Recruiting Trustees: top tips for trustee adverts!

As part of our 2026 campaign Is Trustee For Me? Kerry McGrath, our Group Support and Volunteering Manager, wrote a blog post, advising voluntary and community sector groups and charities how best to approach trustee adverts.

Recruiting trustees can seem like a real challenge sometimes.  Trustees play such an important role in ‘steering the ship’, making important decisions and overseeing the work and strategy of an organisation.  You’re keen to recruit the right people for the role and create the right mix on the board, but sometimes it’s difficult to know where to start in terms of the advert.

We also risk leaving out some important information about what our organisation actually does and how we support the community! 

So, with all that in mind, we’ve compiled some top tips that you might want to consider when penning your next trustee advert.

Who are you and what do you do?   

This is so important, but sometimes it’s easy to dive in and talk about who you’re looking for and miss this bit out. Start at the beginning with some information about your organisation and who you support. This will grab people’s attention and give them a flavour of the organisation that they might be applying to.  

Think about...

• What impact does your organisation have? 

• What have people said about your project/ service?

Feed these bits into your advert to give people an idea of the bigger picture of who you are and the impact you have.

Be specific about the skills and experience that you’re looking for: 

It can be easy to fall into the trap of putting out a generic advert that outlines they key roles and responsibilities of a trustee, but not much about the skills and experience that you’re looking to attract. You will probably be advertising alongside other charities, so you need to set yourselves apart!

Sometimes a good way of doing this is appealing for specific specialisms that will also result in the diverse range of skills and expertise you want on your board. For example, you might be looking specifically for someone with a background in :

• Business Development

• Supporting Children and Young People

• Finance

• Volunteer Management

• Events and Fundraising

• Marketing and Communications.

By being specific and appealing for these specialisms, you will be grabbing the attention of people who possess these skills and expertise, and they will be more likely to read on and apply.

Remember that less is more:

People don’t always have time to read reams of content, and if this is the initial advert, the key is to provide just enough information to grab the reader’s attention. You can always send them an application pack later on when they register an interest, which will provide a more comprehensive information about the role.   

Invite to find out more:    

Always invite them to contact you to find out more. You could suggest an initial discovery call where they can meet you and find out more about the role. Or maybe they would like to visit, or meet an existing trustee? Offering this might just spark their interest and encourage them to find out more.   

We can advertise your role for free!

For many years now, we’ve offered a free platform for organisations to advertise their volunteer opportunities with us, including trustee roles. If you already have an account with us, you just need to log in and add your role.  We will then feature it for you in the volunteering section of the VAR website, where people can browse our volunteer roles and apply direct to you.  

If you don't have an account with us, or just want an more of a chat about this, please contact Kerry McGrath for more information.  

Tel: 07716 919416 | Email: kerry.mcgrath@varotherham.org.uk

Where else can you find trustees? 

• Social Media.

• LinkedIn.

• Feature the advert in your organisations' newsletter and other communications. 

• The REACH website specialises in volunteer recruitment and has some more info on Trustee recruitment – Reach Volunteering.

How do we achieve diversity on our board?

Finally, the most common question that we get asked is ‘how do we make our board of trustees more diverse?’  There is no easy answer to this, but we would encourage you to go out  into the community and visit local groups to showcase what you do as an organisation.  Maybe take some trustees with you and appeal directly to local people.  

Relying on the same communication methods risks getting the same results, so sometimes we need to think outside the box.   Who do you want to attract?   Where are they?   How can you engage with them effectively?  And remember to utilise your existing contacts and networks!