As an artist I have been fortunate enough to be included really early on in conversations around power and lived experience. I identify as a Queer South-Asian woman from a Muslim background from the North of England. All these identity markers give me insights into privilege (and lack thereof), power (and lack thereof), and give me access to knowledge that other people may have to do a PhD to understand.

When it comes to the arts, culture and charity sectors, there is often a power imbalance between those that run the organisations and have decision-making power and those who the organisations seek to serve. This is a problem. Boards that don’t reflect the make-up of the communities they serve are at greater risk of creating programmes that are not needed or even desired by the communities. This leaves these organisations open to greater financial risk.

Greater board diversity means better programming. I’m not saying that having a person of colour or young person on your board is going to magically solve all your problems, just that you will be in a better position to find solutions.

Having said that, the burden of representation on marginalised people is already really high, so let’s not tokenise, yeah? I have a policy (loosely based on a Stormzy lyric - “take that fee and treble it twice”), if I am the only person of colour and/or the only woman and/or the only young person on a panel and am expected to represent that identity then the organisers can either double my fee or invite someone else onto the panel too. This stops organisers from just seeing me as a magical token and helps lift the burden of representation from my shoulders. Boards need to start doing the same.

The first board I sat on I was the only non-white person, but not the only young person. I found I was able to share experiences about being young and provide insight into programmes and policies knowing that there was someone else on the board who could provide an alternative view if needed. However, when it came to race, I struggled to talk about my personal experiences – I did not want my experience to be generalised to all Black and Asian and Minority Ethnic parts of BAME. Instead, I ended up volunteering to help write the EDI policies and audience development plans to ensure that racial diversity was looked at properly. In another organisation I noticed that I was always invited to sit on the interview panel (again I was the only non-white person there), which put me in a difficult position. On the one hand I don’t always have the time/energy to do every panel, on the other hand I know how important it is for candidates to see people that look like them on the interview panel. This dilemma is faced by many marginalised people.

My campaign with the Young Trustees Movement focuses on just this. 1/12 trustees are called either John or David, while less than 3% of trustees are under 30. For greater board diversity we need the Johns and Davids to move on and create space for young people, for women, for people of colour, for disabled people, for queer people. Boards bringing in board terms for trustees would stop the gatekeeping of power, but also give the organisations a refresh and access to more networks and knowledge.