We went looking at how boards actually run. It wasn't pretty.
Before starting The Committee Room, we spent time researching how the UK's small charities, committees and PTAs really operate, reading the Charity Commission's own data, sector surveys, and hundreds of conversations in the places where trustees and volunteers talk honestly.
The pattern was everywhere: volunteers writing up minutes at 11pm, policies nobody has reviewed since 2019, annual return deadlines tracked in someone's head, and nobody obvious to ask when a quick question came up. Meanwhile the software built for boardrooms is priced for boardrooms, not for a village hall committee with £8,000 a year.
So we built the thing we thought should exist: a friendly, capable outfit that just sorts the governance admin, at prices a small charity can pay, with the useful stuff given away free.
Small charities do some of the most important work in the country, usually run by volunteers giving up their evenings. The help they can get with governance is often expensive, or nowhere to be found.
I've spent more than twelve years advising boards, from international businesses to colleges and small charities, and the rules are the same for all of them. The difference is that big organisations can pay someone to keep on top of it. I started The Committee Room so that smaller ones can have that support too, at a price that makes sense.
Rachel Wall ACG, chartered governance professional
Based in Fife, working with charities and boards across the UK and overseas · See my background on LinkedIn