Resources / Your first 90 days as a charity trustee: what to do first
Your first 90 days as a charity trustee: what to do first
Your first 90 days as a charity trustee are for understanding before improving. Read the core documents, meet the people, attend your first meetings with questions, and get the formalities done. You share full legal responsibility with the other trustees from your first day, so start with the basics.
You carry the six legal duties in the Commission's core guidance, The Essential Trustee (CC3), from the moment you're appointed. Our guide to what a charity trustee does covers them. You don't need to memorise them in week one. You do need to know they're yours. This guide covers charities in England and Wales.
Before you start: the first week's formalities
- Sign an eligibility declaration. The law automatically disqualifies people from being a trustee for 13 reasons. Confirm in writing that none apply to you, and expect to renew it every year.
- Check the registers are updated. The charity should add you to its trustee list with the Charity Commission. If it's a charitable company, Companies House needs your appointment as a director too, within 14 days.
- Get a DBS check if the role needs one. Trustees of charities working with children or adults at risk usually do. Ask the chair which applies to you.
- Declare your interests and sign the code of conduct. List anything that could pull against the charity's interests. Our guide to trustee conflicts of interest explains what counts.
- Get access to the papers. Ask for the governing document, recent minutes and board packs, the key policies, and whatever email address or shared folder trustees use.
Days 1 to 30: understand the charity
Read before you judge. In the first month, work through:
- the governing document, which sets out what the charity is for and how it must run
- the last annual accounts and trustees' annual report
- minutes of the last three or four board meetings
- the risk register, if there is one
- the key policies: safeguarding, finance, and conflicts of interest at least
- your charity's entry on the public register, checking the filings are up to date
Then meet the chair for an hour. Ask what the board is worried about and what's expected of you between meetings. If the charity has staff, meet the chief executive too, and read our guide to the board and the CEO before you do.
Days 31 to 60: go deeper
- Visit the work if you can. Sit in on a session, a service or a shift. Papers tell you what the charity says it does. A visit shows you what it actually does.
- Understand the money. Where does it come from, and how reliable is that? Which funds are restricted to a purpose? How many months could the charity run if income stopped? If you can't answer these after 60 days, ask the treasurer to walk you through the accounts.
- Ask about safeguarding. Who is the designated lead, and how does a concern reach the board? Every trustee shares this responsibility, whatever the charity does.
- Find where your skills fit. You were asked to join for a reason. Work out where your experience helps, and where you'll need to learn.
Days 61 to 90: start contributing
By the third month you've earned an opinion. Use it.
- Speak in meetings. Ask the question you think is too obvious. It usually isn't, and a new trustee can ask it more freely than anyone else in the room.
- Take something on. One small, defined job: reviewing a policy, joining a committee, or looking at one risk in depth. Keep it a governing job. Our guide to governance vs management explains the line.
- Give feedback on the induction. Tell the chair what helped, what was missing, and what the next new trustee should get. Boards rarely hear this, and it's cheap to fix.
What questions should a new trustee ask?
- What keeps you up at night about this charity?
- When did we last say no to money, and why?
- How do we know the work works?
- What would the last trustee who left say about this board?
- Which decisions are reserved to the board, and which are delegated?
You're not trying to catch anyone out. You're finding out how honestly the board talks to itself.
What if there's no induction?
In many small charities there isn't one. You get a warm welcome, a stack of old papers, and a meeting date. That's normal, and it's fixable. Treat this page as the induction: work through it yourself, ask for each document, and note what you couldn't get. Then tell the chair. What a new trustee can't find in their first month, the board probably can't find either, and that list is a useful first contribution.