How can trustees evolve and adapt to meet today’s challenges?

In 2023/24 NPC ran five events on trusteeship, in partnership with The Clothworkers’ Company. The events covered a range of topics, including campaigning and centring lived experience. In the final event of the series, we explored how trustees can evolve and adapt to meet today’s challenges.  

Across NPC’s work, we hear about the challenges that charity boards face. The last few years have been particularly difficult due to Brexit, COVID, the cost-of-living crisis, global conflicts, and the worsening climate and nature crises. For anyone tasked with managing risk and making decisions, both of which are at the heart of effective trusteeship, these complex issues present ongoing challenges. However, they have also prompted change in the sector, including the increasing recognition of the importance of involving people with lived experience, innovations in impact measurement, increased emphasis on campaigning and systems thinking, and the potential to harness new technologies for good. 

During the event, we asked attendees a few questions exploring the following theme: ‘how can trustees evolve and adapt in the face of so much change and complexity?’.  

Here’s what we learned: 

1. How can trustees keep focused on their charity’s mission? 

Keep your service users front and centre.

—Event attendee 

Trustees are the guardians of their charities’ mission. They will benefit from a diverse range of knowledge and expertise so they can understand the mission from different angles and lend varying perspectives.  

Centring lived experience was at the top of people’s minds. Involving service users and Experts by Experience can improve decision-making, and lead to better quality projects and efficiency. It fosters openness to different perspectives and creates impactful moments for individuals with lived experience.  

However, trustees need to ensure that this process does not become tokenistic. Our guide to Centring lived experience contains step-by-step guidance on how to effectively incorporate insight from lived experience throughout your organisation. 

2. How can trustees adapt in fast-moving situations? 

When moving forwards, remember to re-evaluate previous crisis decisions…are there things you might want to reinstate or adapt? 

—Event attendee 

Attendees agreed that fast-moving periods present opportunities for change. Making tough decisions is an inevitable part of trusteeship and trustees must maintain a long-term view whilst addressing the immediate issues. All of this may require trustees to ‘flex’ and take on different roles or decisions. Our guide Being a trustee in an age of permacrisis covers these challenges in more detail.  

3. How can trustees draw on the right kinds of information? 

Strike the right balance between quantitative and qualitative data.

—Event attendee 

Charity boards often focus on data which is gathered internally, such as financial or impact measurement data. However, it’s also important to look at the external context to identify where the greatest need is and to understand the system you are working in.  

At NPC, we think there are a few key types of internal data which are useful to collect. These might be part of existing KPIs but also go beyond them, providing richer or more meaningful insights.  

These include: 

• User data: Who is accessing your services? Collecting demographic or characteristics information can help you understand if those accessing services match those most in need—particularly if this is changing. 

• Engagement data: How many people are you engaging? Who are your repeat service users? Trustees will want to know if this changing or whether some services are better at engaging people than others. 

• Feedback data: What do people think of your service? This is often the most useful data for understanding how you can improve. This works best when it is a combination of qualitative and quantitative data.  

• Outcomes data: Have there been any changes to your service users experience? Again, this works best when a combination of qualitative and quantitative data is used in tandem.  

And finally, to ensure you are drawing on the right kinds of information, you need insights from people with lived experience.  

There are many different ways to build involvement, from being user-led or having representation from Experts by Experience on the board, to user panels who are consulted and provide input on a range of themes or recommendations. If you’re interested in taking a more strategic approach to lived experience, check out our upcoming training session.   

We’d like to thank the Clothworkers’ Company for their continued support of this seminar series. To catch up on all past events visit our YouTube channel. You can view all of our resources and events on trusteeship and governance on our website.