How Do We Build Capacity in Our Organisation to Tackle Issues Beyond 'Core Functions'?

What is this advice about?

This advice is for heritage organisations with a board of trustees. The guidance explores the definition of 'core functions' and looks at how boards and organisations can manage responsibilities, roles and tasks to ensure all board functions have time and resources dedicated to them.

What are the key points?

What are the 'core functions' of a heritage board? Why might we need to revisit this term?

Heritage boards, as the governance of charities, have an important role in the leadership and oversight of their organisations.

Their core functions are typically considered to be those they have a direct legal responsibility to oversee. These can include:

• Financial oversight and auditing of finances
• Ensuring the correct policies are in place and updated regularly
• Recruitment of CEOs and oversight of people and HR matters, including pay and conditions
• Health and Safety
• Risk management and the upkeep of a risk register

A trustee or board member has a fiduciary duty under the law, meaning they must always act in their organisation's best interests. As well as all the above listed 'core' functions, this fiduciary duty includes inclusion as a consideration across the organisation.

IDE (Inclusion, diversity, and equality) is often seen as "nice to have" or an added extra for organisations rather than a core function. It is often given to one board member as their responsibility, usually someone from a minority or marginalised background, as they are seen as the natural choice to be the spokesperson for those experiencing barriers. However, IDE should be a core priority for organisations, as a common thread across all their priorities and areas of work, to ensure it is fully embedded and part of organisational culture.

Embedding IDE as a core priority is vital for organisations. You can find more details about this on our 'Why Does Diversity Matter on Heritage Boards?' page, but in brief:

• Ensuring that the board is made up of the best possible people, including a diverse range of experiences, makes sure all decisions are made from as informed a position as possible
• Diverse audiences mean more people engage with your organisation, meaning a wider pool of support, whether this be financial or otherwise
• Recruiting staff and volunteers inclusively means drawing from a wide range of skills and experience. Having strong policies and a good workplace culture means your retention will be higher, meaning people will be more engaged and effective in their roles

How do we maximise our capacity both as an organisation and as a board?

As an organisation, there are often pressures on time and capacity. Heritage organisations often struggle with capacity, from grassroots to national-level charities, as the sector delivers enormous public and social value on relatively small budgets.

However, there are some key ways for organisations to shift their thinking that can make a big difference to their capacity:

• Build your staff and volunteer training programme to ensure there is a diversity of skills and knowledge across the team so that people can support across teams or help facilitate new work, and all are encouraged to identify and take up learning opportunities
• Have strong forward planning and strategy, and make sure this is built with consultation from your staff, volunteers, and your organisation's audience. This means everyone shares a collective approach and goal, as well as a clear sense of purpose, making teams more effective
• Invest carefully and strategically. For example, this could mean investing in technology that supports your work or enables more people to access your work; in recruitment for a specific skillset that would boost your capacity significantly; or in paying for consultation on an element of your organisation that you recognise needs urgent change

As a board, it can feel challenging to address all necessary business through board meetings as there are often many papers to read and respond to. Addressing how board business is structured and how meetings are conducted can help with this and can also make your governance practices more accessible and inclusive.

Some examples of this include:

• Create separate committees with delegated authority to work through specific issues or topics and brief the main board. This can be a great way of fully utilising board skills and experience
• For main board meetings, have supporting documents such as large reports stored in a shared drive rather than circulated with the board papers to allow for 'deep dives' should they be needed, with the main headlines for discussion drawn out in the board paper
• Consider shadow trustee or board member roles so that people can balance their work and life commitments with their board role but still contribute their skills and experience

You can see some of these actions in practice in one of our case studies: Improving Everyday Board Practices

What external support can heritage organisations find to help with building capacity?

Increasingly, funders recognise the value of funding works to boost the resilience and capacity of heritage organisations and their work. These organisations have dedicated support teams to help organisations understand if they can apply, and how to get the best out of their application.

Projects should seek to tackle known issues, deepen community engagement in heritage, or preserve heritage and the historic landscape as well as develop capacity and resilience in the heritage sector.

Historic England Heritage Protection Commissions and Capacity Building Programme

“We offer funding for strategic research that will help us to know what our historic environment comprises, which aspects of it are the most significant, and what innovations in science and approach will help us to look after it for the future. We want to fund projects which develop sector capacity, capability and resilience, and/or help more diverse people engage with heritage and the historic environment.”

Find out more

Historic England Regional Capacity Building Programme

“We offer funding under this programme for activities and projects which are local or regional in coverage and which promote the understanding, management and conservation of the historic environment.

Our support for building and maintaining sector capacity is focused on the sustainable management and development of the historic environment.

We aim to ensure that those eligible activities and projects for which there is a lack of alternative sources of funding are our highest priorities for support.”

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The National Lottery Heritage Fund

The Heritage Fund will cover activities, digital outputs, new staff roles (or part of an existing staff member’s role if it is specific to the funded work), paid training placements and professional fees, all of which could contribute to a capacity building based project. There are several things that cannot be funded, including any work on legal and statutory responsibilities.

Find out more

Further reading

Guidance on organisational sustainability and resilience from the National Lottery Heritage Fund

News release on the Council for British Archaeology's (CBA) successful National Lottery Heritage Fund grant application to fund transformative capacity building and resilience work