Trustee

Children’s Book Project is a rapidly growing Registered Charity set up to tackle book poverty and to improve the social, emotional and educational outcomes of children and young people across the UK.

Located in Notting Hill in London and new regional hubs in Birmingham, Oxford and Leeds, the charity is volunteer-powered and proud of the significant impact it has had since formation. In May 2023, the charity has just gifted its 1 millionth book.

About us

OECD research has shown that reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child's life outcomes - more than their family circumstances, parents' educational backgrounds or incomes. Being read to, sharing a book with an adult or reading independently drives literacy development, helps children develop socially and emotionally, and offers escapism and a chance to see the world differently. Sadly, against a backdrop of widespread library closures and increasing public hardship, hundreds of thousands of children in the UK live in homes with very few books of their own, and sometimes none. The Children's Book Project seeks to tackle this book poverty gap by placing books directly into the hands of the children who need them most.

The charity was award a prestigious Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in 2020. Last year, over 12,000 volunteering hours were given by local, corporate and young Duke of Edinburgh Award volunteers.

The opportunity

Some of our trustees are coming to the end of their extended terms, having helped launch and shape the charity. We are forever grateful for their invaluable support, enthusiasm and guidance during this keyphase. As a result, we are now seeking new trustees to join our board.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for trustees to help shape internal conversations about our growth and focus over the next few years. It is a time of exciting change. We are moving from a wholly volunteer run model to a sustainable staff/volunteer model, we have recently launched our three new satellite operations, we are diversifying our book donation sources to expand our capacity to reach even more children and we are seeking to understand and assess our impact on our many audiences in wider and more structured ways.

We are specifically looking for trustees with experience in one or more of these areas:

• Finance (charity accounting experience would be a bonus)
• Teaching or education, ideally with experience in the State school sector
• Social inequality / child poverty
• Publishing, particularly children's publishing
• Literacy campaigning or research

We are looking for strong communicators and relationship builders. Our new trustees will be passionate about what we do and the impact we have. We are very open to first time trustees joining the Board.

As we seek to increase the diversity of our board, we particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME), LGBT+, disabled and socially diverse candidates, including those with experience of life on a lower income. More broadly, we welcome any candidate who can contribute greater diversity to the board in its widest sense, including diversity of background, life experience ,career path and thought. We know that different perspectives will enable us to better tackle book poverty and help more children to discover their love of books and reading.

If you like the sound of this role but you don't quite meet all the criteria, we still encourage you to apply.

Anticipated commitment

The time commitment for trustees includes attendance at three board meetings per year, usually held outside normal working hours in London, plus meeting preparation time.

In addition, we encourage our trustees to get to know the organisation by spending a minimum of 2 days per year volunteering at one of our four UK locations (usually during term time, within school hours), or an equivalent to suit your availability.

To find out more or to apply

To apply, please send a brief covering letter and your CV to the Chair of Trustees, Kath Sloggett, at kath@childrensbookproject.co.uk by Friday 2nd June 2023.

Please contact Kath if you have any informal questions about the role before applying.