For trustees, CEOs and founders doing three jobs at once
Practical guidance for the people running small UK charities - trustees carrying legal duties alongside a day job, CEOs holding a service together with a team of two, and founders working out what they've taken on.
Every article is checked against the regulators rather than against what other people have written, and it's pitched at the scale you actually work at. Nothing here replaces advice on your own situation. It should tell you what the rules say, what they mean at your size, and what to do next.
A board of five ran a review last year. Everyone completed the questionnaire; the responses were collated, and the conclusion was that the board was working well, with some room for improvement in communication. The document went in the file.…
The bank statement shows £8,000 arriving in April. It is now November; the accounts are being prepared, and nobody can say with certainty whether that money was for the youth project or for general funds. Somebody thinks there was an…
You have been running the same service for six years. You are good at it. The people who use it would say so, and some of them would say it on the record. You have a website nobody visits, a…
The treasurer left in March and took the working knowledge with him. The accounts were nearly ready, then they were not, and the deadline went past while the board was dealing with something else. Nobody has the login. It has…
A trustee stopped coming to meetings eighteen months ago. They answer emails occasionally, have not resigned, and will not say whether they intend to continue. The board wants them off the register and has assumed it can vote them off.…
Your founder has run the charity unpaid for three years. The work has outgrown what anyone can reasonably volunteer; the board agrees she should be paid as coordinator, and everyone is comfortable with the decision because it is obviously right.…
One of your trustees is a builder. The roof needs doing; he quotes below what anyone else would charge, and the board says yes because it obviously saves the charity money. Nobody minutes much. There is no contract, because he…
There is a trustee on your board who drives forty minutes each way to every meeting and has never claimed a penny. She has not been told she can. Nobody has been unkind about it; the subject has never come…
Something needed answering on a Tuesday. The next board meeting was six weeks away, the funder wanted a response by Friday, and the chair dealt with it. Nobody objected. Nobody minuted it either. That happens in small charities constantly, and…
Small charities rarely delegate too little. They delegate constantly and write almost none of it down. The chief executive has been approving spend up to around eight thousand pounds for three years because that is roughly what feels right. No…