As the co-author of a recently published book, Hilary McGowan, Governance and Leadership Consultant and AIM Associate Supplier, offers Top Tips for museums of all sizes to recruit new Trustees, and ensure that they settle in so they can be effective.
Many museums may find it difficult to recruit new trustees. Your starting point for trustee recruitment should be a skills analysis with a timescale attached according to when you will need these skills and expertise. If you face difficulties, the Board should look outside themselves, beyond their immediate sphere of influence.
Too many museums, especially if they are wholly volunteer run, can appear from the outside to be a cosy club. The same people being associated with a museum for a long time runs the risk of projecting the wrong image locally, so putting potential volunteers off because they believe it’s a very long-term commitment.
If this is the case for you, then identifying the drawbacks of your local image may be the key to widening your recruitment.
Every member of the Board should talk honestly to as many people as possible about their perception of the museum and not only talk to those like themselves. Prepare to be surprised, and maybe upset, but you will undoubtedly learn from the various opinions. If people do not feel strongly about the museum and may only know it exists in a vague sort of way if it doesn’t interest them, even these people’s perceptions are still useful to you. Then the Board can share their experiences and formulate a communications plan to improve your image.
AIM has a series of Guides for Boards and the one called Running an Open Recruitment Process has much sensible advice. Even if you are satisfied with your recruitment in the past, it may help you to read this Guide as a refresher.
Having informative paperwork about the recruitment (role description and information about the museum) will demonstrate that you know how to recruit from outside and show those new to the museum that you are professional. There is advice in the AIM Guide and in other publications such as that of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) who published a Toolkit. Use these templates but make it personal, focus it very much on your museum and your USP; use an active voice and a positive tone. If it reads as a generic document, it will not inspire anyone to apply!
Once recruited, helping new Trustees to settle in and become effective takes more than simply running a couple of hours of induction training.
There are two aspects to trustee induction:
– information about what being a trustee of a charity means, the legal responsibilities and the role of external bodies such as the Charity Commission in England and Wales, the Scottish Charity Regulator, or the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland
and
– the museum and heritage sector itself, particularly the responsibilities concerning collections, sites and buildings, and the Code of Ethics.
New trustees will need to have not only the legal paperwork and your governing document but up to date accounts and the annual report, lists of their colleagues and committees, a diary of meeting dates, strategic and business plans, your Acquisitions and Disposal policies, a Trustee and/or Staff Handbook, a guidebook or site plans, promotional literature, events and exhibition programmes.
Encourage new Trustees to spend time in the museum, talking to volunteers and visitors, getting to know staff if you have them, so they do not only visit for formal meetings.
Some people may be experienced at being a Trustee of a charity, but they can often be new to the heritage sector. Many of the larger legal firms run training courses for new trustees and these are usually free of charge to a charity. However, if you use any of these, you need to factor in that a large part of being a museum trustee is knowledge and understanding of our sector, so make additional provision to cover this aspect. AIM themselves run online Induction courses which include the museum elements, as you’d expect.
While this article is specifically about trustees, the same principles can be applied to recruiting and diversifying your volunteers. Your museum leadership will benefit from a strong and coherent Board who understands the sector.
Leadership of Inclusive and Sustainable Cultural Organisations: a practical guide by Piotr Bienkowski & Hilary McGowan, 2025. ISBN 9781032507521
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