Are you a Charity Trustee? Then you have a rich and enthralling history.

Key to being a Trustee in Great Britain is charity law, a law established in 1601 by Queen Elizabeth. This was along with poor relief and poor houses. At core the Act ensured that those having ultimate oversight of charities should be people who did not financially benefit from their commitment. In other words, it was, and is, vital that those volunteering for the role could be trusted; hence in law you are a ‘Trustee’, i.e. someone who can be trusted to keep focused on what is best for the service user or cause.

In these modern times it is difficult to imagine just how fundamental charities were to alleviating poverty, social care and welfare, housing and education. There was little else out with support of family and the kindness of strangers. This multiplicity of charities, often with a religious basis, all had Trustees, who also fundraised and worked on the frontline. Over the years Trustees were involved in various schemes to help raise funds including mass subscribing to finance a hospital and adopting corporate financial models for providing loans.

However vital the charity sectors the ‘voluntary impulse’ could not check the ravaging of people’s lives and circumstances of the industrial revolution. Other interventions were needed, and then again after the 1914-18 War. The State first commissioned welfare from charities then, especially after the 1939-45 War, took over many charities to run the services themselves and integrate them into nations-wide, big systems such as the recently established NHS.

There was no place for Trustees in this new world.

However, it proved impossible for the State to resource cradle to the grave services. From the 1970’s onwards national and local governments grant funded charities (and social enterprises) to provide for a whole range of social and community concerns. Trustees were back, if not fully appreciated, guiding charities (in partnership with their staff) through procurement, commissioning, intensifying regulations, national financial crisis and a pandemic.

Trustees have remained, usually, volunteers. Volunteers essential to our social care and welfare provision. What if all volunteer Trustees were, for whatever reason, to disappear? It would be a crisis beyond imagining.

Enjoy Trustee Week!