Volunteer Trustee roles for a growing youth storytelling charity

What will you be doing?

We are looking for individuals with:

A strong commitment to the work of Write Back and empowering young people. The passion and enthusiasm to throw themselves into a new and exciting charity for young people to help us in our next phase of growth. The ability and experience of working at a strategic level, providing expert oversight, advice and guidance. The skills and temperament to collaborate effectively in a small, growing organisation. A good understanding and acceptance of the legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of charity trusteeship and an appreciation of the personal implications. A demonstrable commitment to equality and diversity.

We anticipate growing our trustee board significantly over the next 6-12 months. Our initial priority will be recruiting someone who is:

experienced in fundraising in the charity sector

We also welcome applications from those who are:

experienced in education, such as a qualified teacher. experienced in growing a small company or charity, in particular with legal, HR or other operational or governance matters. Under the age of 25 and who have lived experienced of the issues Write Back is trying to solve.

However, we are open to applications from a variety of backgrounds and would encourage you to get in touch if you are interested. We are intending to recruit 2 - 3 trustees in total.   Core requirements:

This is a voluntary unpaid role, for which any reasonable expenses will be reimbursed.

Your initial term will be for 2 years, with the possibility of renewal. Attendance at trustee meetings every two months (either online or in person, for roughly 90 minutes), as well as preparation for these meetings and any follow-up tasks. We estimate the time commitment to be no more than one day per month in total.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for individuals with:

A strong commitment to the work of Write Back and empowering young people. The passion and enthusiasm to throw themselves into a new and exciting charity for young people to help us in our next phase of growth. The ability and experience of working at a strategic level, providing expert oversight, advice and guidance. The skills and temperament to collaborate effectively in a small, growing organisation. A good understanding and acceptance of the legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of charity trusteeship and an appreciation of the personal implications. A demonstrable commitment to equality and diversity.

  We anticipate growing our trustee board significantly over the next 6-12 months. Our initial priority will be recruiting someone who is:

experienced in fundraising in the charity sector

We also welcome applications from those who are:

experienced in education, such as a qualified teacher. experienced in growing a small company or charity, in particular with legal, HR or other operational or governance matters. Under the age of 25 and who have lived experienced of the issues Write Back is trying to solve.

However, we are open to applications from a variety of backgrounds and would encourage you to get in touch if you are interested. We are intending to recruit 2 - 3 trustees in total.

What difference will you make?

As a small but fast-growing charity, we have a strong trustee board in place but are looking to bring in new trustees to help in our new phase of growth. We currently have no full-time employees, but deliver our programmes through contractors or volunteers. We have recently secured funding which will enable us to expand our work over the next three years, in Barking and Dagenham and possibly beyond. We are therefore looking for trustees who want to get closely involved in setting the strategy, direction and priorities of Write Back as we transition from new ‘start-up’ into a more established charity. By joining Write Back as a trustee you would help to build on the impact we are already having in our community. Since becoming a registered charity, Write Back has run over 300 hours of storytelling programmes. Here are some of our key findings and milestones: • More than eight in ten participants' self-esteem improved over the course of our programme, on average by 23%.* We, our partner schools and families have also seen the tangible increases in young people’s personal confidence. • Through our programmes we have printed and celebrated the stories of over 180 young people. • Thirteen anthologies of young writers produced with over 400,000 words published by young writers.