Accessible Governance: Breaking Down Barriers to Strengthen Your Board

This article is based on the "Accessible Governance: How to strengthen your board" webinar, delivered in partnership between NCVO and iBabs.

In a climate where 60% of charity boards are currently carrying vacancies, making governance more accessible has never been more crucial. During a recent webinar hosted in partnership with iBabs, Sally Stephens, lead governance consultant at NCVO, shared valuable insights on how organisations can simplify board processes, reduce complexity and empower trustees.

Why accessible governance matters

Governance is fundamental to leading organisations effectively. As Stephens emphasised, "Without good governance in our organisations, we simply cannot move forward." Yet many charities struggle with making this vital leadership function approachable and inclusive.

Three compelling reasons make accessible governance essential:

1. It's fundamental to organisational leadership. Governance provides the guide rails and structures organisations need to make effective decisions and progress.
2. Diverse decision-making delivers better outcomes. "We benefit from decisions made by diverse groups of people," Stephens noted, highlighting that UK governance standards require collective decision-making.
3. Boards are struggling to fill roles. Recent research by NCVO revealed that 60% of charity boards have at least one vacancy, with 80% of micro-charities reporting that this shortage of volunteers is hindering their organisational development. A substantial proportion of these vacancies remain unfilled for over six months.

Breaking down barriers to governance

Several barriers can prevent people from engaging with charity governance:

The complexity misconception

Many perceive governance as administrative, bureaucratic, and complex. "Seniority doesn't need to equal complexity," Stephens pointed out, "and being high level shouldn't create a barrier to those people who aren't maybe working at that level in their day jobs or in the rest of their lives."

Lack of familiarity with charity structures

Many people, even those working in the charity sector, aren't familiar with how charity boards function. This lack of understanding creates an immediate hurdle when trying to recruit new trustees.

Jargon and specific language

The governance space is filled with terminology that isn't commonly used elsewhere. "'Trustee' is a word that doesn't really exist elsewhere," Stephens noted, adding that acronyms like SORP (Statement of Recommended Practice) and SODA (Scheme of Delegated Authority) can alienate newcomers.

Wide-ranging decision topics

Charity governance covers an extensive range of topics - from HR and finance to programme development and marketing. "It's quite rare that you're going to get anyone stepping into a governance space, even the most qualified of people, who feels really expert in all of the topics that we need to cover," Stephens explained.

Making governance more accessible: Core principles

To make governance more inclusive and approachable, Stephens outlined several key principles:

Focus on good decision-making

At its core, governance is about making good decisions—not about bureaucracy, box-ticking, or administration. "If what you find when you look at your governance is that there are so many boxes to tick, so many hoops to jump through, that actually you are not managing to bring people into that and it feels difficult to make a decision... that probably means your governance isn't as accessible as it could be," Stephens advised.

Utilise available guidance

There's valuable, straightforward guidance available to help organisations strengthen their governance while keeping it accessible:

• The Charity Commission offers five-minute guides (in both video and written formats) that outline the basics of good governance.
• The Charity Governance Code provides a model of good practice, with different tiers designed for organisations of varying sizes.
• NCVO's Governance Wheel helps boards assess their performance against the Charity Governance Code framework.

Implement time-saving tools

Using digital tools can significantly improve governance efficiency. "You can use some really easy and simple tools to actually simplify the process of organising decision making within your organisation," explained Jonathan Bennett from iBabs.

These tools can help with:

• Managing meeting logistics
• Sharing papers in a timely manner
• Securely distributing documents
• Recording meeting outcomes
• Tracking actions and decisions

Building more diverse boards

With 80% of charity boards carrying vacancies, many organisations are looking for strategies to recruit new trustees. Stephens suggested several approaches:

Tap into specialist networks

Various organisations exist to help connect charities with potential trustees from different backgrounds:

• The Young Trustees Movement encourages people under 30 to become trustees
• Action for Trustee Racial Diversity helps organisations connect with people from diverse ethnic backgrounds

Share opportunities widely

"We tend in the sector to still recruit by networks," Stephens observed, "and in many ways that does reduce access to governance because it relies on people being part of those networks."

Instead, she recommends:

• Creating open, transparent recruitment processes
• Advertising widely, including on your website
• Sharing opportunities through multiple networks—work connections, friends, family, and asking them to share further

Build an effective recruitment process

Having a clear process in place before you start recruiting is essential. Stephens recommended looking at resources like the Reach Volunteering recruitment cycle, which outlines the steps needed to move candidates from application to induction.

Making board meetings more effective

For governance to be truly accessible, board meetings themselves must be structured to enable good decision-making:

Prepare effectively

Bennett emphasised the importance of information sharing: "If you want people to prepare effectively, I think the key thing is to make sure that you're sharing information in a timely way and in a way that is accessible."

This might include:

• Providing concise summaries of lengthy documents
• Ensuring papers are available in accessible formats
• Making sure information can be accessed on mobile devices

Structure agendas clearly

Stephens suggested structuring agendas to clearly indicate what each item requires:

• Which items require discussion
• Which need decisions
• Which are for information only

"If in every single paper... the action can be your top line, 'action for this paper: approve that new health and safety policy,' that actually means that trustees who've got more limited time, they may be flicking to the first page of every paper and going, 'right, the action here is to approve the health and safety policy.”

Recognise different expertise

Not every trustee needs to be deeply familiar with every topic. "I don't think trustees always need to read every paper," Stephens noted, suggesting that trustees focus on areas where they have expertise or where legal responsibilities are involved.