Best charity trustee recruitment sites

Research released late in 2021 indicated that more than 650,00 trustee vacancies a year are not being advertised.

 

The analysis has been carried out by charity sector veteran Joe Saxton, who founded the nfpSynergy market research firm more than two decades ago.

 

After selling nfpSynergy last year and finishing his terms of office on two charity boards, he was looking for new trustee roles for himself.

 

However, he estimates that the total number of vacancies being advertising by charities via recruitment sites is between just 30,000 and 60,000 a year.

 

This is only a small proportion of the total trustee vacancies a year of around 720,000, based on the UK’s 180,000 charities.

 

Each charity has on average 12 trustees, with a typical term of three years, so should have four vacancies to advertise a year, says Saxton.

He warns that his research “implies that an awful lot of trustee vacancies still aren’t advertised”.

 

Here we take a look at his findings, which reveal the key dos and don’ts for charities looking to use recruitment sites to recruit dynamic and effective trustees. His research also reveals the best recruitment sites for charities to consider using.

 

 

Location matters

 

The filters on most recruitment sites do not have an easy to navigate search functions by location or for nationwide roles for trustee vacancies, says Saxton.

 

He urges recruitment sites and charities to ensure candidates can easily find whether the vacancy is in a particular location, such as a county or city, or whether it is a national role.

 

“I live in Cumbria, so I’m interested in being a trustee in Cumbria or for a national organisation,” says Saxton.

 

“I don’t want to be a trustee in Somerset or Lincolnshire. The filters make it quite hard to search like this. The choices are xx miles from my home address, or ‘everything’, or by cause.

 

“I couldn’t find a single search function that allowed me to search for national trustee roles.”

 

Charities are advised to ask recruiters and recruitment sites about ways they can make it easier for potential candidates to find vacancies near to them, or where they can access nationwide roles.

 

Saxton would also like to see more search filters by cause, as candidates are often specialists in particular areas, such as youth policy or health.

 

 

Top recruitment sites reviewed

 

Here is a look at some of Saxton’s findings about recruitment sites, including specialist charity websites and those with a broader recruitment remit.

 

• Guardian Jobs: After some initial teething problems finding trustee vacancies at the recruitment pages for The Guardian via Google, Saxton found 198 jobs by visiting the homepage then typing ‘trustee’. “That is more like what I expected from the Guardian, with some interesting looking roles too,” said Saxton
• LinkedIn: Saxton found “a whopping 1,500” trustee vacancies by visiting the jobs tab at professional focused social media platform LinkedIn. While he would have preferred a more location specific search filter, he said that “anybody who is easier pleased than me on geography or cause will probably find something good”
• Recruitment agencies: Saxton visited a number of recruitment agency job boards in search of trustee vacancies. This included the websites of Peridot Partners, Harris Hill, Odgers Berndtson, Prospectus, Charity People and TPP recruitment. He says that many offer “pretty interesting” range of trustee vacancies for roles in charities, adding that it is clear that the charity sector has “decided that it’s worth spending a bit more money on recruiting”
• ACEVO - Charity leadership body Acevo’s website includes a job board for charities to advertise vacancies for trustees, as well as for paid roles. The number of roles being advertising can be limited, though. At the time of writing, trustee roles advertised included vacancies at a charity body, a hospital charity and at a Foundation

 

Gap in the market for a one-stop trustee recruitment site

 

Saxton found that currently “there is not a single place where somebody interested in being a trustee can go to look for recruitment options”.

 

Nevertheless, as detailed above, he found there are “five to ten sites worth looking at on a regular basis” for trustee vacancies.

 

But while useful, these only advertise a limited number of trustee vacancies as part of their wider remit to recruit across the charity and public sector.

 

Saxton found that searching via some major recruitment sites by the term “trustee” includes “any ad that mentions trustees”, rather than specific board level vacancies.

 

He said that currently there is a “missed opportunity” for recruitment sites to make it easier for candidates to search for trustee roles.

 

In addition, it can be “pot luck” around the number of trustee roles advertised at any one time on. On recruitment sites he found “sometimes quite a few, and sometimes not many”.

 

He also warns potential candidates that he has seen a number of trustee roles still advertised, even when closing date has passed.