How to recruit the right digital trustee

Digital skills and understanding are integral to any charity. Whether it’s the best way to store information of beneficiaries or ensuring you are up to date on the best forms of digital marketing, digital will play a part in any organisation’s strategy.

 

It is therefore important that you have the digital skills and understanding at board level for continued buy in and support.

 

 

Why you need a digital trustee

 

Whatever stage of digital your charity is at, you are likely to need some form of digital expertise at board level. It could be that you have a specific project coming up that the additional digital trustee support could help, such as designing and developing a new website or developing a new digital marketing channel. Or you could need support at a much more strategic level across all areas of digital. This might include developing a digital strategy, or ensuring your organisational strategy has digital embedded within it.

 

With digital becoming a key part of any charity, a trustee with specific digital experience can help respond to fast changes in the sector. A digital trustee can also bring confidence in using more Agile methods of development, meaning a confidence and belief in trying new things, using a faster test and learn approach.

 

With the trust and support of the board it can make testing new ideas much easier for the wider staff team. One of the key roles of any board is managing the risk of a charity, but with a more open and Agile approach it can really help the charity get ahead with new ideas and projects.

 

 

Skills a digital trustee could bring to the board

 

Digital skills come in all shapes and sizes. Below we look at a few areas where a digital trustee may be able to help.  

 

 

Digital Strategy

 

Whether you are looking to develop a standalone digital strategy or digital marketing strategy or ensure digital is embedded in your overall strategy, a trustee with these skills can be vital.

 

They could help develop the strategy, fill any gaps, and also decide which kind of strategy would work best for you right now.

 

 

Digital communications

 

Communications is an area that is integral to all charities. Whether it is internal or external communications, digital is going to be key.

 

From support in general social media skills, to knowledge and experience around recruiting the right digital agency, or in deciding which newsletter tool will work best for your charity.

 

There are lots of more specific experiences and skills within digital communications that might be helpful, such as for a specific channel, but most digital marketing trustees would be able to offer more general support.

 

 

Agile project management

 

If you’re looking to develop a more Agile approach within your organisation then a trustee with experience in this area could really help the wider organisation understand the benefits and be an advocate for a more ‘test and learn’ approach to your work.

 

 

Digital design

 

If you are designing a new website or digital service, then support in digital design from trustees can help add another pair of eyes to designs that may be developed by an external agency.

 

 

Digital security

 

Experience in understanding digital security could be integral to the safety of your organisation and beneficiaries. They could also help ensure you are following key guidelines around data protection. It can be easy to forget about these areas, but support, knowledge and reminders of what you should be doing can be vital.

 

 

Digital fundraising

 

This is often an important one for most charities and specific experience in fundraising via digital can be a huge benefit to your charity.

 

 

How to find the right digital trustee

 

It could be that some of your existing trustees are skilled in certain areas of digital you are unaware of. Here is a quick look at how you might find the right trustee.

 

 

What skills do you need

 

Start by spending some time thinking about the skills you think you need. Look at the key areas above and see what areas might be a priority for your organisation. Are you looking to grow your social media, build your digital fundraising or develop a better CRM system?

 

Make a list of the different skills you think you might need and pass this by the trustees to see if there’s anything else they might add.

 

 

What skills you already have

 

Once you have a full list of skills you might need, it is worth doing a quick digital skills audit across staff and trustees. It might be that you already have some of the experiences needed and were unaware. You should then have a shorter list from which to recruit to.

 

 

Filling the skills gap

 

Once you have a clear list of skills you can start recruiting. You won’t necessarily find someone with all the skills you need, but any digital person will likely have knowledge in a range of key areas, even if they specialise in just one.

 

You can promote trustee roles on a number of different recruitment sites and Reach Volunteering enables you to search for people looking for digital trustee roles too.