Community First Yorkshire is celebrating Trustees’ Week by launching a Hands Up for Trustees 
campaign.
The campaign, co-ordinated by Community First Yorkshire, aims to match volunteers in North Yorkshire looking for trustee positions with charities and not-for-profits looking for skilled and experienced trustees. Working in partnership with Reach Volunteering, the campaign will register volunteers and host organisations, and provide mutual opportunities to recruit, develop, and sustain trustees.
Mark Hopley, Head of Community and Volunteer Support at Community First Yorkshire, is heading up the campaign, and said:
“Here at Community First Yorkshire, we’ve noticed that the number of skilled and experienced volunteers looking for trustee roles is on the increase. There are currently over 1 million trustees in the UK looking for a host organisation. However, the latest National Trustee Survey has identified that over 40% of organisations say they have found it harder to recruit trustees in the past two years.
“By working with Reach Volunteering through the campaign, we aim to register and match trustees and hosts so that more experienced volunteers can find opportunities where they can use their skills to help their communities.
“Trustees are the people in charge of charities,” explains Mark Hopley. “They share ultimate responsibility for governing them and directing how they are managed and run. Good governance in charities is fundamental to their success.”
“Research carried out in 2016 shows that 50% of respondents have only been trustees for 3 years or less, so there is a clear need for training, and sharing good practice. Community First Yorkshire is offering a number of networking and support activities for volunteers and charities.”
Janet Thorne, Chief Executive of Reach Volunteering, says: “We are delighted to be working with Community First Yorkshire to recruit more trustees to local charities in North Yorkshire.
“It is essential that a board of trustees has a wide mix of skills and experience so that it can provide good leadership for its charity. Boards do sometimes say that they find it hard to recruit new trustees, but there are many people out there with valuable expertise who are willing to become trustees. Research shows that the vast majority of trustees find the experience really rewarding, so it’s a win-win.
“By working with Community First Yorkshire we can combine Reach’s online platform and our national partnerships (for example with LinkedIn) with Community First’s local knowledge, relationships and services to create a more valuable service to local charities.”
Trustees Recruitment Survey
The Hands Up for Trustees campaign is inviting trustees to take part in a recruitment survey for North Yorkshire charities to tell Community First Yorkshire about their experience of recruiting trustees and what roles they are looking to fill in 2018.
Ends
Notes for editors:
Trustees Week
Trustees are the people in charge of a charity. They help to make the UK the sixth most giving country in the world. They play a vital role, volunteering their time and working together to make important decisions about the charity’s work. Trustees’ Week is an annual event to showcase the great work that trustees do and highlight opportunities for people from all walks of life to get involved and make a difference.
There are more than 5,000 voluntary and community sector organisations in North Yorkshire, providing a broad range of local services to all kinds of people and supporting community action. Many of these organisations are charities and are managed by a management committee of trustees who work in a voluntary capacity to help charities to become successful.
Community First Yorkshire is an influential, regional body which works with voluntary and community organisations, social enterprises and rural communities across North, South and West Yorkshire to inspire and support positive local action.
We are an independent charity formed from a merger between Rural Action Yorkshire and the North Yorkshire & York Forum.
T: 01904 704 177 E: info@communityfirstyorkshire.org.uk www.communityfirstyorkshire.org.uk
Twitter: @CommFirstYorks Facebook: Community First Yorkshire
Reach Volunteering
Reach Volunteering connects people who want to volunteer their skills with the charities which need them. We cover trusteeship, mentoring, advisory, operational roles, short term projects – in fact any type of volunteering that requires professional expertise. We provide an online service, free of charge, to charities throughout the UK. We have a strong interest in good governance and last year we helped charities to recruit 450 trustees.
