An empty trustee seat costs you nothing until it takes the board below quorum. At that point, you cannot make a valid decision, and everything waiting on one stops. That deadline is usually closer than the vacancy makes it look, and it is the reason to treat a failed advert as urgent rather than annoying. What follows is why trustee adverts produce silence, what to change in the ask, and where to look once the people you already know have said no.
If the vacancy is one symptom of a board that has been under-resourced for years, our charity governance support starts with the board you have rather than the one you wish you had.
What an empty trustee seat actually costs you
Your governing document sets the quorum for trustee meetings, meaning the number who have to be present for decisions to count. It might be a fixed number or a proportion of the board. The Charity Commission is direct about this in CC30: always have enough trustees to form your quorum, and take particular care when trustees are leaving. Decisions taken at a meeting that is not quorate are not usually valid.
Consider a charity with income around £180,000, four trustees, and a constitution setting the quorum at three. One trustee stands down at the November AGM. From that evening, every remaining trustee has to attend every meeting for the board to approve anything at all – the accounts, the budget, a grant application with a deadline. One person away and the meeting cannot proceed. A second resignation and the board may be unable to appoint a replacement, because appointing one requires a quorate meeting.
That is the real cost of the open seat. Not a gap in the skills mix, which can wait. The ability to make decisions.
Your governing document probably also sets a minimum number of trustees, sometimes a maximum, how long a trustee serves, and who holds the power to appoint. Following it matters, because the Commission warns that appointments made outside those rules can leave the board’s decisions invalid. Rules that no longer fit – a quorum set when the board had nine members – can be changed, and changing your charity’s governing document sets out how.
Why your trustee advert produced nothing
Four things go wrong, and they compound.
The advert describes the law rather than the charity. Trustees hold overall responsibility, act in the charity’s best interests, and comply with the governing document. All true, all identical to every other trustee advert posted that month, and none of it tells a reader why this charity. CC30 suggests describing your work and how it makes a difference to a cause or community, which is the part that makes someone stop scrolling.
It asks for board experience you do not need. The Commission puts this plainly among the barriers worth removing: only ask for previous board experience if you are sure you need it, and think about what someone could learn in the role with the right support. A charity of four people asking for a proven non-executive rules out most of the people who would have said yes.
The time commitment is vague or absent. “A few hours a month” tells a working parent nothing. CC30 asks for specifics, including the time needed beyond formal meetings, because that is the hidden part people are wary of.
And it went to one place. Posting on a volunteering site and waiting is a single channel. The Commission lists a dozen: your own website and social media, local press, your newsletter, libraries and notice boards, students, charities doing similar work, professional networks in other sectors, employers, and your own volunteers and members.
What is your board actually short of
Before rewriting the advert, work out what the seat is for. CC30 calls this a skills audit and makes a point worth taking seriously: you do not need to wait for a vacancy to do one, and doing it early means you know what you are asking for when a vacancy arrives.
The list the Commission suggests goes wider than professional skills. Knowledge or experience of your field of work. Specific skills in finance, governance, safeguarding, digital or risk. Behaviours and qualities, including the ability to play an active part in a discussion. Knowledge of the communities you serve. Lived experience of the cause. The experience of people who use your services.
Small charities can keep this simple. Four people around a table, half an hour, an honest answer to what each person actually brings and where the board is guessing. The output is not a document for the file. It is the paragraph in your role description that tells a specific person the role was written for them.
Then there is the question of what makes the role possible to accept. The Commission frames several of these as barriers to remove, and each one is within your control. Hold meetings at a time and place that suits more people. Hold some remotely, checking first whether your governing document allows it, because some do not. Say clearly that trustees can claim reasonable expenses, including travel and childcare. Say that you will make reasonable adjustments, and mean it.
A board that has been short-handed for two years has a recruitment problem on the surface and a governance problem underneath.
The vacancy is the visible part. The workload that made the last trustee resign, the meetings that overrun because nothing is delegated, the chair doing three roles – those are what the next trustee will walk into, and what will make them leave too. A free clarity call is the quickest way to work out which problem you are solving.
Where to look beyond the people you already know
Founders and chairs start with their own contacts. That is reasonable, and CC30 does not tell you to stop. What it does say is that relying only on word of mouth, personal connections, or the same groups and networks narrows who you reach – and if your board has been drawing on the same circle for years, that circle is where the silence is coming from.
The Commission and NCVO both signpost specific services, which is the useful part.
- Reach Volunteering runs a searchable platform matching people looking for trustee roles with charities recruiting, and publishes a free trustee recruitment cycle covering skills audits, role descriptions and interviewing.
- Your local Council for Voluntary Service may run a trustee finder. NAVCA’s directory will tell you which body covers your area.
- Do It advertises volunteer vacancies free of charge, trusteeships included.
- Young Trustees Movement connects charities with younger candidates, and Women on Boards shares opportunities with its members.
- Getting on Board maintains a list of further places to advertise a trustee vacancy.
Whichever route you use, the process at the other end matters. CC30 asks you to think about how you will shortlist against the role description, who will be involved, and how you will help someone ask questions about the role. It also makes a point that gets overlooked: even a candidate you do not appoint leaves with a view of your charity, and that view travels.
What has to happen before someone can be appointed
Keep this part short, because the rules are set out in full elsewhere and you should read them there.
Age limits apply, and they differ by structure. Some people are disqualified by law from acting as a trustee, and you must not appoint them without a waiver from the Commission. Before appointing anyone, you must ask them for a written declaration that they are not disqualified, and the Commission provides the form. Check the insolvency register, the register of disqualified directors, and the Commission’s register of removed trustees. Where the role is eligible, get the DBS check. Ask about conflicts of interest before appointing rather than after, because a conflicted board can lose its quorum for the decisions that matter most. Our guide to who can be a charity trustee covers the eligibility and disqualification rules properly, as does CC30 itself.
The part boards forget is what happens next. As soon as possible after the appointment, you must update your charity’s details through My Charity Commission Account, adding the new trustee and removing anyone who has left. Charitable companies must also tell Companies House, within its time limits. Then the practical work: change the bank mandate if the new trustee will be a signatory, and check whether property held in trustees’ names needs transferring. The Commission sends new trustees a welcome pack, which is a start rather than an induction.
What to do this week
Open your governing document and find two numbers: your quorum, and your minimum number of trustees. Work out how many resignations sit between you and the first one. If the answer is one, the vacancy is the most urgent item on your board’s agenda and should be minuted as such at the next meeting.
Then rewrite the role description. Not the advert – the description underneath it, which is what the advert is drawn from, and which is where the vagueness starts.
This article is general information for trustees and CEOs of charities in England and Wales, not advice on your charity’s situation. Your governing document overrides the general position on quorum, trustee numbers and appointment powers, so read it before acting on any of the above. Where an appointment involves a possible disqualification, a conflict of interest, or a change to your governing document, an hour with a charity solicitor is rarely wasted.
Once you have someone appointed, the first three months decide whether they stay. Our guide to running a trustee meeting covers the mechanics they will meet on day one, including why quorum is not a formality.
