September 2, 2026
Reach Volunteering announces it’s closure.
The closure of Reach Volunteering after 45 years leaves a major gap in trustee and skills-based recruitment.
The announcement that Reach Volunteering is to close after more than 45 years is profoundly sad news for the voluntary sector.
Reach has done something both simple and enormously important: connected charities and community organisations with people willing to contribute their professional skills, experience and judgement for social good.
Its achievements are remarkable. In the last decade alone, Reach enabled charities to recruit more than 34,000 volunteers and trustees. Last year, the volunteers and trustees recruited through its service contributed an estimated £60 million of professional expertise.
Perhaps most importantly, Reach helped organisations look beyond their existing networks.
That matters enormously in trustee recruitment.
Too many boards still recruit through personal contacts: someone knows someone who might be interested. While this can produce excellent trustees, it can also perpetuate boards drawn from similar professional, social and demographic backgrounds.
Reach provided an accessible means of breaking that cycle, particularly for smaller organisations. Of the 2,440 organisations it engaged with in 2025, 96% had incomes below £1 million and almost half below £50,000.
Its closure therefore leaves a significant gap.
Why charities must continue looking beyond their networks and how The Hiring Dept. can help.
Trustee recruitment should be treated as seriously as executive recruitment.
The lesson from Reach should not be that charities now return to asking existing trustees to search their contact books.
Instead, we should build upon its legacy.
Trusteeship is becoming more demanding. Boards are dealing with increasingly complex questions around finance, safeguarding, regulation, digital transformation, AI, fundraising, workforce challenges and organisational sustainability.
Finding the right trustees consequently requires more than advertising a vacancy. It requires understanding what the board already has, identifying the skills and perspectives it needs next, developing a compelling proposition and actively reaching people who may never previously have considered trusteeship.
That is where executive search techniques can make a difference.
At The Hiring Dept., we already work with charities and purpose-led organisations to recruit Chairs, Trustees, Non-Executive Directors, Chief Executives and senior leaders.
For organisations that have previously recruited successfully through Reach, we may be able to provide another route to the people they need.
That could include helping boards undertake a skills and succession review; defining the trustee or Chair profile required; developing an appointment brief that makes the opportunity compelling; advertising the role; proactively identifying potential candidates beyond an organisation’s established networks; and managing a rigorous, inclusive recruitment and assessment process.
Crucially, this should not mean trying to replicate Reach. Its model, scale and accessibility were distinctive, and its loss should concern everyone interested in strengthening civil society.
But it does mean recognising that charities still need to recruit exceptional trustees and that many will now need help doing so.
Reach’s closure also raises a much bigger question for funders.
We rightly fund frontline delivery. But without strong governance, skilled volunteers, capable boards and the infrastructure that connects people willing to contribute with organisations needing their expertise, frontline organisations themselves become weaker.
After 45 extraordinary years, Reach leaves an impressive legacy.
The challenge for the rest of us is to ensure that the connections it made possible do not disappear with it.
At The Hiring Dept., we would be very pleased to talk to organisations that have previously relied upon Reach and are now considering how they will recruit their next Chair or trustees.
Contact Us
For an informal and confidential discussion about this article, or on any other subject, please contact our Founder & CEO, Philip Nelson, on 020 3590 9978 or via email at philip.nelson@thehiringdept.com.
Philip has over twenty years of experience in charity governance and executive search and currently serves as a Trustee of Coram Beanstalk and as the Policy Development Lead for Heritage & Tourism at The Green Party.
