Recruiting an artist-led board
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In 2020 a-n will celebrate its 40th birthday, having grown from an artist-led collective to a professional membership organisation for visual artists with over 25,000 members. We felt it was timely to recruit a Board that was artist-led and reflected our values and ambitions on diversity and inclusion. The drive to become artist-led also came from benchmarking ourselves with our international peers; we’re a member of the International Association of Art, which is a network of member organisations within Europe representing visual artists, many of whom have artist-led boards.
Start with a warm welcome
It was important to have an open and welcoming recruitment process, because we recognized that if you just sit around and say, “who do we know?” then you will just get more of the same. In 2018, we published artist and a-n member Nicola Naismith’s ‘Artists on Boards’ resources, developed while she was a-n’s Clore Leadership Fellow 2017/18. Written from an artist’s perspective, the resources provided us with useful information for attracting artists onto our board – and more importantly how to support them in the role. We specifically asked artists to apply, and used quotes and graphics from Nicola’s resources in our recruitment campaign, making it artist-focused. We used our social media platforms and Artsjobs to advertise the roles, made ourselves available to talk to any potential applications, and also offered guaranteed interviewed for disabled applicants, which was clearly set out in our recruitment pack. We had an extraordinary response and it as very affirming to see the number of people who valued a-n and our work.
If you just sit around and say, “who do we know?” then you will just get more of the same
Through this process we have recruited a group of skilled, dynamic people who have the passion to drive the agenda around artists livelihoods and the value of diversity in art and society forward. I am particularly pleased to see not only our youngest Board member to date, Jerome Ince-Mitchell, but also the introduction of a Trainee Board member, Amrita Dhallu, supporting our commitment to nurturing the next generation of arts leaders.
Develop skills
It’s also important that once you have Board members in place, that they are supported to carry out effective governance of the company, and we are working with Clore Leadership to identify what training will be required to support the Trainee Board positions. We also believe that paying artists for their time is essential; our company structure allows us to reimburse artists for attending Board meetings and any other duties they are expected to carry out. Sometimes it is the simple things that help support new trustees, who may have not sat on boards before, such as proper induction, getting papers out two weeks before a meeting, and offering pre-meetings with Board members who might need more time to understand the business of the organisation.
Our Board is also supported by a-n’s Artists Council, an advisory body made up of 15 a-n members from across the UK. Artists Council members have been recruited to represent the membership and have wide local networks; the Council is a testing ground for new ideas that eventually shape a-n’s programmes and governance.
Ensuring wide representation
We will shortly be advertising a Board vacancy for an artist preferably from Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, to make sure that our UK-wide remit is reflected, and a Trainee Board position for an artist. This will take the Board to six members who are practicing artists, and when I step down in 2021, we will recruit an artist into the vacant Chair post.
My advice for other Boards: set yourself targets, and consider recruiting as widely and openly as possible –you will be pleasantly surprised who is interested in your organisation. Once recruitment is over, ensure you have proper plans and support systems in place to make sure that all Board members can engage in effective decision-making and governance.
