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Chair and trustee recruitment, summer 2025
About Us
For three decades, Forward Arts Foundation (‘Forward’) has been at the forefront of new poetry and now reaches an estimated 131 million people each year. We are a national charity working across the UK and online to widen poetry’s audience, honour achievement and support diverse talent. Through our two flagship programmes, Forward Prizes for Poetry and National Poetry Day, we work towards a better society where individuals and communities can develop their innate creativity, their agency and their understanding through the making and sharing of poetry.
Leadership and Management
Forward is led by its board of eight Trustees, chaired by Jamie Andrews. Jamie is Director of Public Engagement at the British Library and brings extensive experience as a trustee of several charities, including Oxford House. Other trustees are Forward’s founder William Sieghart CBE, responsible for the 2013 Sieghart Report on libraries and e-books; Kim Evans, former senior executive at BBC and Arts Council; Aoife O’Connor, poet and producer; Amelia Richards, culture and communications leader; treasurer and CFO Latinka Pilipovic; marketing manager Maya Ophelia and data scientist Mary Amanuel.
The organisation is led by Mónica Parle and Lucy Macnab, Co-Executive Directors. Both have experience as directors of writing organisations (First Story and Ministry of Stories). Mónica is an award winning writer and Lucy brings national policy and strategy design experience from Arts Council England. With joint accountability, they each work 0.5FTE. The team also includes Jay Bhadricha, Head of Programmes, and Annalise Peters, Finance and Operations Coordinator.
The team is supported by freelance specialists in education, communications, finance and fundraising.
We believe poetry is for everyone. Our approach to recruiting trustees is shaped by a commitment to diversity, equality, and inclusion. We particularly welcome applications for vacancies from D/deaf and disabled and black and minority ethnic candidates, as well as candidates from lower socio-economic backgrounds, as they are under-represented in the arts, and we commit to review our processes to ensure that our organisation more closely reflects the society it serves.
Chair Role
The Chair leads the board, ensuring that it governs the charity effectively, in service of the charity’s vision and mission. The Chair leads in an inclusive way, supporting the board to work together well, and providing support and challenge to the Chief Executive. The Chair is also an ambassador for the charity.
What we are looking for
Trustee roles
We are also looking for trustees with expertise in any of the below and a belief that your skills will contribute to the strong and effective governance and growth of a small charity. We are especially looking for experience and networks in:
Responsibilities of all trustees
Essential qualities and attributes of all trustees
Terms and Commitment
Location: All board meetings may be attended online. We will try to meet face-to-face when we can. But trustees are welcome wherever they live.
We estimate you’ll need to commit around 30 hours over the course of a year. The board meets quarterly and we have a strategy day one afternoon a year. Trustees are appointed for a 3-year term, with a maximum of 2 terms.
Salary: Unpaid, travel expenses will be reimbursed if needed and where necessary.
Deadline for applications: 21 July
Interviews beginning w/c 28 July
To apply or find out more, contact Co-Executive Director Lucy Macnab explaining why you would like to be a trustee lucy@forwardartsfoundation.org. If you are interested in being Chair, please make this clear. You may want to tell us what your previous experience is, and what knowledge and skills you have and what you would like to gain from the experience. Also someone we can talk to as a referee. We will accept applications in any medium.
For those applying for the chair role, you are welcome to have a call with Jamie Andrews, current chair, to find out more.
Forward Arts Foundation is a registered charity (charity number: 1037939) and a company limited by guarantee (company no: 02902864), registered in England and Wales.
This role is advertised as part of TPP's Free Giving Back Services. This volunteer advertisement copy has been supplied to TPP and applicants apply direct to the organisation. Please contact the organisation directly if you have any questions about this volunteer role.