2023 UK Charity Governance Awards open for entries – with new category
Melanie May | 30 November 2022 | News
The 2023 UK Charity Governance Awards – which offer a total prize fund of £35,000 – have opened for entries with the addition of a new award.
For its eighth year, the Charity Governance Awards is introducing ‘From Systemic Challenge to Meaningful Change’. For this award, judges will be looking for inspiring examples of innovation and leadership from trustees who have tackled a widespread, systemic problem and challenged the root cause or created a solution that better supports their beneficiaries and communities.
Charity boards are invited to share their own examples of best practice by entering one of five categories which, alongside the new category, recognise outstanding governance and trusteeship in areas including diversity and equity on boards, digital strategy and improving impact. National and local charities, large and small, have until 8 February 2023 to enter for free.
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The winner of each category will receive a £5,000 prize as an unrestricted grant while runners-up will receive £1,000. All shortlisted charities will also receive a paid one-year membership to the Association of Chairs for their board and a complimentary place on a Cause4 Trustee Leadership Programme for a new member of the board.
Deepak Nambisan, who will chair the 2023 Awards for the organisers The Clothworkers’ Company, said:
“With our new award category, we want to celebrate how bold and ambitious trustee leadership is generating meaningful change and addressing systemic problems affecting the third sector and society at large. It could be an innovative response to the climate emergency or the cost of living crisis, or tackling poverty, racism and other issues which we often, begrudgingly, accept as simply part of the landscape we operate in.
“We know that great work is going on, often unrecognised, in charities up and down the country. The Charity Governance Awards have always been about shining a light on these unsung trustee heroes – highlighting how boards have overcome some of our biggest issues is an inspiration to us all. If your charity has a brilliant success story to share, please enter the Awards and help inspire others.”
Shortlisted entrants will be announced in April, with the winners revealed at an awards ceremony in central London on 8 June. Case studies of the shortlisted charities will be featured on the Awards website and free guidance to all charitable boards is offered under the ‘Advice and Resources’ page. The winners of the 2022 Awards were Missing People, Raising Futures Kenya, I Choose Freedom, The Cowshed, Manchester Action on Street Health and Your Voice Counts.
The Charity Governance Awards are sponsored and hosted by The Clothworkers’ Company in partnership with NPC (New Philanthropy Capital); Prospectus; and Reach Volunteering.
To enter, a charity must have been established before 31 December 2019 and be registered in the UK. A charity may submit a single entry into only one of the following categories:
- Board Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
- Transforming with Digital
- From Systemic Challenge to Meaningful Change
- Improving Impact in Small Charities (0-3 Paid Staff), and Improving Impact in Small Charities (4-30 Paid Staff)
Entries must cover activities undertaken in the last five years (2017 – 2022); focus on the work of the main board, not sub-committees; be submitted by a trustee, employee or volunteer of the charity; and be signed off by the Chair or CEO.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.