Calling Sustain alliance members: Please join Sustain’s Council of Trustees!

Sustain's Council of Trustees are highly valued advisors on our governance and strategic direction. They are elected by the Sustain alliance membership to form a governing body. Sustain’s Council of Trustees meets quarterly with the senior leadership team to guide the work of the alliance. Many also serve as Working Party chairs or as Lead Trustees on specific areas of expertise, or work in collaboration with the Sustain team in other ways. We greatly appreciate involvement of Sustain alliance members in this way, to help guide our work. 

The usual term of office is three years, after which Trustees either stand down, or often choose to stand again for re-election. Our AGM and Trustee elections will take place in November 2024, and this year we are likely to have three or four places available for new Trustees.

We are especially keen this year to welcome as Trustees people from the Sustain alliance who have expertise, connections and interest in healthy, fair and sustainable farming and land-use; food supply chains; solutions to food poverty and health inequalities; and approaches to diversity and racial justice in the food and farming system. People with experience in organisational management, HR and people with funder connections would also be welcome, to support the work of our leadership and management team.

This is an exciting time for the alliance: serving Trustees, and those elected as part of Sustain’s AGM in November 2024, will also oversee development of Sustain’s refreshed strategy, which will influencing our movement’s priorities and activities for the next five years.

Please note that as part of our formal alliance governance, full Trustee positions are open only to people representing Sustain alliance members. For Trustee role-share positions, these would usually be from Sustain alliance members, but we can consider applications from young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds working with e.g. Sustainable Food Places food partnerships and not-for-profit groups closely involved in our work. Get in touch and we can discuss options.

Interested in standing for election? Download a Sustain Trustee election nomination form – you can use this for either a ‘registered Trustee’ or ‘Trustee role-share’ nomination (or both). Nomination deadline is 5pm on Wednesday 16 October, but if you can get it in before that, all the better! 

This year, we are also offering up to three places as Trustee role-shares (joining two people already serving in this way, for a maximum of 5 role-share places). The aim of this scheme is to welcome younger people – specifically those from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds under-represented in our sector – to gain experience in charity leadership and governance, and to contribute their unique perspectives. Is this you or someone you know? We’d love to hear from you!

Want to find out more about being a Trustee or role-share Trustee? Get in touch with Sustain's Chief Executive Kath Dalmeny: kath@sustainweb.org 

Some people in Trustee role-share positions participate for around a year, to observe, learn and contribute in particular areas; others become more involved over a longer period, perhaps for one full Trustee term of office (three years), or perhaps for a longer period if they choose to stand again for re-election, either continuing in the role-share, or standing as a Sustain Trustee in their own right. We were delighted when two people in these role-share positions became Trustees in their own right in 2022, and we very much welcome their expertise, perspectives and ongoing contributions.

Read our guidance: Sustain’s Trustee role-shares for diversity in leadership: What are they for and how does it work?

Note: From November 2024, and as a one-year pilot in the first instance, Sustain will be offering honorarium payments to people in Trustee role-share positions for some activities, to help value contributions and overcome barriers to participation

Watch this short documentary film, sharing personal insights from Sustain trustees Shefalee Loth, from Which?; Dr Kawther Hashem from Consensus Action on Salt, Sugar and Health (CASSH); Jyoti Fernandes, from Landworkers Alliance and Raksha Mistry, formerly of the Soil Association. They speak about challenges and opportunities in their roles and sectors, from access to land to perceptions of being a woman of colour, and touch on cross-cutting issues in agroecological farming, food justice and public health.

“Every Sustain Council meeting I attend is like a masterclass in governance. This is building my understanding, my capacity as a potential future charity leader. I don’t think I would have got into board-level matters for quite a while if it hadn’t been for the role-share opportunity.”

Comment from a Sustain Trustee elected to a role-share for cultivating new talent and charity leadership, now a full Trustee in their own right.

Sustain is a majority female-led organisation, and has been since its founding in 1999. Across the past 25 years, there has always been a healthy balance of gender representation, and we have always welcomed people from diverse backgrounds and identities to take part, without prejudice, including people from a range of sectors, professional, cultural and ethnic backgrounds and people with a range of personal characteristics and identities. 

Nevertheless, we acknowledge that across the first 20 years of Sustain, the leadership was predominantly White and probably not very diverse in terms of other personal characteristics. Since 2020, Sustain now takes proactive steps to welcome greater diversity into our staff team and onto the Council of Trustees, with a priority commitment to recruitment for diversity.

As a result of these initiatives, (using data for elections that took place in December 2023), membership of Sustain’s Council of Trustees is 80 per cent female; just under half of Trustees are Black people and people of colour (BPOC); and just under half of Trustees have self-declared personal attributes that are among ‘protected characteristics’ in terms of religious affiliation, disability and sexual orientation or identity, with some intersectionality.