the kanga project does not have any paid staff or offices and relies entirely on volunteers to help raise funds and to provide support to RWDA, our partners. You may have some very special skills we could use such as marketing, advertising, bid writing or event organising. You may have the gift of the gab and be able to enthuse people face to face or online. The possibilities are endless. Volunteering is a good way to gain experience, help make a difference and show the world that you do wear your heart on your sleeve. If you would like to join us, please tell us here.
We want and need to grow and would welcome the input of new trustees, young and old, experience not necessary. You just need to have a big heart, a keen interest in what we do, a little imagination, a few hours a week to spare and very importantly the conviction that you can make a difference. Do get in touch.
What does a trustee do?
Trustees don’t usually get paid so being a trustee is a form of volunteering. If there are no members of staff or other volunteers, the trustees basically run the organisation themselves. They have to do everything and anything. If there are staff or volunteers the trustees will usually stop delivering the frontline day-to-day services and take on more of a strategic leadership role, thinking about and planning where the organisation is going, how its going to progress and improve, whether it needs to change, what it needs to keep it going and so on. Either way the trustees have a role in what’s called the governance of the organisation.
The most important thing about trustees is that, without them, voluntary organisations large and small, could not continue their good work and new voluntary organisations would not be formed. It might be very important to fly to Africa with an international aid agency to help deal with humanitarian crises but if the aid agency didn’t have any trustees, nobody would be flying anywhere.
Most voluntary organisations start small and stay that way. It usually suits their mission best. But even the biggest of today’s charities were first set up by a small management committee of keen volunteers. Then they raised some money, then they employed some staff and eventually they grew bigger which is why today we have charities the size of, for example, Oxfam, the National Trust for Scotland, the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and so on. And all because of a few committed people who wanted to make a difference.
