Supporting your treasurer: the pressures facing volunteers who hold the purse strings

In most places of worship and faith-based charities, the person who keeps the finances in order is a volunteer. They are rarely a qualified accountant. They often took the role because someone had to, because they were trusted, or because no one else stepped forward. And once they have it, they frequently hold it for years — sometimes decades — quietly carrying a weight that the rest of the community never quite sees.

This article is written for boards, trustees and faith leaders rather than for treasurers themselves. Because the truth is that a treasurer's wellbeing is not really in their own hands — it's in yours. How you recognise the role, share the load, and plan for the future determines whether the person in that seat thrives or burns out.

Why the treasurer matters more than most realise

A good treasurer is the financial conscience of a faith organisation. They make sure that money given in trust — often sacrificially, often by people of modest means — is handled with care and integrity. They keep the lights on, the staff paid, the building insured and the regulator satisfied.

They also sit close to the organisation's legal duties. Trustees are collectively responsible for a charity's finances, and the treasurer is usually the trustee who turns that collective duty into daily reality: keeping proper records, preparing the accounts, and flagging when external scrutiny such as an independent examination is needed. When a treasurer does their job well, it's invisible. When the role fails, the consequences — late filing, breached restricted funds, even insolvency — land on the whole board.

The pressures they carry quietly

Naming these pressures is the first step to relieving them.

Technical complexity that keeps growing. Charity finance is not simple bookkeeping. Restricted and unrestricted funds, Gift Aid and the small donations scheme, payroll and pension auto-enrolment, reserves policies, the new Charities SORP, and shifting audit thresholds all sit in the treasurer's lap. Most volunteers learned this on the job, under pressure, without training — and the goalposts move. (For example, the income thresholds for independent examination and audit in England and Wales are changing for accounting periods ending on or after 30 September 2026.)

Personal liability and anxiety. Trustees can, in some structures, be personally exposed if things go wrong. Even where they aren't, the fear of getting it wrong — of mishandling someone's donation, of missing a deadline, of a question they can't answer — weighs heavily on conscientious people. That anxiety is rarely spoken about.

Isolation. The treasurer is often the only person in the organisation who fully understands the finances. That can be lonely. They may have no one to check their thinking with, no one who shares the worry, and no obvious person to hand over to.

The "forever" problem. Because the role is specialised and hard to fill, treasurers often can't leave. They stay long past the point they wanted to, out of loyalty and fear that no one will replace them. What began as service can quietly become a trap.

Faith-specific tensions. In a faith setting, money and ministry can sit awkwardly together. A treasurer may feel they're seen as the person who "says no" to good ideas, or as overly worldly in a spiritual space. They may face pressure to bend the rules for a worthy cause, and carry the discomfort of holding a line others wish they wouldn't. Across traditions, treasurers also navigate faith-specific obligations — the stewardship of donations given as religious duty — adding a layer of moral seriousness to every decision.

How your faith organisation can support them

Support is not a vague intention — it's a set of concrete choices the board can make.

Recognise the role out loud. Thank your treasurer publicly and specifically. Name what they do. A role that is invisible feels thankless; a role that is seen feels like ministry. Small recognition sustains people more than most boards realise.

Share the load — don't let it concentrate. Resist the temptation to leave "the numbers" entirely to one person. Establish a small finance committee, or at minimum a second trustee who reviews alongside the treasurer. This isn't a vote of no confidence — it's good governance, it reduces fraud risk, and it means the treasurer is never carrying it alone.

Invest in training and tools. Pay for a course. Fund decent accounting software. Buy in professional support for the year-end or for tricky areas like payroll. Treating finance as worth investing in tells the treasurer their work is valued — and protects the whole organisation.

Make it safe to ask for help. A treasurer who feels they must know everything will hide what they don't know. A board that says "you don't have to carry this alone, and not knowing is fine" gets earlier warning of problems and a healthier volunteer.

Protect their wellbeing. Watch for the signs of an overloaded volunteer: chronic stress, an inability to take a break, a role that's swallowed their life. Actively give them permission to set boundaries — and mean it.

Plan for succession before you need to

The single kindest thing a board can do for a long-serving treasurer is to make sure they can one day stop. Succession is not disloyalty; it's stewardship.

Don't wait for a crisis. The worst time to find a new treasurer is the week the current one resigns, falls ill, or moves away. Start the conversation while things are stable.

Document the role. Encourage your treasurer to write down how things work — where the bank logins are, when deadlines fall, how Gift Aid claims are made, who the key contacts are. A clear handover file turns an irreplaceable person into a sustainable role. (Our treasurer's year-end checklist can form part of this.)

Build a pipeline. Look actively within your community for people with relevant skills — and be willing to look beyond the obvious. A deputy or assistant treasurer role lets someone learn gradually and gives the current treasurer breathing room now.

Make the role attractive. People are far more likely to step forward if the role is well-defined, well-supported, time-limited and shared — rather than an open-ended, solitary burden. How you treat your current treasurer is the clearest advert for whether anyone will want to be your next one.

Consider a fixed term. A defined term of office, renewable by agreement, builds in a natural review point and a graceful exit — and signals from the outset that the role isn't a life sentence.

A final word

Your treasurer is very likely giving more than you see, and asking for less than they need. The organisations that hold onto good treasurers — and find new ones when the time comes — are the ones that treat the role as a shared responsibility to be supported, not a burden to be quietly offloaded onto one willing person. Looking after the person who looks after the money is not just kind. It's one of the most important governance decisions your board will make.

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This article is general information, not advice. Rules and figures change and can depend on your circumstances. Check the current position with the Charity Commission (or OSCR / CCNI) or get in touch and we'll help.

Sources verified (July 2026):

• Charity Commission, The essential trustee: what you need to know, what you need to do (CC3) — https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-essential-trustee-what-you-need-to-know-cc3
• Charity Commission, Independent examination of charity accounts: guidance for trustees (CC31) — https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-examination-of-charity-accounts-trustees-cc31
• DCMS, Consultation on financial thresholds in charity law: government response — https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-financial-thresholds-in-charity-law/outcome/consultation-on-financial-thresholds-in-charity-law-government-response