The service might be closed, the staff furloughed, and you are having to self-isolate, yet the roles and responsibilities of a trustee continue.

In fact your role might be busier than ever as you try to cope with the serious financial challenges that the lockdown is having on your charity. As a trustee board you may have to make decisions on how to adapt to provide a COVID-19 response to the communities you support.

No longer able to meet face to face

Even though the lockdown rules mean you can’t have a face to face trustee meeting, we recommend trustees still discuss the needs of the charity.

The Charity Commission’s Coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance for the charity sector provides advice on postponing or cancelling meetings. As well as conducting virtual meetings. You might have a clause in your governing document about allowing to meet virtually. If you don’t, then you should record this decision and the reason being that there was a need to do this, to carry out good governance of your charity.

Financial challenges

The essential trustee guidance explains that it is the legal duty of a trustee to act in the best interests of the charity.

As grant opportunities for non-COVID-19 initiatives reduce and trading options such as running a café are no longer options, a trustee board will need to consider if it is in the best interests of the charity to reduce costs in order to be there to support beneficiaries in the future. This is alongside meeting the immediate needs of the charity’s beneficiaries, with the possibility that in future the charity will have to reduce its services or close entirely.

There may not be an obvious ‘right’ decision for a trustee board to make. However, by following suggested steps in the Charity Commission’s guidance for managing financial difficulties in your charity caused by Coronavirus, a trustee board can understand their charity’s financial position better, create a plan, and make the appropriate decisions.

If your trustee board would like help in deciding how to manage your financial situation please send us a message. Use the “support for your organisation” in the reason for contact drop down box.

How to talk virtually

Finally it’s alright saying meet virtually, but how do you do this? Catalyst is a charitable network which helps the voluntary sector strengthen its digital capabilities. They have produced a short guide to help charities choose the right video call software for their needs. They have also created online guides to help charities use Zoom, Skype and Google Hangouts.

VAL’s Chair, Linda Jones, has also written about her experience of running VAL’s first virtual board meeting.

Get support from VAL

If you are a charity or community group and you need additional support to deliver services during the pandemic, VAL is here to help.

We can offer advice on issues that affect charities, from fundraising to proper governance and managing volunteers.

You get can in touch via:

helpline@valonline.org.uk
0116 257 5050

 

I think it is crucially important for trustee boards to continue to meet. Trustees’ responsibilities remain and we need an effective means of carrying them out. Good governance means that we need to make key decisions about the organisation, its people – staff and volunteers – its services, and its finance.

Given the huge potential impact, we decided at VAL and Voluntary Action South Leicestershire (VASL) to each develop a specific COVID-19 Risk Register. This helped us identify all of the risks, including People, Finance, Services, Premises, Reputation, Data Protection/GDPR, and determine the actions we can take now, and in the future, to mitigate the negative impact – and maximise the opportunities. At VASL, we also decided to increase the regularity of our board meetings, from every two months to monthly, recognising that we need to monitor the impact and be available to make key decisions.

We have used Zoom to hold our board meetings. I had never used it before so my first step was to do some online training about how to host and manage Zoom meetings. There’s lots of tutorials on YouTube but Zoom provides excellent live online training or you can watch their recorded training events. After a couple of these I was ready to go! I have found it a great way to hold effective meetings. There isn’t the same interaction, of course, but it allows the trustees to exercise their responsibilities effectively.

Some tips from me:

• Plan the meeting, as you would any board, with clear agendas and supporting papers
• Be clear about what you need to achieve, what decisions are required
• Enable all trustees to participate and contribute to the discussions. If it’s a large board, getting everyone to ‘mute’ themselves, only speaking when you signal to them that it’s their turn, really helps to avoid possible mayhem!
• Minute the meeting, as usual, and follow through on actions.

Communication is the key to an effective organisation and board. Keep trustees advised of what is going on through regular emails and updates. If important decisions need to be taken, these can often be done by email – recording it in the minutes of the next board meeting – or one of the great things about virtual meetings is that you can call a short meeting at a ‘press of a button’.

Helen Oparinde, VAL Development Officer for our Voluntary Sector Support team, has also written an accompanying blog post about virtual trustee meetings.

Get support from VAL

If you are a charity or community group and you need additional support to deliver services during the pandemic, VAL is here to help.

We can offer advice on issues that affect charities, from fundraising to proper governance and managing volunteers.

You get can in touch via:

helpline@valonline.org.uk
0116 257 5050