Trustees – Foundation for Integrated Transport

The Foundation for Integrated Transport (FIT) is looking for three new trustees to sit on its Board.

Background
The Foundation was established in 2014 by the late Dr Simon Norton, a world-class mathematician and renowned transport campaigner. Simon’s vision was a world where humans have a right to get around without a car and where people can travel with minimum impact on other people’s lives and the environment. In pursuit of these aims, the Foundation provides grants and fellowships and promotes solutions that overcome barriers to getting around, which might be provided through volunteering, social enterprise and other means.

FIT is one of the few grant-making trusts devoted entirely to promoting change on transport issues in the UK. Its strategic priorities are:

• Supporting initiatives that change public attitudes to the car
• Transforming the quality of bus services in the UK
• Increasing sustainable travel to leisure destinations
• Availability of public transport as a human right
• Making new and existing developments public transport friendly
• Supporting grassroots community action for sustainable transport and not road building
• Better inter-regional transport coaches and integrating longer distance modes of transport
• Helping organisations active on environmental, health and social issues to adopt transport as a priority.

To help achieve these aims, FIT offers four types of funding:

1. Grants: between £5,000 and £30,000 for projects that promote and deliver transport as a basic right and tackle climate change
2. Small grants: maximum £2,000 to support the running costs of local campaigns and grassroots groups or networks
3. Fellowships: to develop the skills and experience of remarkable transport activists and researchers who are contributing to integrated transport
4. Social Investment Fund: a fund which makes loans, repayable grants and equity investments in selected projects and innovations.

FIT’s 2023 funding focus is projects which focus on traffic reduction, with a particular emphasis on road-user charging.

The trust has assets of approximately £6 million, to be spent over 10 years on grants, small grants for volunteer organisations, fellowships and social investments. FIT’s two current areas of interest, which inform its decisions, are transport as a basic human right and climate change.

The role
As a specialist Foundation we are seeking trustees who have a keen interest in transport, but this need not be specialist knowledge. We are also looking for people with financial and legal knowledge/ backgrounds. Additionally, we are interested in finding younger trustees, with more based outside the southeast, as well as from a diverse range of backgrounds.

FIT is one of the few sources of charitable funds for sustainable transport, so trustees play a key role. This is an opportunity to work with and support campaigners for sustainable transport.

Quarterly Board and other committee meetings
The trust deed provides for trustees to be appointed for up to three terms, each of three years. The amount of time needed for the role can be flexible, to fit in with other commitments. Quarterly Board and other committee meetings are held online and there is an annual Strategic Review meeting which is held in person.

Legal duties of trustees

• Ensure your charity is carrying out its purposes for the public benefit
• Comply with your charity’s governing document and the law
• Act in your charity’s best interests
• Manage your charity’s resources responsibly
• Act with reasonable care and skill
• Ensure your charity is accountable
• Attendance at quarterly trust meetings online, as well as in person once a year
• Possible membership of the trust’s Social Investment and Organisational Committees
• Reviewing applications for funding and helping decide which applicants receive funding
• Regularly reviewing the work of the trust and of its grantees, fellows and social investments
• Overseeing the policy and performance of the trust’s market investments
• Ensuring that the trust’s governance and policies are sound and consistent with the trust’s vision and strategy.

FIT is registered as charity number 1156363.

Application process
To apply, please submit the following:

• full name
• contact details (email & postal addresses, phone number)
• CV
• supporting statement, outlining your reasons for applying to join the FIT Board and highlighting the skills and experience you would bring to the role (maximum of two sides of A4)
• names & contact details of two referees who can comment on your suitability as a trustee. These should not include relatives or friends from outside a professional context

The deadline for applications is 01/01/2024.