Co-Chairs

ADD International is looking to recruit new Co-Chairs for our Board to take over from our current Co-chairs who are nearing the end of their terms.

An existing member of our board, Liz Sayce, has been selected to be one of the Co-Chairs, so we are looking for a one new person to join the Board and be a Co-Chair alongside her.

It is an exciting time for ADD International. We have recently launched a new strategy on our journey of re-imaging our role and decolonising how we work. The Board has played an important role in stewarding this journey and the new Co-Chairs will be able to play an important role continuing to do this.

We are seeking Co-Chairs in line with our commitment at ADD to co-leadership at both Chair and CEO level. We believe this allows us to achieve a wider blend of skills and experience and demonstrate how collaboration and partnership are at our heart.

The new Co-Chairs will enable the Board to fulfil its responsibilities for the overall governance and direction of the organisation and ensure that the aims of ADD International are achieved. This includes working with the Co-CEOs, other Board members and senior staff to ensure that we appropriately set and review strategy and line managing the Co-CEO team with the appropriate balance of support and challenge. The Co-Chairs also have a key role as ambassadors for and visible champions of the work that ADD International does. Power does not shift easily and the Co-Chairs will need to champion the bold changes we are making, ensuring we are accountable to the disability activists we aim to support.

Location: The majority of our board meetings are virtual, but we aim to hold one in person board meeting a year to allow deeper reflection and in-person connections to support the work we do virtually through the year. 

Estimated Time commitment: 2 days a month each.

Term: All our Trustees serve a 4-year term that may be renewed for an additional term. 

Remuneration: None. In line with current UK charity legislation these are voluntary roles. However reasonable expenses to undertake the role are covered. 

ABOUT ADD INTERNATIONAL 

ADD is an International INGO that is committed to transforming into a participatory grant-maker for disability justice. We work in solidarity with disability justice movements. We use our position and our networks to make sure resources and opportunities flow to disability justice movements in Africa and Asia. 

We focus on disability justice activists who are oppressed in multiple intersecting ways including, but not limited to, those who are women, young people and those with disabilities that receive less attention and support. We will continue to support them through the challenges caused by climate change in the coming decade.   

ADD works with organisations led by people with lived experience of disability and we seek to centre that lived experience in everything we do.  

We support disability justice organisations and activists with funding and nurture their lived-experience leadership to build powerful movements for change. 

ADD also works with several other partners and funders to inspire and influence them to change. We see a role for ADD as a changemaker in the ecosystem. 

ADD was created in 1985 to disrupt the way that disabled people were viewed and treated by international organisations. 

Our Trustees have recently approved a bold new strategic framework for the next ten years beginning in 2024. With the launch of this strategy, we are getting back to our roots as a disrupter; boldly challenging ourselves, and others, to do better to support disability justice movements to thrive. 

This Strategic Framework consolidates the strategic changes we have made as part of a transformation process our Trustees initiated in 2021 and explains how we will embed all the changes that ADD International is making over the coming years and can be found here. 

STRUCTURE AND GOVERNANCE

ADD International is a UK registered charity and currently has offices in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and the UK. We have shifted over the past 3 years from a model in which we thought about ourselves as being ‘headquartered’ in the UK to one in which we operate with a global footprint and in which most jobs can be recruited for anywhere across our offices. This shift in how we think about ourselves supports our wider shift in how we operate. 

As a charitable company registered in the UK, ADD International has Articles of Association which set out the rules for running the organisation. Trustees of the charity are simultaneously Directors of the (private limited) company. 

Working in partnership with the Co-CEOs and Leadership Team, the Board of Trustees is ultimately accountable for effective governance and delivering the objectives of the charity. Under UK law, the Board of Trustees (Directors) shares collective responsibility for their decisions. The Board appoints Co-Chairs to lead them and also has Officers meetings where some decisions are made. There are currently no formal sub-committees, but Trustees may also join occasional working groups (which may include staff) depending on their availability and specialist expertise. We also have a Treasurer, Trustee Safeguarding Lead and a Trustee Inclusive Cultures Champion. 

ADD international’s Trustees are drawn from all over the world, with regular meetings taking place virtually. Annually we also aim to meet in person and cover all Trustees expenses for attendance at these meetings. A thorough training and induction programme, tailored to the individual, is offered to all new Trustees to ensure they feel comfortable with their responsibilities, and understand the work and the ethos of ADD International.

Why we have committed Co-Leadership at ADD International for the lifetime of our new strategic framework.

We are in a period of transformation from a traditional and colonial model of working with traditional hierarchies, into one that is different and new. 

Co-Leadership enables us to have a much better complex skill sets, experiences and backgrounds at CEO level than we would ever find in one person.

Leadership at both the CEO and Chair roles can be tough and time consuming. Having a sounding board, critical friend and co-conspirator makes a real difference to the quality and timeliness of the work.

We believe that with Co-Leadership comes the potential to make better leadership decisions. Rather than one person making big decisions, these can be shared, logic questioned and interrogated and the burden of making them shared.

It means that collaboration and partnership run through the heart of the organisation - visibly demonstrating these values to those who might work with us. By extending this to both our Chairs and our CEOs we believe we ensure that we have the right breadth and depth of skills to lead the bold changes that ADD International is making. 

WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

Key behaviours for all our Board members that the Co-Chairs will model are: 

In our recent meeting in May 2024 we approved a new set of values that we want the board to work within. The new Co-Chairs will play a crucial role over the next few years in bringing these to life. They are:

1. The board should centre lived experience leadership in how it does business, meaning it should ensure that it is listening to and supporting members with lived experience aiming to work in solidarity rather than treating members with lived experience as people who need charity or help.

2. We centre justice recognising that the systems we operate within are unjust, and we are here to disrupt them meaning that the board should cultivate respectful feedback, debate and challenge as tools that can help us to continue questioning the status quo.

3. The board should recognise the intersecting oppressions and needs that members may face influencing their ability to participate and the support they may need to fully do so.

4. How we do what we do matters, and we are committed to centre trust and care for each other and for disability justice activists and organisations. When something goes wrong in relationships or practice, we deal with it in clear and transparent ways that aim not to destroy trust. We are ready to learn dynamically and improve, fostering a culture that makes it safe and open to test, fail, learn and rapidly improve.

5. A strong commitment to the mission, values and work of ADD International and to the change we are leading as an organisation within the International Development Sector including the following:[MC1]

• Commitment to being well prepared for Board Meetings. Committing time, not just for attending meetings but also the important work in between.
• A good understanding of the Disability Justice Movement and the role of Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (DPOs) within that
• Analysis & critical thinking, with good, independent judgement
• Team players, with humility and ability to get on well with others
• Commitment to our Co-Leadership model and to supporting it in how it operates
• Curiosity & constructive challenge, with the ability to think creatively.
• Valuing diversity and willingness to bring this to life (we like the way the Decolonising Wealth Project describes this as ‘listening in colour’)
• Understanding - or willingness to learn swiftly - and acceptance of the legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of Trusteeship of a UK charity

As we are seeking one to complement Liz, three key experiences we want the other Co-Chair to have are:
 

• Understanding of International development and the big shifts in power in the sector we are currently seeking to make at ADD International
• Lived experience of disability in the global majority world
• Understanding of Grant making and participatory ways of doing this would be a bonus

In addition, across the two Co-Chair positions, we are seeking the following roles and ways of working.

Collaborative Strategic Leadership 

• Provide leadership to ADD International and its Board, working together and with their Co-Chair and with our Co-CEOs
• Use their lived experience of disability and of the contexts in which we work to inform our strategic decisions
• A commitment to the new direction that ADD International has already committed to 
• A commitment to developing and maintaining constructive relationships with both of our Co-CEOs, and our staff team and disabled activists we work with.
• Engage in regular learning and reflection about how our co-leadership model is working. It is still relatively new to us (and the sector) and we are committed to learning as we go, with curiosity and humility
• Ability to support our Co-CEOs and help them learn, develop and perform well as leaders of ADD International
• Ability and willingness to be Ambassadors for ADD International and where relevant to leverage own networks in support of ADD International and be active in developing additional external relationships

Governance 

• A willingness to learn about chairing in the NGO sector – or previous experience of doing so
• The ability to chair Board meetings creatively and effectively (and commitment to the model the Board has recently agreed for these)
• Ensure that the Board operates within its charitable objectives, and provides a clear strategic direction for the Charity
• Ensure that the Board is able to regularly review major risks and associated opportunities, and satisfy itself that systems are in place to take advantage of opportunities, and manage and mitigate the risks (nb There is currently a RIsk Working Group that has been established to work on this)
• Ensure that the Board fulfils its duties to ensure sound financial health of the Charity, with systems in place to ensure financial accountability
• Ensure that the governance arrangements are working in the most effective way for the Charity and encourage positive change where appropriate.
• Develop the knowledge and capability of the Board of Trustees
• Appraise the performance of the Trustees and the Board on an annual basis
• Ensure that the Board of Trustees is regularly refreshed and incorporates the right balance of skills, knowledge and experience needed to govern and lead the charity effectively, and which also reflects our commitment to lived experience leadership and an inclusive culture
• Work within any agreed policies adopted by the Charity

External Relations 

• Ensure ADD is accountable to the disabled activists we seek to support, and the Board is regularly listening to and acting on their views and insights
• Act as ambassadors for ADD International and our strategic approach
• Act as spokespeople for the organisation when appropriate 
• Represent the Charity at external functions, meetings and events 

Relationship with the Chief Executive and the wider management team 

• Establish and build a strong, effective and a constructive working relationship with the Co-CEOs, and ensure they are held to account for achieving agreed strategic objectives 
• Willingness to agree how to best divide up roles and support one another to lead ADD International well in our new strategic period
• Ensure regular contact with the Co-CEOs and develop and maintain an open and supportive relationship within which each can speak openly about concerns, worries and challenges 
• Conduct an annual appraisal and remuneration review for our Co-CEOs in consultation with other Trustees 
• Ensure that the Co-CEOs have the opportunity for professional development and have appropriate external professional support 

Extra time commitment

• Support the development of agendas for Board meetings
• Line manage and support the Co-CEOs in their work
• Be ready to provide advice and support to the Co-CEOs as and when required