A risky business: a guide to risk taking for trustees

Charity trustees are notoriously risk averse. And that’s not surprising given that they are entrusted with the good governance of a charity, with expectations weighing down on them from all directions.

Surely trustees are quite right to avoid risk like the plague?

Actually, perhaps not. If we are too risk averse, we can miss opportunities, stifle innovation and fail to invest in growth.

Our panel will discuss

• Whether trustees are truly risk averse and, if so, whether they are right to be so
• Good risk management, proportionate to the size of the charity
• The most common types of risks affecting charities
• Whether the relative weighting of risks is sometimes wrong

• How charities can take informed risks.

This session will be ideal for trustees interested in managing risks in their charities, who don’t have professional expertise in risk management.

• This session is free to attend with the option to make a donation amount of your choice at checkout. The minimum donation amount is £1.

• The session will take place on Zoom. The joining link will be sent in the Eventbrite confirmation email. You will also receive email reminders from Eventbrite 2 days, 2 hours and 10 minutes before the session starts. These reminders will also include the joining link.

• The session will be recorded and be later uploaded to our YouTube channel. We're so pleased as to how popular our sessions have been, many have sold out. Please only book a ticket if you intend to join the session live. We'd totally recommend subscribing to our so you can be kept up to date with all the new uploads.

• If the session uses slides, we will send these to all who have booked a ticket following the session. Our panel sessions don't use slides. If having the slides prior to the session will make it more accessible for you, please email [email protected] and we will gladly send them to you.

• As an attendee, you can enable closed captions during the session. For panels, we 'spotlight' panelists so the view stays consistently on those speaking. If you have booked a ticket, please contact [email protected] if there are other adjustments we can make to the session to make it accessible to you.

• Getting on Board's sessions are specifically for trustees of charities registered in England and Wales, although many of the principles of effective, inclusive trusteeship are broadly the same wherever trustees are based. Trustees of charities in Scotland and Northern Ireland are welcome to attend our sessions but should check local differences and will find excellent support from OSCR, SCVO, Inspiring Scotland, Charity Commission Northern Ireland and NICVA (Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action).

Our Trustee Learning Programme includes a variety of training sessions to help you become and be an effective trustee. We are confident you'll find other sessions you'd like to attend from the programme. Please have a look and book onto our other sessions here

To make the programme as accessible as possible, all of our sessions are free to attend. We are able to run our free sessions with huge thanks to our sponsors Rathbones

We are also very thankful to the Co-op Foundation for their support for the Trustee Learning Programme.

Getting on Board is on a mission to change the face of trusteeship. Our Trustee Learning Programme is just one of the ways we are working towards that.

We recommend taking a look around our Eventbrite page to see if our other sessions are of interest. You can also head to our website for more information about everything we offer.

Please email [email protected] if you'd like us to run this session for your board or network in-house.

If you have any questions, or would like to discuss bespoke training, please get in touch with us by emailing [email protected].

Host or Publisher Getting on Board