Charitable organizations in Great Britain often use executive recruiters to help them find qualified trustees to serve on their boards, said Sheila M. Bailey, a fund raiser at Apostleship for the Sea, a British organization that places chaplains on ships.

Ms. Bailey said that using professional recruiters to find board members is worth the cost, because “recruiting the wrong board member happens more often than we like to admit.”

Such trustees, she added, can upset the working of the board, or they have an agenda that conflicts with the organization’s.

Hiring executive recruiters to search for nonprofit trustees, Ms. Bailey said, “has become common in the U.K., and not just for larger organizations.”

If a charity can afford it, she said, it forces the organization to determine what type of trustee it actually needs. And, she added, “it is better than the old boys’ network.”