Achieving racial diversity on the board

Malcolm John, trustee at Association of Chairs and founder of Action for Trustee Racial Diversity, reflects on our ‘Achieving racial diversity on the board’ webinar which was an opportunity for Chairs and Vice Chairs across the sector to come together, share learning and make a commitment to recruiting more diversely.

A packed screen of 53 Chairs and Vice Chairs of small and large charities from Somerset to Edinburgh, South Wales to Newcastle assembled expectantly at the recent Association of Chairs online peer event on Achieving Board Racial Diversity.

53 Chairs can’t be wrong, can they? Not one of them encountered any resistance from their boards to encouraging board diversity though arguably they would not have been attending if they had! 70% stated that there was commitment on their boards to building a more racially diverse board. 45% were looking for practical ideas on how to increase racial diversity on their boards. 43% said that their board lacked access to BAME networks. Only 20% said that they had been successful in attracting or retaining trustees from non-white backgrounds. 20% said that, whilst their board talks about racial diversity, it’s not being acted on as a priority.

Much of the animated discussion focused on barriers and challenges to achieving a more racially diverse board. Key barriers included:

• Challenges for charities in rural or other areas without significant Black and Asian populations
• Lack of knowledge of BAME networks
• Lack of capacity to build and develop local relationships
• Lack of time and resources
• Difficulty in retaining Black and Asian trustees once recruited
• Issue of member-led organisations only recruiting by election from their members.

There was overwhelming demand for practical advice, guidance and solutions. Solutions offered included:

• Commitment to open advertising of vacancies and moving away from tapping your own informal networks and contacts
• Access to BAME network organisations such as the one being developed by the campaign Action for Trustee Racial Diversity
• Practical examples and case studies of successful recruitment of BAME trustees
• Guidance on using social media effectively to attract younger and more diverse candidates
• Not just recruiting a single Black and Asian trustee
• Guidance on how to sell the charity and pitch recruitment adverts to attract people from Black and Asian backgrounds; focusing on skills, not diversity
• Resources to support recruitment of Black and Asian trustees such as a how to guide
• Ring-fencing of trustee vacancies for Black and Asian applicants
• Information on development and training and ongoing mentoring for new Black and Asian trustees
• Using Board sub-committees or “shadowing” as a way of developing a pipeline of Black and Asian trustees
• Appointing a board diversity champion
• Data and information on barriers, perhaps collected from focus groups, and on tools that work to overcome barriers.

Overall, the event was very much welcomed and appreciated by those attending. Most relished the opportunity to hear from peers looking to address the same issues and to hear from the much smaller number who had been successful in recruiting BAME trustees. Most committed to future action but patently recognised that they would need a good deal of time, commitment, resources and expert support to get to where they wanted. We see this as being a positive first step on a hopefully not too long journey towards greater racial diversity on trustee boards. Continue to watch this space.

This was the first of three events aimed at addressing the lack of diversity on trustee boards. We will be holding an online session on why and how to recruit young trustees on 6 October and a panel discussion on 26 November which will look at how Chairs can encourage more diversity on their boards and why it’s important.

For more information:

Getting on Board’s practical guide for trustee recruitment and the associated blog post from ACEVO by Penny Wilson.

Malcolm John leads Action for Trustee Racial Diversity. You can contact him about his database of BAME networks at: malcjohn18@gmail.com

You can also read Malcolm’s blog post: Why focus on racial diversity and Recruiting trustees from Black and Asian networks – it really isn’t rocket science.

Further reading:

Who is sitting around your board table? Association of Chairs blog post by Janet Thorne. This blog reviews the factors that help, or hinder, in recruiting a strong, diverse board. It’s based on the report Recruiting the best trustees: 15 perspectives on what helps and what hinders the trustee recruitment process.

Charity Governance Awards: The Charity Governance Awards celebrates outstanding governance and trusteeship, with a specific category for board diversity and inclusion. It’s an opportunity to read details of what others have done.

ACEVO Home Truths Report explores the experiences and expertise of over 500 BAME people. Those participating in the research shared their experiences of racism in the sector and also told us what they thought needed to change in order to create true culture change.