Trustee matchmaking for the next generation

Trustee recruitment is a revealing indicator of the pressures facing arts and culture organisations. In its three years of operation, RIAC (Responsible Influence in Arts & Culture) has supported 42 trustee appointments across the UK arts and culture sector, a sufficient volume to reveal clear patterns in what organisations are now seeking from governance.

RIAC – the network for NextGen arts trustees – was set up to widen access to arts governance. We match aspiring first-time trustees with arts organisations, pairing each new trustee with an experienced mentor, and building a community through regular events and networking. 

Recently, fundraising has been at the top of the required skills list – and it’s the area most trustees find they contribute to on joining a board. Next come trustees with legal, business strategy and marketing experience; all areas at the core of how organisations function and grow, so increasingly represented at board level.

Finally, we’re seeing growing interest in trustees with sustainability, tech and AI expertise, an area where NextGen trustees can add real value. These roles help boards navigate ethical and operational questions and ensure appropriate digital infrastructure is in place, underpinned by robust data. 

What these shifts reflect about the sector

Our conversations with arts professionals reflect the intersecting pressures of financially-straitened times, increasing complexity and accountability of arts organisations and a redefinition of ‘good governance’. In a context of reduced public funding, rising costs and fragile business models, boards are expected to stress-test assumptions, support leadership through difficult decisions and engage credibly with funders.

Greater scrutiny from funders and increasingly complex reporting requirements have intensified expectations of boards, requiring trustees who are confident navigating complexity and engaging critically with business models.

What is shifting, it seems, is not the importance of governance itself, but its function. Where trusteeship was perhaps previously associated with profile, advocacy or symbolic support, boards are now being asked something more demanding: to offer their time, attention and willingness to engage with uncertainty and risk. Increasingly, boards are framed as decision-making bodies that are also ethical and financial guardians.

A diverse sector needs diverse trustees

What has not changed is the extraordinary diversity of the arts and culture ecology itself. Over the past three years, RIAC has worked with organisations spanning puppetry and large-scale installation, affordable artist studios, as well as music, dance and theatre. That range alone resists any suggestion of a single model of governance, or a uniform set of needs. Instead, effective governance is highly context specific. In this sense, skills-led recruitment is not about importing a standardised board template, but about aligning governance capacity with organisational reality.

The trustees coming forward through RIAC reflect this widening of pathways rather than a narrowing of profiles. All our appointments to date have been first-time trustees. Four in five are aged between 20 and 49, and 42% non-white. For many of the organisations we work with, these are individuals they would struggle to reach through traditional recruitment routes, despite a strong desire to diversify both experience and perspective around the board table.

RIAC trustees and candidates come from a broad range of backgrounds – from law firms to finance, accountancy, media, strategy consulting – yet all share a passion for arts and culture and a dedication to promoting access to the full spectrum of arts practice especially for those who haven’t traditionally felt able to access the arts.

Arts organisations tell us that having trustees from outside the arts world “is a real bonus”, helping to “broaden perspectives and introduce new paradigms”, expanding networks and relationships across sectors and ultimately contributing to long-term stability. 

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Having trustees from outside the arts world ‘is a real bonus’

Meaning and alignment: what new trustees are looking for

While three years ago, conversations often revolved around career- and skills-building, now, meaning and alignment are at the forefront, with 75% of candidates telling us they want to “use their expertise to give back”.

Candidates increasingly distinguish between consuming culture and contributing to cultural access and opportunity, the latter driving their decision to take on trusteeship. An organisation’s social impact, who it serves and why its work matters now are key factors in their interest.

In turn, this reflects what organisations want: trustees who will attend performances, who advocate in their professional and personal networks, and who show up in every sense.

Access and reach: why RIAC’s work matters more than ever

Arts organisations often tell us how challenging it is to reach young professionals and those outside traditional arts networks. RIAC focuses on widening these governance pipelines to support sector resilience. From the outset, we made a deliberate decision that RIAC should be free at the point of use – for both arts organisations and prospective trustees. That principle is core to our mission: if governance pathways are to widen, cost cannot be a barrier.

At the same time, our work is not free to deliver. Matchmaking, mentoring and long-term relationship building require time, expertise and care. Like many of the organisations we support, RIAC operates through a mixed funding model, relying on trusts and foundations, individual donors and a small number of corporate partners to underwrite delivery. In many ways, this mirrors the sector itself: values-led, access-driven work sustained through a patchwork of support.

Our experience of placing first-time trustees in over 30 charities in the past two years alone suggests this is not a marginal concern. It is possible to widen governance pipelines while responding to the specific skills pressures arts and culture organisations now face. But doing so requires time, care and sustained infrastructure.

As trustee recruitment becomes core infrastructure for the arts, greater attention is needed on how to make that possible. Supporting that work will require continued engagement from arts organisations, trustees and funders alike.