Black Cultural Archives (BCA) is the only national heritage centre dedicated to collecting, preserving, and celebrating the histories of African and Caribbean people in the UK. Through its learning resources, collections, and research, including online and gallery exhibitions, educational programmes, public engagement events and its extensive and unique set of archives, museum objects and reference library, it inspires and give strength to individuals, communities, and society. The Board approached Charisma as a recommended specialist, to conduct an accessible, transparent, and robust search campaign with plans to secure up to 4 new Trustees. Specialist skills were sought in HR, marketing, legal and finance.

Through the Discovery Phase, the Board’s needs were further defined, and ultimately a Chair and 3 Trustees were sought. The new Chair and Trustees were to be tasked with helping to deliver BCA’s ambitious 2030 Strategy and provide direction and support to the management team. The Chair needed experience at senior level, with strong management and team building skills, a good understanding of charity governance, preferably having served on Boards before, and experience building sustainable organisations; being politically astute and willing to network and be a vocal advocate for the charity was also vital. Trustees ideally needed previous charity experience and knowledge of the arts and heritage sector, with skills in governance, policy, legal, history (e.g. historian, academic), fundraising, communications, or HR.

Charisma took a multi-pronged approach to the campaign, which engaged and attracted a diverse range of candidates. Adverts were launched across major platforms, resulting in 43 direct applications; targeted headhunting commenced with 25 suitable candidates identified via pre-screening; and a rigorous search of the database was completed, with 122 candidates identified and approached. In total 190 candidates were screened against defined criteria, with 45 progressed to vetting interviews with the Charisma Consultant. 29 candidates were longlisted and submitted to the charity for review. Following intensive shortlisting between BCA and Charisma, 10 candidates were invited to interview with the charity.

• 97% of applicants from an ethnic minority

• 63% of applicants under the age of 45

• 69% of applicants female

Following BCA interviews, the Board was in a position to appoint a new Chair and 3 Trustees. However, the Board were so impressed by the calibre of candidates presented that they appointed a further 3 Trustees for a total of 7 successful placements, who took up their Board seats in early 2022.

Contact us today to partner with us on your trustee recruitment.