Action for Trustee Racial Diversity (ATRD), the organisation founded specifically to increase racial diversity in charity boards, has partnered with social sector consultancy and recruitment organisation, Eastside People, to tackle jointly the issues around the longstanding and seemingly intractable under-representation of people from Black and Asian communities on trustee Boards. With research showing that only 8% of trustees in UK charities are from Black and Asian backgrounds and under 3% are “women of colour” (fewer than 20,000 out of 700.000), the charity sector clearly has much to do.
As part of the partnership agreement, Eastside People will provide funding support to enable the development of targeted joint initiatives and promote trustee and Chair vacancies to ATRD Connects, ATRD’s peer support network for Black and Asian aspiring and current trustees and Black and Asian Future Chairs’ Academy (BAFCA) members.
Eastside People’s specialist consultants will also offer a one-to-one programme of support on a pro bono basis to a cohort of ATRD Connects members. This will involve options of CV coaching, interview skills training and mentoring support to help candidates take on trustee roles and/or participate in the BAFCA programme.
Commenting on the new partnership, Bernice Rook, Director of People at Eastside People said “Everyone at Eastside People appreciates the need to include more racial diversity in charity boards. As a result of this partnership and funding, our team of specialist consultants and experienced mentors will work with ATRD to help them achieve their goal of enabling 10,000 more Black and Asian trustees in UK charities by 2026, which will be of benefit to the entire sector.”
“We are excited that our partnership with Eastside People and the associated funding will help us to grow our membership and support them in a more focused way to achieve their aspirations of becoming charity trustees and chairs,” said Malcolm John, Founder of ATRD. “We look forward to this partnership helping charities to successfully recruit and retain trustees from Black and Asian backgrounds, address the barriers and challenges facing potential applicants and drive social impact.”
About Action for Trustee Racial Diversity (ATRD)
ATRD aims to provide charities with knowledge, resources, toolkits, networks and specialist advice to enable them to take practical steps to increase the longstanding and seemingly intractable under-representation and lack of racial diversity of their Boards. ATRD is supported by key sector infrastructure and support organisations including ACEVO, Association of Chairs, Charity People, Full Colour Consultancy, Getting on Board, Reach Volunteering and Young Trustees Movement and now Eastside People. Its main funder is The Co-op Foundation.
#ActionnotWords
