What are the responsibilities of a charity trustee?
A charity trustee is the person with overall legal responsibility for how a charity is run: keeping it true to its purposes, managing resources responsibly, complying with the law and its governing document, and ensuring it stays accountable. In Guernsey, duties sit under the Charities etc (Guernsey and Alderney) Ordinance 2021, and details should be verified with the Guernsey Registry.
Trustees are the people who lead a charity and decide how it is run. Depending on the organisation, they may be called board members, committee members, directors or governors, but the label does not change the substance: whoever sits on the body with ultimate authority for governing the charity is a trustee in law. Trusteeship is almost always unpaid, though trustees can usually claim reasonable expenses incurred in the role.
[2][3][4]One point worth settling early is jurisdiction. The detailed trustee duties most often quoted in general guidance, such as the Charity Commission's 'Essential trustee' publication, apply to charities in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own regulators and their own guidance. Guernsey is a separate jurisdiction again, and its charity framework is set out in the Charities etc (Guernsey and Alderney) Ordinance 2021, administered through the Guernsey Registry. The core ideas overlap across these systems, but the specific filing duties, thresholds and enforcement mechanisms are not interchangeable, so always check the rules for where your charity is actually based.
[1][2]The core responsibilities
- Ensuring the charity carries out the purposes it was set up for, and no other purpose. Spending charity funds on the wrong purposes is treated as a very serious matter, and in some cases trustees may have to reimburse the charity personally.
- Acting in the charity's best interests, solely, rather than on behalf of any particular group that appointed you, and managing conflicts of interest including conflicts of loyalty.
- Complying with the charity's governing document and the law that applies to it.
- Managing the charity's resources responsibly: not taking inappropriate risks with assets or reputation, not over-committing the charity, and taking special care when investing or borrowing.
- Acting with reasonable care and skill, and being willing to give sufficient time and attention to the charity's business.
- Ensuring the charity is accountable, including keeping proper records and being able to explain how its activities benefit the public.
What this looks like in practice
Day to day, the responsibilities translate into habits rather than grand gestures. Trustees should know their governing document and make sure new trustees receive and understand a copy. Boards should meet regularly, keep minutes as a record of decisions, and read papers before meetings. Conflicts of interest should be declared at the start of meetings. Trustees should ask to see the organisation's safeguarding, equalities and health and safety policies, understand what they say, and know who is responsible for compliance. A risk register setting out the main risks, discussed at trustee meetings, is a common tool for keeping on top of legal obligations. Questions are part of the job: if you are not satisfied the charity is meeting its obligations, keep asking and ask for evidence.
[3]A worked example
Suppose, hypothetically, a small community charity is invited to fund a project that sits outside its stated objects. A diligent trustee board would first check the governing document to confirm whether the project falls within the charity's purposes. If it does not, the trustees should decline or first take proper advice on whether the objects can lawfully be changed, because spending funds on the wrong purposes is a serious breach that can lead to personal reimbursement. The same discipline applies to conflicts: a trustee who runs a business bidding to supply the charity declares the interest at the start of the meeting and steps back from the decision. Both examples show the same underlying duty, which is putting the charity's interests first and being able to show why a decision was made.
[2][3]Guernsey specifics
For charities and non-profit organisations registered in the Bailiwick, the Guernsey Registry publishes guidance, legislation links and a set of frequently asked questions, and it maintains the Charities Register of Guernsey and Alderney through its online portal. The Registry's published material shows that registered charities and NPOs face formal duties under the 2021 Ordinance, including annual validation or renewal requirements: the Registry publishes enforcement notices listing charities struck off for failing to file annual validation, failing annual renewal, or failing to comply with other duties under the Ordinance. The Registry also highlights risk awareness topics for charities, including money laundering and the financing of terrorism, bribery and corruption, fraud warnings and governance, and it notes that the legislation imposes extra requirements on internationally active charities, meaning those that raise or distribute funds outside the Bailiwick. What the Registry's overview does not spell out is a clause-by-clause list of every trustee duty under the Ordinance, so that detail needs to come from the legislation and the Registry's own guidance pages rather than from general England-and-Wales material.
[1]A note on this site: the directory here covers Guernsey's trust and corporate service provider records drawn from the GFSC register, which is a different field from charity trusteeship. It is useful for checking fiduciary firms, but charity trustee duties should be verified through the Guernsey Registry and the Ordinance itself.
[5]Your next step
If you are a trustee in Guernsey, or considering becoming one, start with three documents: your charity's governing document, the Charities etc (Guernsey and Alderney) Ordinance 2021, and the Guernsey Registry's charity guidance and FAQs. Read them alongside each other, note anything that is unclear, and put questions to the Registry directly before acting on them.
[1][2]Sources and dates
- https://www.guernseyregistry.com/charities · accessed 2026-10-18
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-essential-trustee-what-you-need-to-know-what-you-need-to-do-cc3/the-essential-trustee-what-you-need-to-know-what-you-need-to-do · accessed 2026-10-18
- https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/community_and_living/voluntary-and-community-sector/VCS-Resources/Trustee-roles-and-responsibilities.aspx · accessed 2026-10-18
- https://charitycommission.blog.gov.uk/2026/06/01/what-is-a-trustee-and-how-do-you-become-one/ · accessed 2026-10-18
- https://trustees.gg/ · accessed 2026-10-18