Spotlight on Manor Gardens Welfare Trust: Trustee recruitment success through BoardMatch

Following February’s biggest trustee recruitment event to date, we are proud to announce that we helped over 30 employees from 16 of our member businesses become trustees of the 16 charities that were part of BIG Alliance/ELBA's BoardMatch6 programme. Below we hear from Katy Porter, CEO of Manor Gardens Welfare Trust, who describes the timeliness, effectiveness, and importance of the BoardMatch programme, at a time when reports suggest trustee recruitment continues to be a significant challenge in the charity sector.

Katy's feedback:

"We were invited by the BIG Alliance to participate in BoardMatch6 at an opportune time. Our Board had reduced in size over the previous six months, and we had identified some gaps in our skill set, both as a result of people departing and prior to this through Board appraisal.

We had commenced a process of recruitment, taking a fairly standardised route of advertising and connecting with some known partners. Whilst this filled one place on the Board, it did not provide us with the response needed or the breadth of skills for which we were looking.

BoardMatch6 has been an entirely different experience. We have now extended our Board to our ideal number, diverse in both skill set and demographic, and with a continued energy and engagement of all, both those new and existing.

From the start BoardMatch6 seemed a well thought-out process, and was clearly tried and tested. It focused us on what we needed and wanted for our Board and future governance, and honed the presentation of our organisation to those new to us.

The number of people who had been engaged by BIG Alliance and ELBA as potential trustees was hugely impressive, but even more so the calibre of people presented to us. We received interest and met with more people than we had places for on our Board; it was a good problem to have when coming to the decision of inviting those to join as Trustees.

I would thoroughly recommend the BoardMatch process to any charity looking to engage new trustees; this has been a process that has delivered for us in terms of recruitment and growth of our Board, but also has been an excellent experience with learning and reflection for us from start to finish. Thank you to all at BIG Alliance and ELBA" 

- Katy Porter, CEO, Manor Gardens Welfare Trust

About BoardMatch and how to attend

BoardMatch is a BIG Alliance/ELBA facilitated event, which provides community partner organisations and prospective trustees from BIG Alliance/ELBA’s member companies with the opportunity to meet with one another and for prospective trustees to register an interest in joining the board of the community partner organisation. BIG Alliance/ELBA facilitate the resulting connections between the employees and their selected charities with the aim of ensuring as many interested employees as possible go on to become trustees. We endeavour to run three BoardMatch events each year with a different group of charities from Islington and East London at each event.

For more information and to attend future events as a business or community partner contact tom.browne@thebigalliance.org.uk