Trusting young people

Marcus Davey is the Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Roundhouse. In this case on the theme of ‘leadership through governance’, Marcus writes about their young trustees, including the process Roundhouse went through to set up the roles, the support and structures needed, and the transformative impact of having young trustees on the Roundhouse and its work.

This case study was sourced by Culture24 as a resource for our conference, The art of leadership.

Since 1966, the Roundhouse had built a reputation as the home of counterculture and youth movements; home to British rock ‘n’ roll, psychedelia, at the heart of London’s punk scene, and leaders in staging revolutionary theatre. Having closed in 1983, it took the vision of Sir Torquil Norman and the Norman Trust to spearhead a £30 million campaign to rejuvenate the derelict Roundhouse.

In 2006 we reopened as one of the UK’s largest creative hubs for young people. In the world outside, however, things were getting increasingly tough for young people – high unemployment rates, negative portrayal in the media and increased living and university costs. 

We knew we had a responsibility to not only provide young people with opportunities but with adequate representation and a voice within our organisations. It was at this point that we decided to recruit two young trustees to our board who would represent the views and the voices of young people using our studio space or taking part in our creative projects. 

We ran an away day with our board before recruiting the young trustees. This gave everyone a chance to air any concerns and explore the impact on our organisation with an external facilitator. It encouraged honest conversations about how our board currently functions but allowed us to decide where we wanted our board to be. The day allowed us to talk about criteria for young trustees, including things such as age, skills and capacity, and appointment and induction processes.

Recruitment

Our recruitment started with our own community of young creatives. Just like any other trustee, our young trustees need to advocate for the work we do, and actually they are the biggest advocates of our work.

The application process is accessible and straightforward. While you want to encourage serious applicants, you don’t want to put anyone off, and we’ve found that just an A4 application suffices. The most important point though is to take the whole process seriously so young people feel prepared for the role they’re about to take on, and also that they know you’re taking their role seriously.

Once we recruited young trustees, we devised the induction process – a board meeting can feel daunting for anyone. Newly-appointed trustees had time with senior management to learn about the different areas of our organisation, as would any trustees who come on board. Young trustees now also get time with the outgoing young trustees so they can discuss the successes and challenges openly with other young people.

Stepping stones

Not all young people can or want to become trustees, so recruiting a couple of young people to the board should not be seen as the beginning and end of introducing youth voices into your organisation. That’s why we also run the Roundhouse Youth Advisory Board (RYAB). They are a core group of young people who meet on a monthly basis to discuss issues and ideas, and the young trustees also attend this meeting, so they can feed ideas up. Staff also find RYAB a really useful sounding board and seek their advice on a variety of topics, from branding and design to strategic decisions.

This group also acts as a good stepping-stone for young people to become trustees. It can take time for people to feel comfortable taking on a leadership role, and they need a safe space to express their thoughts and opinions to truly build their confidence. 

Lessons learnt

One of the main concerns of our board was about trusting young people with financial and confidential information – a big responsibility for young people to take on. However, such a concern could only be resolved by giving young people the chance, which is what we believe we should always do, while dealing with issues as and when they arise.

We also found that the initial two-year term for our young trustees was too long. Young people’s lives are busy and ever-changing while juggling training, education and work commitments. We feel that a year gives young people a valid experience while not hindering young people who might have other things going on in their life. 

Impact

We’ve seen a real transformation at the Roundhouse that is felt across the organisation. We now have a board that actively listens and is engaged; that’s constantly challenged and challenging. Young board members bring with them innovative and fresh perspectives, pushing forms and approaches into new areas. They help us to remain relevant. And the young people have benefitted enormously too. Our young trustees have developed a wide range of new skills in areas such as fundraising, finance and marketing. We’ve watched them go on to take on leadership roles in other organisations, or leave with more confidence and skills that will help them in the future.

Future plans

We will be taking Guided by Young Voices out to organisations far and wide, not just in the arts sector, but beyond. We feel that arts organisations can lead a real societal change in this area by giving young people the chance to lead early on in their lives.

Advice to colleagues

You might need to persuade some of your board about the benefits of involving young people, for which there are two main arguments – representation and resilience. Rather than having conversations about your audience, if you have them in the room, you can have the conversation with them. It can also make your organisation more resilient as our young trustees push boundaries and challenge perceived wisdom, which encourages innovation and change. But young trustees should never be a tick box requirement of an organisation; it really needs to work for your board. If you can bring your board on the journey from the very beginning, there will be fewer challenges along the way, and individuals and the organisation will benefit the most. 

Resources

We’ve created Guided by Young Voices with Arts Council England and a host of other organisations doing incredible work to platform the voices of young people. Although we think we’ve developed some very good practice over the years, we recognise that different approaches work for different organisations and the more we can learn from each other the better.

We hope our guide will help other people who might consider implementing a youth board or young trustees. It contains more advice and practical tips on how to prepare your board, how to build a talent pool, how to support young trustees, and how to overcome potential challenges along the way. But we’re also happy to have a discussion with people who are considering taking this step – by sharing our learning, we hope we can make the best possible change for young people.

The art of leadership