This week is trustee week, a time for charities to celebrate and thank their trustees. At Community Lives Matter, we would like to do just that, acknowledging the vital role that our trustees play in maintaining the overall health of our charity, keeping us focused on delivering our aims for the benefit of our community, and ensuring the well-being of the staff and volunteers who deliver our services.
Trustees are the people who are legally responsible for a charity. More than just that, though, they hold the vision of the charity, and put their skills and knowledge to use to help the charity be the best that it can be. They are key players in the governance of a charity, overseeing financial matters to ensure that the money the charity receives is used according to its charitable purposes and implementing appropriate policies in vital areas such as safeguarding or data protection. Trustees will also work with executive staff to cast vision and set overall direction for the charity’s work, giving oversight and security to those responsible for the programmes that the charity offers. And this is all done in a voluntary capacity, giving freely of their time and energy, because they believe in the charity’s aims and projects.
In a small charity such as our own, trustees are also “hands-on”, active much like any other volunteer in nitty-gritty day-to-day activities. So you will also find our trustees laying tables and washing dishes at luncheon club, taking asylum seekers to health care appointments, working on fund-raising and administrative tasks, liaising with other organisations, playing bowls with people living with dementia…
At Community Lives Matter, our trustees work alongside a wider steering group, who share some of the responsibilities but without carrying the legal role of a trustee. Together they work as a team to give security and solidity to our work.
So, in this trustee week, we are genuinely very grateful to each and every one of our trustees for all that they do. Alongside the thousands of other trustees who work tirelessly on behalf of other charities across the country, the UK is a much better place because of what they do. Thank you!