Trustee

Inter-Cultural Youth Exchange UK (ICYE UK) was set up in 1993 to promote inter-cultural understanding, peace, and cooperation. We believe that local community action can have a global reach and positively affect the world we live in. ICYE UK is part of a federation of over 30 countries investing in young people through voluntary placements overseas, including community, social, and environmental projects in a range of countries in Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. We believe in the importance of reciprocal exchange and host around 50 international volunteers in the UK every year.

We are now seeking to recruit motivated Trustees to join our enthusiastic and diverse Board. As an applicant, you would join as an observer to support the Board until officially being elected to office as a Trustee at the AGM in November. As a Trustee, you will be responsible for overseeing the strategic direction and governance of ICYE UK and will work with a dynamic team that supports our volunteers every day.

Roles and Responsibilities

We are seeking motivated individuals with experience in the volunteering or charity sector to join our dynamic board. These roles will have flexibility to manage and lead on key projects within the Board, depending on experience, interests, and passions.

Trustees will oversee the strategic aims and plans of the charity, define goals, targets, and evaluate performance against agreed targets. They will also maintain and promote strong working relationships with the stakeholders of the organisation. Trustees will ensure the charity has the resources needed to achieve its mission, which includes supporting fundraising efforts to ensure financial sustainability and growth.

Fundraising Focus

As a Trustee, your role will specifically involve contributing to the development and implementation of a fundraising strategy for ICYE UK. This includes but is not limited to:

• Strategy Development: Collaborating with the Board and senior staff to develop a sustainable fundraising strategy that aligns with ICYE UK’s long-term goals and mission.
• Fundraising Networks: Identifying potential funding sources and networks (including grants, corporate sponsorships, individual donors, and fundraising events).
• Relationship Building: Cultivating and maintaining relationships with key donors, supporters, and potential partners to secure financial support.
• Fundraising Initiatives: Leading or supporting specific fundraising campaigns and events, ensuring their success through active participation and strategic guidance.
• Monitoring and Reporting: Ensuring appropriate processes for monitoring, evaluating, and reporting fundraising outcomes, and adapting strategies as needed.

Trustees may serve for up to four terms of two years each, and at this time, in support of ICYE UK’s current strategy, we are particularly keen to hear from individuals with experience of fundraising, PR, sponsorship, or HR.

What Are We Looking For?

As a Board, ICYE UK’s shared aims are to act in all of the following capacities:

• Advisory: Providing free expert advice/management expertise.
• Regulatory: Ensuring probity and managing regulatory and financial risks.
• Democratic: Contributing to the resolution of various stakeholder interests and accepting responsibility for the direction and strategy of ICYE.
• Educational: Providing opportunities for debate, learning, and sharing of expertise.
• Participatory: Engaging volunteers in the ongoing development of the organisation (as per ICYE mission).
• Networking: Being ambassadors, linking to contacts, shaping and influencing others.
• Involving: Motivating skilled volunteers.
• Visionary: Adding missionary zeal, bringing passion to the mission.
• Leadership: Steering the organisation in the right direction, with an emphasis on embedding the ICYE vision, mission, and values into the ICYE way of doing things.
• Supportive: Supporting, valuing, and rewarding the Office manager and Staff.

The ideal Trustee will be able to support in acting out the above capacities in collaboration with fellow board members. Knowledge and experience of governance and management within an international volunteering charity, or other governance and management experience that is applicable to the post and sector would be advantageous, but training and development will be provided.

You will be committed and driven by ICYE UK’s values and vision and committed to understanding the importance of cultural exchange in education and personal development.

What Difference Will You Make?

Trustees are essential to ensuring that ICYE UK continues to operate, sending and receiving volunteers who make a difference to local NGOs globally year-on-year. As a Trustee, you will lead on a strategic area, including fundraising, and use your skills to direct a dynamic team that supports our volunteers every year.

What’s in It for You?

Trusteeship is a challenging and rewarding way to volunteer your time and skills to an organisation and to build upon your strengths and expand your skillset. Through being a part of ICYE UK and on a Board of Trustees, you will learn big-picture thinking, find creative solutions to problems, and come to quick decisions. You will volunteer with a dedicated and passionate team from very different backgrounds and personalities, and will contribute a small part to a much bigger whole, supporting the values of listening, cooperation, and understanding.

Committed to delivering unique volunteering opportunities for young people all around the world, now more than ever, it is important to build peace and understanding across cultures; through volunteering your time to be part of ICYE’s board, you will help to support this mission.

There will also be opportunities to meet some of the volunteers that ICYE supports, so you can see first-hand the fantastic impact that the organisation has.

A Few More Details

As an observer, and from November a member, of the ICYE-UK Board of Trustees, you will be expected to attend 75% of board meetings per year that you can attend via Google Meet. There will also be at least one Staff/Trustee away day and an AGM each year, which you will be required to attend in person, but these events are organised to suit Trustee’s availability.
Successful candidates will be co-opted onto the board as an observer for the remainder of the year until the next AGM in November 2024, where you can choose to stand to be elected onto the board.

Priority for this role – TW4B executive members.