Joining as a charity Trustee from the corporate world? Here's what you need to unlearn.

So, you're a charity Trustee. You've found a role in an organisation whose cause you're interested in, and you can't wait to unleash your skills and experience to help this charity thrive.

Fantastic! - Let me be the first to welcome you into this wonderful sector, and I really hope that you'll make a difference.

But wait - there are a few things you need to unlearn first. Here are five misapprehensions that might be in your way to being a truly impactful Trustee...

1.?????? Charities are incompetent.

Research published in a 2010 article in the Journal of Consumer Research found the public generally perceives companies as competent, and non-profits as warmer but less competent. This isn’t just some obscure article – it’s taught as reality in MBA programmes.

If you come into the sector sharing that perception, you’re going to be unprepared to find the genius and dedication that is within it, and your input is unlikely to be impactful.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t love what the charity does, and appreciate it. In the charity world, we are used to funders, donors and commissioners telling us how much they value and love our services, while underfunding us and underestimating us at the same time.

It comes down to respect, and the need to understand what is actually contributing to these perceptions.

The reality is that charities are held back by a lack of funding into what is commonly referred to as overheads. In the corporate world, it’s well-established that investment is needed into staff, training, decent offices, R&D, innovation, monitoring and reporting, consultancy, etc. In the charity world, we all know that we need to invest in these things too, but the public perception about overheads means it is difficult to (a) get money for that kind of thing and (b) spend money on that kind of thing.

This means charity teams are having to make do. They can’t necessarily afford to invest in that fancy CRM, so they do workarounds. They can't access top drawer training or invest in the latest financial management software. Sometimes that looks like a lack of competence.

But don’t mistake a lack of resources for a lack of understanding and ability.

A fundamental respect for the people who work in the sector and the people and causes they are there to serve, are a non-negotiable element of being an effective Trustee.

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2.?????? Charities are ‘an easier life’.

This is one of those myths that charity staff and leaders have to laugh about – or they’d cry. Frankly, you haven’t known stress until you have an entire charity and all of its service users relying on you to survive. I’ve had people’s lives literally depending on me and what action I take next. I defy any corporate to come up with a situation that can compare with the stress of that.

Add in growing societal needs, diminishing funds, a media who loves to make up negative charity stories, a disconnected regulator and a voluntary board system that requires no understanding of the sector before you can join as a Trustee, and you have created one of the most stressful workplaces in the world.

There is nothing warm and fuzzy, calm and easy, about the average charity.

3.?????Charities should be run like businesses.?

It is impact – and not profit – that is the ultimate bottom line for charities.

One of the biggest challenges for all Trustees is understanding how being impact focussed differs from being profit focussed. Financial sustainability and oversight is a core Trustee responsibility, and unfortunately our regulator focusses on this above and beyond impact, which is one of the biggest challenges in the sector.

For a corporate Trustee, understanding what this shift means can be really challenging – but it makes all the difference to enabling that Trustee to apply their skills in a meaningful way into a fundamentally different environment.

Take a charity who raises funds through delivering training. This training helps the police support victims of crime more effectively, which is the charity's cause. It’s a great source of funding for the charity, because it is unrestricted. A corporate Trustee could help contribute enormously to activities around the competitor landscape, marketing, sales, etc.

But, it would likely be the right decision for that charity to train other trainers, who could go out and become competitors of the charity’s training programme ?– because the charity’s ultimate goal is not to have the monopoly on training and to make money, it’s to ensure that victims of crime are supported effectively. More trainers means more police trained, which means more victims of crime are supported. That's impact.

It’s essential that corporate Trustees get their head around this way of thinking and really challenge themselves about how to translate for profit tools into a for impact environment.

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4.?????? You can make it up as you go along.

One of the common mistakes I see corporate Trustees making is thinking that there isn’t already expertise on an area simply because they haven’t heard of it.

I have seen corporate Trustees from a grant giver assume that monitoring and evaluation in the international development sector is impossible. Despite it being an entire industry, they hadn't heard of it, ergo, it didn’t exist.

I’ve heard corporate Treasurers say that it is impossible to write budgets and forecasts for charities. Again, this is an established area with plenty of experts who can help.

And we've all seen too many Trustees make what are frankly foolish suggestions and assumptions about fundraising – often suggesting actions that are well established as unethical or illegal, or simply na?ve. Fundraising is a complex field, and again there are plenty of experts out there to help.

Appreciating the expertise of the sector and the help that is out there is linked inextricably to having respect for the sector. Recognise that you can't possibly be an expert on all the areas of a completely different sector, but experts are available to help, and you will be a far better Trustee as a result of using them.

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5.?????? Everyone will be impressed with your CV.

Having been the Grand Poo-Bah at the world’s largest corporation is impressive, no one is denying that. But if you’re trying to impress charity staff, they will want to see that you are open to learning, that you recognise what it is that you don’t know, and that you don’t think you know everything already. They want to see that you can translate some of your experience into something that will actually be impactful on their charity.

We've all seen way too many corporate Trustees fail at this hurdle.

I worked with a very senior comms person on a Board once, who instructed his tiny charity team to release ‘two or three press statements a week’. That’s what his twenty-person strong press team did at his massive corporation, and therefore that’s what he thought this charity should do. Problem was, the charity had maybe half a day of marketing time a week from a staff member doing six other jobs as well. What the charity really needed to do was to build good relationships with local journalists so that, when there was something to say, they had the contact and the confidence to get it out there. His comms experience was therefore totally useless to that charity because he was unwilling to learn and he thought his position made him qualified to make this decision. He regularly mentioned his title in Board meetings anytime anyone suggested anything different.

After this, the charity team avoided asking him for any input into comms work.

Now, if you’re the kind of person who is open to learning, this might seem obvious, but the sector is filled with people with impressive CVs whose ego makes them dreadful Trustees. These are the ones who don’t think they need to attend governance training (even though charity Boards have different rules to corporate Boards), and are probably not contributing anything useful in Board and committee discussions.

Charity staff are savvy to this kind of thing because they see it all the time. Trustees who get it will be invited in to apply their skills - charity people LOVE the hive mind and the opportunities that skilled Trustees present. But we quickly learn whose ego makes them essentially useless to the cause.

TL/DR

Charity people are there to have impact. They don’t expect you to know everything, but if you bring respect, humility and the willingness to translate what you know into this wonderful, for impact sector, you will be an absolutely awesome Trustee.

Felicia Willow is an experienced interim CEO (8 charities and counting) and charity consultant working with charities of all sizes located across the UK on strategy, governance and crisis. For more information on her services, go to www.willowcharityconsulting.co.uk, or connect with her via LinkedIn.