Trustees, funding and governance

Applications: 0. (Post in London now slower than in Ethiopia - not a joke as I have experience of both). Coffee: not enough yet. Hours of sleep: 4. Ugh.

I have just come from a fascinating breakfast seminar at Clothworkers' Hall in the City, hosted by the European Association for Philanthropy and Giving and New Philanthropy Capital, whose work I like. (One of these links is a joke, by the way. See if you can guess which one.) It was all around Trusteeship, and was an opportunity to explore issues related to NPC's recent report on the topic.

From the perspective of a fundraiser in the an operational charity, I would guess that the most interesting discussion was around the question of the "donor-trustee". A cousin from across the pond noted that in the US, it is almost always expected that a trustee will either make a significant personal contribution to the charity, or be able to leverage, say $100,000 a year. That's the price for serving on the Board. Fail, or be unwilling, and you're out on your ear. As you will no doubt be aware, the UK model tends to avoid that sort of dynamic altogether, emphasising skills and volunteerism.

What do you think? Funding is of course the life-blood of a charity, and trustees are obliged to work in the beneficiaries' best interest. It may be assumed that they will press the flesh, especially if times are hard, but should it be expected? There are of course differing views. On the "assets" side, it narrows the gap between Trustees and staff, gets the former involves, and helps in securing the income base. On the "liabilities" side, could you end up with uncommitted or inappropriate trustees that you can't get rid of, because they're so financially valuable to the charity? Could there even be a spectre of a 'weighty' trustee inappropriately influencing the direction of the charity?

It's a tough-ee, as they say across t' water.

Whatever the ramifications of that particular conundrum, a lot of tessellating issues were raised about models of governance, recruitment of a Board and how to form a "team" rather than just a collection of skilled (and sometimes egotistical?) individuals, and how involved (or not) trustees should be in a charity's work.

Bumpf

Applications: 7. Rejects: 5. Things to do before I go on holiday: 400. Sheets of paper under my control: 4,000,000,000,000

Naturally, dear fundraiser, you want everybody to know more about your work, and to develop an enthusiasm about it. And I am enthusiastic - whatever it is that you do. I wouldn't - couldn't - do this job unless I was.

But sadly, there are only so many hours in the day. Some charities send me stuff, and I always read it. Others send me things, and I just don't have the time. It goes in one of the drawers in the picture. Nineteen drawers, all fairly full with only 4-5 years worth of literature from organisations that we've given grants to. If you go "in the drawer", it's not necessarily a bad thing. I may know a lot about your organisation and be very confident in your work - only fishing out your magazine when you apply again, or send a report which will need to go to the Trustees.

Strangely, I find myself agreeing with the "don't send me glossy literature!" mob. I opposed them vehemently when I was in Marketing - naturally - but there's a measure of truth in what grumpier donors say, when they mumble into their cornflakes about not needing all this bumpf.

At the same time, it does mean that you don't get forgotten! And it is almost always good stuff. I'm not saying don't send it. But please think of the filing cabinets when you do. And the trees...

Set a communications objective, a strategy for every donor, every trust, every "account". If you get an inkling that your stuff might not be welcome, best to err on the side of caution. If I, running a medium-sized grantmaking operation full-time, find it all a bit overwhelming and have to devote some much time and space to filing it, imagine how a small family trust running out of someone's study would feel...

How much time are you able to spare?

Applications: 3. Rejects: 3. Realisations that we need to better publicise our grants criteria: 3.

As I’ve noted in my rather “maternalistic” general advice in the right-hand column, we grantmakers don’t, as a general rule, like to be visited. At least I don’t. Like a cat, I’m a bit territorial. I wish I’d had an insight into this feeling when I was working for an operational charity and was given an annual target of meeting at least half of my Trusts contacts, which invariably meant going to see them. I never succeeded in securing an invitation and was always fobbed off – until I started my current job, I thought there must have been something wrong with me. (B.O. detectable down the phone line, perhaps?) The reasoning was that we were based some way out of London and people would never want to make the journey out to see us, and asking them to do so would be presumptuous in the extreme.

AU CONTRAIRE! As a grantmaker I love a) getting out of the office, b) seeing organisations getting on with the work we’re supporting even if it just seems like any old office to you, and c) getting out of London.

But I do wonder whether making lots of visits, as I try to do, is taking up the valuable time of smaller organisations? I know full well that meeting donors is the full-time fundraiser’s icing-on-the-cake, and that nothing takes a higher priority, but if I’m meeting the CEO or an operational manager of a small charity, I do have to wonder whether I’m breaking a golden rule. I don’t tend to hang around for more than an hour or so, don’t expect a red carpet, and am always well-received (natch!) but there is of course preparation time and disruption to activities to factor in.

As I’ve noted before, the hands-on approach is pretty radical, especially for small to medium sized grantmakers, so it will be interesting to see how it smooths out. It would be awful if charities were having to garner and expend large resources simply to meet the demands of a million and one different funders. That lesson has been taught before, and shouldn’t need to be repeated.