Becoming a Trustee

What does this role involve?

The Runnymede Trust has come a long way over the last few years. There's been a significant expansion of the Trust’s income, and the team has grown rapidly. This has created new capacity, new partnerships, and much greater awareness of the Trust’s work in public and political contexts. Trustees are the stewards of the organisation. They have collective responsibility for Runnymede's governance, and for all decisions made by the board. They set our strategic direction, ensuring alignment to our values, and are responsible for setting organisational policy, defining goals, agreeing the financial plan, evaluating performance, and ensuring that strong relationships are maintained between the board and executive leaders. All trustees should bring a leadership mindset that embraces humility, a commitment to learning and being challenged and the ability to listen and respect.

As a Trustee, your responsibilities will include:

• Regularly reviewing our strategy and operations, to ensure they enable us to deliver our vision and mission.
• Overseeing how we deploy our assets and resources (including relationships with external partners), as well as ensuring that our financial controls and policies are fit for purpose, implemented, accessible, and reviewed regularly.
• Establishing effective relationships with other trustees and the Executive Team, enabling both the organisation and the Board to reflect on how to improve their effectiveness, progress and learning.
• Ensuring that we act within our powers, as laid out in our governing documents, as well as comply with all relevant legislation, including the Charities Act 2006.
• Acting in the best interests of Runnymede's mission, avoiding actual and/or potential conflicts of interest while maximising contribution and impact.
• Embodying our values and holding yourself, the organisation and our Executive Team to account, while leading by example.
• Building connections, influence and opportunity for Runnymede by championing us and our mission

Expertise we seek

In this round of recruitment, we seek specifically to appoint two trustees with additional expertise in Charity Law and Fundraising, as well as a Trustee with the financial skills to act as our Treasurer. Details of each of these roles can be found in the downloadable role descriptions on this page.

Time commitment

We ask that you dedicate around 6-10 hours per month to fulfil this important role. This will include attending quarterly board meetings (and additional subcommittee meetings as needed), as well as participating in strategic planning sessions and other organisational activities.