Trustees(s) - Youth Sport Trust

Do you believe in the power of sport to offer life lessons, develop life skills and affect young people’s life chances? Are you passionate about building a brighter future for the next generation? If so, our Trustee role is the role for you.

Who we are

The Youth Sport Trust is the UK’s leading charity improving every young person’s education and development through sport and play.

The role

​Trustee – 3 opportunities

A commitment across c.10 days per annum

Loughborough/London

We are the UK’s leading charity improving every young person’s education and development through play and sport. Our vision is a future where every child enjoys the life changing benefits of play and sport, and we work tirelessly to increase equality.

Sport gives young people a platform to have their voice heard and a place where they feel they belong, and we are on a mission to harness this extraordinary power to change young lives today and help them build a brighter tomorrow.

For almost 30 years we have developed a unique way of maximising the power of sport to grow young people, schools and communities through the development of physical and mental health, fostering inclusion and building character and leadership skills. We have been fortunate enough to work closely with government to influence policy and deliver national strategy, as well as in delivering and co-creating projects for a range of Trusts, Foundations, Lottery distributors and Corporates. We are now seeking Trustees to join our Board of Directors to influence key strategic and governance issues and ensure we meet performance objectives.

As a Trustee you will work to guarantee the highest standards of integrity and governance and help ensure statutory requirements are met. We will look to you to make sure financial controls and systems of risk management are robust and defensible as well as provide expert advice on all matters of Board business. You will also monitor and review the executive teams’ activity and provide challenge and feedback as needed to enhance their performance. Important will be the ability to help the Board maximise impact for the young people we support as well as ensuring sustainability of the charity without compromising our moral position and brand.

The Youth Sport Trust was established in 1995 by our benefactor and President, Sir John Beckwith supported by our Vice President Duncan Goodhew. The organisation is now the leading national charity working within education on youth sport and is looking for Trustees who thrive on accountability and are unfazed by the responsibility of being the guardian of our reputation. We are looking for someone who will champion all we stand for and will promote our work through external relations and stakeholder engagement.

Naturally, you will have knowledge and a genuine interest in the education, sport or youth sector. Commercially and financially astute, you will have sound business judgement and the ability to constructively criticise and being strong accountability. You will have good diplomatic, communication and interpersonal skills too.

The charity uses a skills and diversity matrix to map the expertise and experience of the Board and through this appointment we are particularly seeking individuals with relevant lived experience in state school education, low affluence family background, personal experience of sport changing lives, cultural and ethnic diversity, disability; and/or a background in health, secondary education, school sport, politics or public affairs, the youth or charity sector and/or corporate business or the media.

Youth Sport Trust positively welcomes and seeks to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment. We encourage applications from all candidates regardless of age, race, sex, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or nationality. We particularly welcome applications from underrepresented groups including candidates from an ethnically diverse background and candidates with a range of lived experience.