Trustees' Week 2026: 10 Ways to Actually Use It
Trustees' Week is an annual UK-wide celebration of the volunteer trustees who govern charities, run by a coalition of sector bodies; Trustees' Week 2026 runs from 9 to 13 November 2026. The fixed dates make it a useful hook for recruitment, since vacancy boards and social platforms see a genuine uplift in trustee-related content during the week. Ten concrete actions, from running a skills audit to publishing trustee profiles, can turn it into real governance progress rather than a symbolic gesture.
Step-by-step version: How do we work out what skills our trustee board is missing? — from our guide to running a UK charity.
What Trustees’ Week is
Big charities have a governance lead who’ll build a plan for Trustees’ Week 2026. At my small charity there is no such person — governance happens around the day job, evenings and weekends included — and this guide is written for that reality. Trustees’ Week 2026 runs from 9 to 13 November: an annual UK campaign that celebrates and supports the volunteer trustees who govern charities, coordinated by a coalition including NCVO, the Charity Commission and other sector bodies, with events, resources and recruitment pushes running across the week. It exists partly to say thank you — the Charity Commission register counts 921,770 trustee positions in England and Wales (more sector numbers on our UK charity statistics page) — and partly to encourage more people, especially from under-represented backgrounds, to consider trusteeship.
For most small charities, Trustees’ Week matters less as an event to attend and more as a calendar-fixed reason to finally do the governance admin that otherwise gets pushed back all year. That is exactly how I treat it at mine.
10 ways to use it
The most effective way to use Trustees’ Week is to pick two or three of the ten actions below and actually complete them, rather than attempting all ten and finishing none, since small charities typically have limited capacity even during a themed week. Each of these links to a deeper guide if you want to go further — our charity governance handbook collects the full set in one place.
From experience: Trustees’ Week works at a small charity only if you treat it like a booked commitment rather than a theme. What works at my own board is choosing two actions, giving each a named owner and a date in the diary before the week starts, and letting the other eight go without guilt. The gap between paper governance and practised governance is rarely knowledge — it’s diary space.
1. Run a skills audit
Map your current trustees’ skills against what your strategy needs over the next three years, using a simple grid (see the free skills audit below). Gaps identified this week can shape your recruitment brief immediately.
2. Post a vacancy this week
Trustee vacancy boards see genuine seasonal traffic during Trustees’ Week, so if you have a gap, this is the week to post it. See our trustee recruitment guide for where to post and how to write a brief that attracts the right candidates — our trustee role descriptions give you a starting draft.
3. Publish trustee profiles on your website
Short bios and photos of your board build public trust and help prospective trustees picture themselves in the role. This is a small task that most charities never quite get round to outside a themed week.
4. Book an induction refresh
Even experienced trustees benefit from revisiting the fundamentals. Use the week to schedule a refresher session using our trustee induction checklist.
5. Thank your trustees properly
A genuine, specific thank-you, referencing what each trustee actually contributed this year, costs nothing and meaningfully improves retention. Speaking as a trustee myself: it lands very differently from a round-robin email.
6. Review your board’s diversity
Compare your board’s makeup against your beneficiary community and your local population, and note any gaps to address in your next recruitment round.
7. Host a “so you want to be a trustee” info session
A short, informal online session demystifies the role for people who might never otherwise apply. Link to our become a trustee guide as pre-reading.
8. Update your governing document check
Confirm your governing document still reflects how your board actually operates, and flag any changes needed for your next AGM.
9. Set term limits if you haven’t already
Long-serving boards without term limits can drift into insularity. Use the week to propose or review term-limit policy if it’s missing.
10. Share your impact with your trustees
Give your board a proper, current picture of what their governance has enabled this year, not just financial figures but real outcomes.
The skills audit (free grid)
A trustee skills audit is a simple grid mapping the skills, experience and networks your board currently has against what your organisation’s strategy will need over the next few years, making gaps visible before they become urgent. Run it during Trustees’ Week so any gaps found feed straight into a recruitment push while vacancy boards are getting extra traffic.
List your current trustees down one side and key skill areas across the top, such as finance, safeguarding, legal, fundraising, digital, HR and lived experience of your beneficiary group, then mark who covers each area. Empty columns are your recruitment brief. Of the ten actions, the audit is the one I’d do first — gaps stay invisible until you put them in a grid.
Recruiting: where to post this week
The most effective places to post a trustee vacancy during Trustees’ Week are dedicated trustee vacancy boards, your local Council for Voluntary Service, sector-specific networks, and your own social channels and newsletter, since a themed week gives your post extra visibility and urgency. Posting in multiple places at once, rather than relying on a single board, significantly widens your candidate pool.
For a full walkthrough of writing the vacancy itself, running interviews fairly, and onboarding a new trustee well, see our complete trustee recruitment guide, and pair a successful recruitment with a proper induction so new trustees are effective quickly.
Your next step
Pick two or three actions from the list above that you can realistically complete this week, starting with the skills audit if you haven’t done one recently, since it will tell you exactly what your recruitment brief should say. Don’t try to do all ten, focused progress beats a scattered attempt at everything.
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Frequently asked questions
Trustees' Week 2026 runs from 9 to 13 November 2026. The campaign is coordinated by a coalition including NCVO and the Charity Commission, and always falls in early November, so it's a reliable fixture to plan governance activity around.
Events typically include webinars on governance topics, recruitment drives, social media campaigns thanking trustees, and resources published by sector bodies such as NCVO, the Charity Commission and Getting on Board. Many individual charities also run their own local events, from thank-you gatherings to open recruitment sessions.
Charities can take part by thanking their existing trustees, posting any current vacancies, publishing trustee profiles, running an internal skills audit, or hosting an information session for prospective trustees. Participation doesn't require a big budget, most of the highest-value actions cost nothing but staff time.
Yes, arguably more so than for large charities, because small boards feel skill gaps and vacancies far more acutely, and Trustees' Week gives a natural, low-effort prompt to address them. Even completing two or three of the ten actions above can meaningfully strengthen a small charity's governance.
Trustees are almost always unpaid volunteers, and this doesn't change during Trustees' Week, which is about recognition and recruitment rather than remuneration. Reasonable expenses can usually be reimbursed, but payment for serving as a trustee is tightly restricted and generally requires specific authority.