Four routes to a charity CEO appointment: Maine Charity sets out when to promote, advertise, search or appoint an interim
The charity recruitment division of The Maine Group has published guidance for trustee boards on charity CEO recruitment. It covers how to choose a hiring route, who makes the decision, how pay is set and disclosed, and which candidates need Charity Commission consent before they can be employed.
London, 4 November 2026. Maine Charity, the not-for-profit division of London recruitment consultancy The Maine Group, has set out four routes a trustee board can take when appointing a chief executive, and the circumstances in which each one fits. The guidance appears in a new article, How does charity CEO recruitment work?, written by Meeta Sahni, who has 25 years of experience in talent consulting.
The article is written for chairs and trustees facing a chief executive vacancy, often for the first time. Many trustees have hired senior people in a commercial setting. Charity CEO recruitment works differently. The trustee board is the employer and makes the appointment. The salary appears in the published accounts. Some candidates, including current and recent trustees, may need consent from the Charity Commission before the charity can employ them.
The four routes are internal promotion, open advertising, retained executive search, and an interim appointment followed by a permanent one. Maine Charity’s view is that each route has a situation where it works well and a specific way it can go wrong, and that boards should pick a route on that basis before they look at price.
The four routes to an appointment
Internal promotion
Promotion from within suits a charity where a credible successor is already in post and the board intends to continue the current strategy. The risk is that a closed process is hard to defend if the appointment later goes wrong.
There is no legal requirement for a charity to advertise its chief executive role. Open recruitment does give trustees a record that they acted in the charity’s best interests, and that record matters most when there is an internal candidate, a trustee in the frame, or a later challenge to the appointment.
Open advertising
Advertising works when the role is well known in the sector and the salary on offer is competitive. In those conditions it can produce a good field at a fraction of the cost of a retained search.
Its limit is that an advert reaches only people who are actively looking. Advertising also has the lowest fee and the highest cost in staff time, because someone inside the charity has to sift applications and manage candidates through each stage.
Retained executive search
A retained search is the better fit when the strongest candidates are employed elsewhere and not looking, or when the brief is unusual. Retained fees are paid in stages and are payable whether or not the board makes an appointment. Contingency recruitment, by comparison, is paid only when a candidate is appointed.
Interim, then permanent
An interim chief executive gives the board stability while it settles what it needs from the permanent role. Maine Charity regards this as a sound choice that boards use less often than they could.
The risk is drift. If a senior manager acts up for nine months without a decision, the appointment has been made in all but name, and an external candidate has little chance by the time the role is advertised. The guidance recommends that the board fixes an end date for any acting period on the day it begins.
“Cost is usually the first question a board asks about charity CEO recruitment, and it is the wrong place to start,” said Meeta Sahni of Maine Charity. “The better question is what the person you want to appoint is doing now. If they are already running a similar charity, they are unlikely to be reading job adverts, and a search will reach them where an advert won’t. If the sector knows your organisation and the salary is right, advertising can do the job for much less.”
The board makes the decision
The guidance is clear that the trustees appoint the chief executive, and that this is a collective decision of the whole board. It cannot be handed to the departing chief executive.
In practice, most boards delegate the process to a committee of three or four trustees, usually led by the chair, which then reports to the full board. Maine Charity advises that the board minutes record the delegation and the rule for resolving a deadlock. The Charity Governance Code treats board effectiveness as a principle in its own right, and a chief executive appointment is where boards find out whether they meet it.
Staff involvement has value within limits. A panel of senior managers can give the board information it would not otherwise have, provided everyone knows beforehand that the panel is advisory. Without that clarity, the charity creates a second decision-making body, and a strong candidate can be turned away by a group with no authority to decide.
“The departing chief executive knows the job better than anyone else in the room, and they should help shape the brief,” said Sahni. “The choice of successor belongs to the trustees. When boards blur those two roles, the problem tends to surface later, in an appointment nobody feels they made.”
Pay is set before the search and published after it
Charity pay is disclosed in a way commercial pay is not. Under the Charities SORP, a charity preparing accruals accounts reports the number of employees paid £60,000 or more in £10,000 bands, along with the total employee benefits of its key management personnel. Trustees also explain how they set the pay of key management personnel.
For charity CEO recruitment, that makes the salary a governance decision to take before the process starts, and one the board should be able to justify when the accounts are published. Maine Charity recommends recording the salary band and the market data behind it at the time the decision is made. In its experience, the most common reason a charity chief executive appointment fails at offer stage is a salary band taken from the previous year’s payroll rather than the current market.
The article cites two reference points. The ACEVO Pay and Equalities Survey 2025, based on responses from 703 charity chief executives, reported a median salary of £59,850. Charity Finance’s 2025 study of the UK’s 100 largest charities reported a chief executive pay figure of £192,000, compared with £175,000 in its 2023 study. Where an individual charity sits between those figures depends on its income, staff numbers, location and the complexity of its funding model.
Which candidates need extra checks
Two legal points tend to reach boards late in the process. The first is automatic disqualification. Since 1 August 2018 the rules have covered senior manager positions as well as trustees: the chief executive, or equivalent role reporting directly to the board, and the most senior finance role, whatever its title. Candidates sign a declaration before appointment, and the Charity Commission can grant a waiver on application.
The second concerns trustees. In founder-led and smaller charities, the person the board considers first is often a trustee or someone who has recently stepped down from the board. In most cases, employing a trustee as a paid member of staff needs Charity Commission consent first, unless the charity’s governing document already permits it. The guidance warns that wording which allows trustees to be paid for services does not necessarily cover employment, so the document needs a careful reading.
Resigning from the board shortly before applying does not, on its own, settle the matter, and payments made without proper authority may have to be repaid. The position is easier to defend where the individual stepped down before the role was defined and had no part in designing it.
“If a trustee or former trustee is a likely candidate, the board needs to deal with that before recruitment begins,” said Sahni. “It affects the route, the panel and the timetable, so it is far easier to address at the start than at offer stage.”
Fees and the Maine Charity guarantee
Maine Charity takes no fee before the process starts. Its fee is payable when an appointment is made, and it offers a 100-day guarantee covering 100 per cent of the fee.
Whichever route a board chooses, the guidance recommends agreeing the budget and the person who will sign the engagement agreement before the search begins. A recruitment fee that reaches the accounts without a board minute behind it is likely to raise questions at audit.
After the appointment
The article also covers the period after the offer is accepted, when the board remains the employer. Maine Charity recommends agreeing the new chief executive’s first-year objectives before the start date, while both sides still remember the interview conversations clearly, and fixing the date of the first appraisal at the same time. Charity chief executives usually work a three-month notice period, which gives the board time to do this properly.
Boards should also be clear about who line manages the chief executive, most often the chair, and what happens if that relationship breaks down. Charity Finance’s Chief Executive Survey 2025 found that 30 per cent of leaders at the UK’s 100 largest charities had been in post for a year or less. Some turnover is a normal part of the role. Maine Charity’s view is that part of it comes from boards that appoint well and then give the new chief executive too little support.
Where trustees can read the full guidance
The full article, How does charity CEO recruitment work?, is available on The Maine Group website and includes answers to common trustee questions, such as whether a trustee can become chief executive and whether a charity has to advertise the role. A companion article, Nonprofit Executive Search Process Explained (Step-by-Step), sets out each stage of a search.
Maine Charity suggests that a board preparing for a chief executive appointment starts by agreeing four things: the salary range, the panel, the timetable, and whether any internal or trustee candidates are under discussion. Trustees can discuss an upcoming appointment with the team on 020 7734 7341 or through themainegroup.co.uk.
About The Maine Group
The Maine Group is a London recruitment consultancy that has been placing candidates with London employers since 1987. Its services cover permanent and temporary recruitment, executive search, global recruitment and charity recruitment, alongside training, consultancy and HR services. The company is based at 25 Wilton Road, London.
About Maine Charity
Maine Charity is the not-for-profit division of The Maine Group and has recruited for charities and not-for-profit organisations for more than 25 years. It specialises in fundraising and philanthropy, PA and executive support, HR, and senior executive appointments, and applies the Maine Method to every role it recruits for.
About Meeta Sahni
Meeta Sahni has 25 years of experience in talent consulting, with a focus on leadership, wellbeing and developing people. She speaks and coaches on mental health in the workplace, women in business and authentic leadership.
Media contact
Meeta Sahni, The Maine Group
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 020 7734 7341
Website: www.themainegroup.co.uk