Charity Boards and the vital importance of a transparent, diverse appointment and succession plan for leadership
Mantra Strategy provided Samaritans Ireland with a rigorous process for sourcing, screening and interviewing board trustees and helped create a solid pipeline for future leadership needs.
What was the challenge?
The Samaritans Trustee Board leads Samaritans to best achieve their vision that fewer people die by suicide, both through Samaritans’ direct service provision and their influencing work.
Samaritans Ireland completed a large-scale governance and structure review in 2021. As a result of that review, Samaritans Ireland was taking on greater responsibility for income generation and external relations but also needed a succession plan for the Board, a best practice requirement in the Charities’ Governance Code.
A robust and transparent recruitment process addressing both existing vacancies but also to expand competencies of the Board specifically in public policy, fundraising, brand and marketing and knowledge of the landscape of Northern Ireland was required. It also wanted a pipeline of potential board and committee members for future needs and wanted to ensure that diversity and inclusion were at the heart of the process.
How we work
Having worked with Samaritans Ireland on a previous fundraising strategy, we had a solid understanding of the organisation and its mission. At Mantra, we understand purpose-driven organisations and finding the right board members who were aligned to the purpose and shared values was essential in our process.
A four-step approach was adopted:
1. Strategy & Targeting
We immersed ourselves into the governance review, skills matrix and gap analysis of the Board and developed a detailed list of competencies, experiences and backgrounds required. A detailed candidate briefing document for each trustee position was then created.
2. Candidate Research
Across the Mantra team, given our own experience with corporate and charity executive and non-executive leadership, we outreached to appropriate candidates but also targeted other suitably qualified people in executive and non-executive positions.
3. Mantra interviews and shortlist preparation
Direct approaches to key suitable candidates were made and screening interviews were conducted to ensure they had key competencies, experience, values fit, potential conflicts of interest and crucially capacity for the board trustee role and commitment to the organisation. A suggested shortlist was then presented to the Board with written profiles and CVs.
4. Board panel interview and selection
In this phase, a panel briefing was provided, scheduling and administration including reference checking and delivery of all feedback to candidates was completed. To deliver on our commitment to ensuring diversity and inclusion was at the heart of the process, we included neutral language in all targeting and briefings, and removed indicators of ethnicity and gender to ensure avoidance of bias as candidate profiles were presented.
The outcome
Samaritans Ireland have a new cohort of trustees with expertise and track records in the areas they needed for future expansion. In addition, they have a robust succession plan and pipeline of prospective trustees and committee members. The process from start to finish took six weeks.
Chairperson of Samaritans Ireland, Eleanor Farrell “We are a Triple-Locked charity and work to the highest standards of governance. It was vital we chose a partner who could deliver a transparent, rigorous and values led approach to securing new appointments to our board to expand our vital work. We knew that Mantra would represent our purpose to potential candidates, and it was remarkable how everyone who came to interview commented on how thorough the process was and how they felt they already knew how our organisation operated before they joined. I recommend every Chairperson to adopt this process for board selection and succession planning.”
Mantra’s Director of People, Culture and Strategic Search Suzanne Mulholland “I loved working on this project and I wanted to ensure that I represented Samaritans Ireland’s values and acted as a brand ambassador when sourcing, screening and interviewing potential trustees. It was essential that I understood the organisation’s purpose and mission and was able to ensure that I got the right candidates in front of Samaritans Ireland but also crucially provided feedback to the unsuccessful candidates, leaving a positive regard for the organisation and maintaining relationships for future potential appointments.