You have just become a trustee

Six duties, what you are liable for, and what to do in your first six months.

You have been asked to join a board, you said yes, and nobody handed you anything. This is what the job actually involves.

Trustees are the people with ultimate responsibility for a charity. You might be called a director, a governor, a committee member or a board member; if you are one of the people in charge and you are not being paid to run it, you are almost certainly a trustee.

The six duties

The Charity Commission sets these out in its guidance The essential trustee (CC3).

Carry out the purposes the charity was set up for, for the public benefit, and no other purposes.
Comply with the governing document and the law. Read your governing document. Most trustees have not, and it is where the answer to a surprising number of arguments lives.
Act in the charity's best interests. What you and your fellow trustees, and nobody else, decide will best let the charity carry out its purposes. That includes managing conflicts of interest.
Manage the charity's resources responsibly. Its money, its people, its property and its reputation, used only to support its purposes.
Act with reasonable care and skill, using what you know and taking advice when you do not.
Make sure the charity is accountable, including meeting the statutory accounting and reporting requirements.

Trustees act together

Decisions belong to the board, not to individuals. You are jointly responsible for what the board decides, including decisions taken at a meeting you missed. If you disagree with something serious, have your disagreement minuted.

Are you personally liable?

You can be liable to the charity for losses caused by acting improperly, but the law generally protects trustees who have acted honestly and reasonably. In practice the risks that catch boards out are trading while insolvent, breaching restrictions on restricted funds, and failing to act on something they were warned about. Incorporated structures such as a CIO or a charitable company limit personal exposure, and trustee indemnity insurance covers some of the rest.

The first six months

Read the governing document, the last two sets of accounts and the last six months of minutes.
Find out what the reserves are and whether there is a policy.
Ask what the charity would do if its largest funder stopped tomorrow.
Check you are on the register of trustees at the Commission, and that the entry is right.
Declare anything that could look like a conflict, even if you are sure it is not one.

England and Wales. In Scotland the regulator is OSCR and in Northern Ireland it is the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland; the duties are similar but the rules differ.

Questions

Can trustees be paid?

Usually not for being a trustee. Reasonable expenses are fine, and payment for goods or services is sometimes allowed if the governing document permits it and the conflicted trustee takes no part in the decision.

How many trustees should we have?

Your governing document sets the minimum and maximum. Three is a common minimum and most boards work best somewhere between five and twelve.

What if I want to resign?

You can, in writing, following whatever your governing document says. Resigning does not undo responsibility for decisions taken while you were on the board.