Goldfinch Lottery
Trustee (Finance), The Goldfinch Fund
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Description
Unpaid trustee role. Founding board position at a charity currently being registered with the Charity Commission.
About us
Britain has lost a great deal of its nature. Hedgerows, rivers, meadows, peatland and woodland have all declined at a scale that grant funding alone has not reversed. The organisations doing the restoration work are short of reliable income.
The Goldfinch Fund will open a new funding route. Our income will come from a weekly lottery. Players will pay £1 a week and choose which conservation organisation their money supports. A minimum of 50p in every pound goes to restoration work, which is well above the 20% legal minimum and above what the largest lottery operators return. Ten pence of every pound is reserved for groups too small to fundraise at all, the ones who never win grants because they cannot afford anyone to write the applications.
We are recruiting three to five founding trustees. A charity cannot be registered without them, so this board will be in place before anything else happens.
The role
You would join at the point where the decisions are still open. Alongside standard trustee responsibilities, this seat leads scrutiny of the operator contract, the reserves policy and the annual accounts, and helps the board assess risk and safeguard the charity's assets and reputation.
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Being direct about one thing, because it is the part a finance trustee will care about most. The lottery will be managed by a company owned by the founder. This is a legal requirement rather than a preference, since a lottery cannot be run for private gain, and every charity lottery in the country is structured the same way. The founder does not intend to draw a salary until the lottery has real traction, and the board decides when that point has arrived and sets the figure. The board also benchmarks the management contract, publishes it and reviews it at the end of each term.
We would rather recruit someone who will do that scrutiny properly than end up with a board that waves it through.
Transparency and accountability to regulators, partners and the public sit at the centre of how we intend to operate. We will publish the percentage returned to causes on every page and measure ourselves in hectares restored, river-kilometres improved and small conservation groups funded who currently receive nothing.
What we are looking for
- Charity finance experience, ideally as a finance director, treasurer or charity accountant. Qualified or qualified by experience.
- Comfortable with budgets, forecasts, cash flow and internal controls, and with charity governance and reporting.
- Familiarity with regulated sectors, or the appetite to get to grips with the Gambling Act 2005 and what it asks of us.
- Previous board experience is useful rather than essential. Comfort with an organisation at the pre-registration stage matters more.
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Commitment
- Four board meetings a year of around two hours, usually online, plus a panel twice a year and some reading. Roughly three to four days annually. The founding period is heavier, with monthly contact likely for the first six months.
- Three-year term, renewable once.
- Unpaid. Reasonable travel expenses reimbursed.
Also worth knowing
Our income will come from gambling. It is tightly regulated. The statutory minimum age for a society lottery is 16 and we will operate at 18, with age verification, deposit limits and self-exclusion from launch. Some people hold a principled objection to funding conservation this way, and we would rather hear that early.
To apply
Send a short note about yourself to ben@goldfinchlottery.org.uk. No CV needed at this stage. A conversation first, no commitment.
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