Michael Jacobs

1. First of all, about you: what attracted you to becoming a chair/trustee?

I wanted to become a trustee of an international children’s organisation following my retirement as head of tax from a City law firm. I specialised in advising wealthy people and, in particular, on setting up and running charities, but had felt precluded from being a charity trustee by the dangers of conflicts of interest. Now I wanted to give something back. Somewhat as a surprise, I was invited to take over the chair at my first board meeting. I thought it through and decided that this was a challenge I was ready to take on.

2. Which organisation(s) do you represent?

I am Chairman of Child Welfare Scheme, saving and improving lives and  helping about 40,000 children year in Nepal, and also Honorary Secretary of the Academy of Social Sciences (of which I am an Academician), another UK charity, which aims to be the voice of social science.

3. What particularly attracted you to these organisations?

I particularly wanted to be involved with a children’s charity working internationally and I had fallen in love with Nepal and the Nepalese people when my wife and trekked there in 1999. CWS bases most of its team in Nepal working with local charities and is helping so many children and in such innovative ways, that it really captured my heart.

The Academy appeals to my intellectual side. I was nominated in particular for my work in the reform of Trust Law, which inter alia led to the Trustee Act 2000. The social sciences have for too long been treated as the poor relation of learning and teaching and I relished the challenge of helping to enable those teaching and practising the social sciences gain the recognition for their work that they deserve.

4. Is there anything that would make you an even more effective trustee/Chair?

The wisdom of Solomon, the business generation ability of Bill Gates, the investment skills of Warren Buffet and the vision and temperament of Mahatma Ghandi.

5. What’s the biggest challenge you have faced in your role?

Developing a strategy for the organisation. This involves achieving the optimum balance between many personalities visions and forces: between the visionaries and pragmatists, the delivery team and the fundraisers, the altruists and commercial types and the perfectionists and the ones who want to achieve the maximum benefit for the largest number of beneficiaries.

6. What do you consider the most satisfying aspect of your role?

Seeing the look on the faces of the children and their parents when we deliver what they need.

7. Do you think there is enough general recognition of the value of the trustee/Chair role?

I think that the role of trustees is widely misunderstood and their value underrated. Outsiders often see trustees as being ineffective and involved for reasons of vanity and reward, while insiders commonly wonder why the trustees will not just leave them to get on with the real work (in which they (and not the trustees) are the real experts) without bothering them for reports and for ever dictating what they should do. In the vast majority of cases, the trustees give their time pretty selflessly and pursue their fundamental task of setting strategy and making sure the team sticks to it effectively and well.

The perception of the role of the chair is similar. The chair’s role varies: sometimes the chair is guiding or mediating amongst the members of the board with a view to achieving a viable consensus on issues of importance; at others, the chair is working with the executive team to ensure that policy made by the board is carried into effect while taking account of  the practicalities of the situation and changes in the environment which may require the prescribed course to be altered.

8. (If you have  been a trustee/Chair for some time) Have you felt that the demands made on trustees/Chairs have grown over time?

There is no doubt that this is the case. Regulation in the form of new acts of Parliament (the Companies Act and the Charities Act 2006 for example), plus countless regulations, SORPs, health and safety legislation and guidance from many statutory bodies have been increasing year by year. Public perception, coloured by a blame culture, which has increasingly permeated society, and the perception that government is looking to charities to deliver public services not only in addition to, but also often in place of, the public sector, constantly makes life more difficult. Fundraising becomes increasingly harder when eg the government raids the Big Lottery Fund for “cookery education” and the 2012 Olympics, denying funds to overseas charities, arts, culture and sport. The concept of “additionality” seems well and truly to have gone out of the window.

9. What do you think is the ideal term of office that a trustee/Chair should serve?

Charities vary and so should the term of office that suits each. That said, I think that 3 years renewable for another two, would suit most charities. The term should not be too long in case the individual is not really suitable or the needs of the charity change. At the same time, a chair needs to grow into the job and losing one every three years might be considered wasteful.

10. What tip would you give to a new trustee?

Be sure that you are committed to the aims of the charity you want to join, you feel reasonably confident that you can work with the chair and the other trustees and be clear as to what you feel you have to give to the charity.

11. If you weren’t a trustee, what would you do with that time?

Study the Renaissance.

12. What steps do you take to increase/retain your organisation’s membership?

Be clear as to the aims and objectives of the organisation and the benefits they bring. It is now very clear that charities must all exist for the public benefit and membership based organisations must be geared to that rather than any private benefits membership may also bring.

13. What question do you want to ask next week’s trustee?

What can your board do to make itself more effective?