Trustees’ Week is an annual celebration of charity trusteeship. It highlights the great work that trustees do and draws attention to opportunities for people from all walks of life to get involved and make a real difference.

Trustees are the people in charge of a charity. They are often the unsung heroes, playing a vital role and volunteering their time . Trustees work together to make the decisions that really matter about the charity’s finances, activities and plans for the future.

Trustees’ Week was successfully launched by the Charity Commission and its partners last year, with over 30 events held across the country. We plan to build on that success with Trustees’ Week 2011, which will take place on 31 October – 6 November.

We are organising Trustees’ Week 2011 in partnership with Charity Trustee Network, recently merged with the Small Charities Coalition, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), Reach Volunteering, Getting on Board, ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales), Governance magazine and the National Unions of Students (NUS).

People often become trustees to give something back, but there is a two-way benefit: charities benefit from the range of skills and experience that their trustees bring and trustees can learn and develop new skills that may open up new opportunities for them, as well as meeting people who share their passion.

Whilst there are around 800,000 trustees in England and Wales, estimates suggest that almost half of charities have a vacancy on their trustee board. A number of the organisations behind Trustees’ Week provide trustee matching services, details of these can be found at www.trusteesweek.org.uk.

We hope that charities and other organisations across the sector will get involved with Trustees' Week 2011 by organising events and activities to celebrate the fantastic work that trustees do for charities around the country. We want to encourage more people to think about whether trusteeship is right for them. 

If you are organising a Trustees’ Week event and want its details to be included on the website, you can send details to trusteesweek@charitycommission.gsi.gov.uk.