Diverse trustee boards are not always possible

I read with great interest an article in The Guardian titled ‘Alarming’ lack of diversity among charity trustees in England and Wales’ while I obviously agree a diverse board is an excellent option to have this is not always possible to achieve instantly.

I think it is obvious why white and disproportionally male people, would dominate the committees in a country that is 86% White, 8% Asian/Asian British and 3% Black/African/Caribbean/Black British. They are called minorities for a reason, there is not as many, thus harder to find suitable persons.

As an English white man, I sit on a management committee in which 25% I would say are from minority backgrounds and retention of people alone for such unpaid roles is a major uphill challenge. I know that we can only wish for an influx of people willing to give up their time for nothing and take on the burdening responsibilities associated with being a trustee, let alone the blessing of them being from diverse backgrounds.

If we went out specifically looking for black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds based purely on the skin colour then for me you would be opening a whole new can of worms when it comes to discriminating people.

I cannot believe people would sit there and judge people for a position based on skin colour or background. It is wrong.

For me, if you apply for a role and are suitable for the position that is what we should be judging, not using people to tick our political correctness boxes.

It all depends on where you live if you live in a predominately black area chances are white people will be underrepresented on the committees and vice versa.

I think this is all pretty self-explanatory really.

Paid roles are different

Having said all of the above, I wanted to add that I believe the opportunities to be more diverse increase when people can travel from other communities to work because they pick up remuneration for their time and travel.

People are obviously not going to travel 30-40 miles to attend a trustee meeting in another community they are not being paid for.

The post Diverse trustee boards are not always possible appeared first on Charity Today News.