Over the last couple of weeks many of you will have been involved in board discussions about decisions you would rather not take. In such circumstances, charities with boards of unpaid, part-time trustees face particular challenges.
- Trustees cannot know the organisation as well as the executive team and as such they will be dealing with an information asymmetry
- Trustees’ minds will be full of concerns about their own jobs, organisations and families. They may be grappling with the operation of technologies that are new to them and the challenges of home schooling their children whilst still working full-time. Their available bandwidth is going to be limited
- Often trustees don’t know and trust each other well enough to work as a real team so moving online is even harder than it would be for a group of people who work together every day
- Trustees will be worried about ‘doing the right thing’ but it is far from clear what the ‘right thing’ is at the moment
- Important decisions will need to be taken quickly on information that would normally be seen as inadequate. There won’t be time to ask for a paper and discuss at the next meeting in three months’ time.
To help you decide if your board is ‘match fit’ we have pulled together a short checklist (donwload here). Use it in whatever way works for you, as an aide memoire or as a wider self-evaluation exercise. The key thing is to take action now on what you discover.
Do let us know what areas you would like more help on, and we will do our best to oblige!
Stay safe
Susan & Dawn