The Board Bank is a confidential register of people with business skills who are offering to share their skills and expertise with the arts and museums by serving on boards of management. It is often described as a sort of dating agency for prospective board members. The Positive Action Board Bank targets Black and racial minority candidates.  Board Bank Extra targets Deaf and Disabled candidates.  Research and development pf participation by more marginalised disabled communities, such as people with learning disabilities, has recently been completed. 

View the Report

View the Resource Pack associated with this report.

Who is it for?

Not for profit arts organisations and museums are governed by non executive boards or committees who have legal responsibility for their management. To operate effectively, these boards must possess a range of skills, including business skills such as finance, law, marketing, HR and planning.  However, arts organisations often find it difficult to recruit such experienced people. Through the Board Bank arts organisations can strengthen their boards with new people who possess the specific expertise and interests they are seeking.

Business Managers and professionals who have specialist expertise to offer and about five years of management experience. This programme is suitable for people who wish to develop a longer term relationship with a single organisation and are interested in working at a strategic level on a board.

How does it work?

Arts organisations and museums seeking new board members should discuss their needs with BIA:NW and then submit an application form with supporting information.

After acceptance and registration onto the scheme, the volunteer is asked to attend the Introduction to Board Membership course, an early evening session which introduces the candidates to the sector, the sort of responsibilities that they will be accepting and good practice in board management.

BIA:NW matches candidates and applications on the basis of skills, arts interests, geography and other factors.  Once the candidate has reviewed the opportunity and made the decision to go forward, BIA:NW writes to the arts organisation asking them to contact the candidate. The two parties meet without obligation, to decide if the match is a good one. 

Since 1995 BIA:NW has placed over 380 people on boards.  Visit the Case Studies page for some examples

THE POSITIVE ACTION BOARD BANK

Supported by ACE, NW, BIA:NW has also run a Positive Action arm of the Board Bank to target black and racial minority candidates. The programme was developed as a response to the under representation of BRM people on the boards of arts organisations.  It is not open to museums.

The process for candidates is identical to the mainstream programme.

Candidates are sought from not only private sector, but also from the education and public sectors providing the individuals possess relevant skills.

28 candidates have been matched so far.

This arm of the Board Bank will be relaunched under a new name in 2010 - see What’s New for more.

BOARD BANK EXTRA

Building upon the success of the Positive Action Board Bank (PABB), from 2002 to 2004 BIA:NW was supported by ACE, NW to carry out action research into the feasibility of running a Board Bank scheme for Deaf and Disabled people in order to increase diversity on boards in the arts sector.

With guidance from a Steering Group made up of representatives from North West Disability Arts Forum, Full Circle Arts, Breakthrough UK, Prism Arts and Wirral MBC, BIA:NW recruited Deaf and Disabled candidates, identified interested arts organisations and achieved eight successful matches.

The process for candidates has been identical to that for the mainstream Board Bank.  Participating arts organisations received guidance in terms of access and diversity issues and were provided with an information pack for circulation to all their board members.

To date 10 candidates have been matched through this programme.  One of them, Susan Bennett of LCS Limited, was named Board Bank Member of the Year at the Bravo! Awards in April 2005 for her board membership of Sunbeams Music Trust.

At the conclusion of the action research, a full evaulation report was produced by independent consultants G&M Associates.  Read a summary of the report here.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

BIA:NW appointed Susan Bennett (see above) to research and develop participation in the Board Bank programme by marginalised and excluded disabled people - for example people with learning disabilities and BRM communities.

Susan can of course add direct experience of the programme to her excellent credentials as a consultant who has worked extensively with disabled people and disability organisations.

The research is now complete and includes a resource pack which contains contacts and suggestions for organisations wanting to involve more excluded disabled people, such as those with learning disabilities, in the decision-making process. This is by no means exhaustive and the contacts are given as suggestions rather than recommendations. We would be pleased to hear of other useful resources that can be added to the pack (see link above).