
• Charity Governance Code 2025
• Board basics — NCVO