Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Mark Greer, managing director at the Charities Aid Foundation, and Charlotte Prothero, external affairs manager at Pro Bono Economics. Mark outlines the growing importance of major donor revenue to the voluntary sector and sets out the cause areas favoured by high-net-worth individuals. He stresses the ne…

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Sohail Hanif, chief executive of the National Zakat Foundation, and Taqwa Sadiq, presenter and producer of the BBC audio series Sacred Money. Taqwa explains how an individual’s choice of destination for their annual zakat donation can be influenced by the emotions surrounding their sense of belonging and…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Elliot Trevithick, principal consultant for charities evaluation and learning at the think tank NPC, and Annie Hinton, senior programme design manager at the youth support charity Right to Succeed. Elliot explains how being one step removed from a charity’s service users can present difficulties when it c…

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Toby Porter, chief executive of Hospice UK, to discuss the charity’s function as a membership platform for a particularly financially strained section of the voluntary sector. Toby explains how a reset in member relationships has led to hospices alerting Hospice UK to financial and staffing challenges a…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of the New Economics Foundation, to discuss his views on the need for charities to understand the economic context of the issues they work to address. Danny explains why a failure to engage with economic issues has contributed to charities often being treated as an af…

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Tamsyn Hanrahan, director of partnerships and philanthropy at Save the Children UK, and Beth Knight, social sustainability director at Lloyds Banking Group and chair of Save the Children UK’s corporate advisory board. Tamsyn explains why Save the Children UK decided a corporate advisory board would be of…

Andy Ricketts and Dami Adewale are joined by Kate Lee, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society. Kate provides insight into the brand work recently undertaken by the charity, with a focus on raising awareness of dementia as well as the charity’s own profile. She explains how taking a more controversial approach to public messaging, including the …

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, and Wanda Wyporska, chief executive of Safe Passage International, to discuss some of the issues facing the voluntary sector in 2025. These include ways of engaging with local and national government, addressing the chief executive churn, and effectively balancin…

Lucinda Rouse, Andy Ricketts and Emily Harle dissect the leading stories from the voluntary sector in 2024. Lucinda delivers a speedy round-up of the year’s charity news before the three discuss their selected top stories. These include the closure of the British Youth Council and the National Citizen Service, the finding that charities are subsidi…

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, to discuss the charity’s approach to fundraising, supporter engagement and advocacy. Michelle provides insight into the charity’s ongoing data and digital transformation programme: a major investment that aims to personalise supporter engagement …

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Kirsty MacDonald, deputy principal for advancement at the Royal Academy of Music, to discuss the charity’s ongoing campaign to raise £100m. Kirsty describes how the academy saw annual fundraising revenues grow from £1.5m to £18m in less than a decade, after investing in necessary systems and infrastructu…

Lucinda Rouse is joined by Paul Watkins, fundraising director at Leeds Hospitals Charity, to reflect on the charity’s delivery of a £6.8m appeal for a new motor neurone disease care centre. Paul describes the integral role of the late England rugby league player Rob Burrow, who was diagnosed with MND in 2019 and died earlier this year, in mobilisin…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Fozia Irfan, director of impact and influence at BBC Children in Need, to reflect on the challenges facing charities and grantmakers in the present funding climate. Fozia describes the role of funders such as Children in Need to convene networks spread across the UK and create communities of practice to p…

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Zahra Hedges, chief executive of the youth empowerment charity Winning Scotland, and Helen Rafferty, senior programme manager at the education charity Shine. Zahra explains how a theory of change has helped Winning Scotland to identify and prioritise its most fruitful activities and reassure its board a…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Jack Boardman, head of development at the telemarketing agency Angel, and Phoebe Cooper, marketing manager in the RSPCA’s donor development team. Jack describes the power of a telephone conversation in building rapport with new and potential supporters. He explains the fusion between digital lead generatio…

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Nadia Alomar, chief executive of Clore Social Leadership, and Beki Osborne, chief executive of Sexual Assault & Abuse Support Service, Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes. Nadia describes the changes she has witnessed in voluntary sector leadership in recent years, from the effects of resource scarcity to …

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Chris Sherwood, chief executive of the RSPCA, to reflect on his six years at the charity before he moves on to the top job at the NSPCC. Chris likens the reality of navigating the RSPCA’s significant public profile to operating in a goldfish bowl. He stresses the importance of stimulating engagement with t…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Jayne Taylor and Matt Jones, chief executive and chair of the Elephant Group, a charity that helps state-educated students access top universities. Matt, who founded the Elephant Group in 2018, describes how his role has evolved since the arrival of Jayne as the charity’s first chief executive in 2022. Thi…

Lucinda Rouse shadows Charlotte Holmes, head of philanthropy at Leukaemia UK, to experience the day-to-day realities of a job in major donor fundraising. Charlotte outlines the range of approaches used to identify connections and nurture relationships with existing and potential donors, from individuals to trusts and foundations and corporate partn…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Manny Amadi, chief executive of C&E Advisory, to discuss the company’s latest Corporate-Non-Profit Partnerships Barometer. Manny talks about how the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which affects how companies report on their social and environmental impact, will have an impact on new corp…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Alicia Nagar, head of people, wellbeing and equity at Mental Health First Aid England, and Samantha Stapley, chief operations and people officer at Trussell. Alicia describes the complex mental health challenges faced by people working in the voluntary sector. She outlines the need for a holistic approach …

Lucinda Rouse travels to the Donkey Sanctuary in Sidmouth, Devon, to meet the charity’s senior statistician, Stuart Norris, and find out about his pathway to a career in data science. Stuart describes how he combined a background in ecology with his long-standing interest in computers to find his niche in the voluntary sector. He explains how his t…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Ndidi Okezie, chief executive of UK Youth, to discuss the need for the voluntary sector to overcome its siloed approach to solving systemic problems. Ndidi explains how UK Youth is pushing for a more integrated approach to delivering youth services through a new initiative called the Joined Up Institute. S…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Collette Philip, founder of the anti-racist brand agency Brand by Me, to discuss the findings of its recent audit of anti-racism work by the top 30 charities listed in Third Sector’s Charity Brand Index. Collette explains why adopting a non-racist organisational approach and focusing primarily on diversity…

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Gemma Peters, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, to discuss the charity’s ‘year of transformation’. Gemma explains how its new strategy will enable Macmillan to better meet the needs of people living with cancer and describes the challenges of managing the accompanying organisational turbulence. …

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Clare Mills, deputy chief executive of the Charity Finance Group, and Mike Conroy, director of commercial finance at the banking trade association UK Finance. They start by listening to an account of contrasting experiences with two high street banks by Cat Ross, chief executive of Baby Basics and volunte…

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Nathan Coyle, senior peace tech adviser at the Austrian Centre for Peace and author of the book Open Data for Everybody: Using Open Data for Social Good. Nathan explains how open data can be used by the voluntary sector to support work in areas including campaigning and influencing, completing grant app…

Andy Ricketts and Dami Adewale are joined by Abi Long, executive team manager, and Yusuf Ciftci, head of refugee involvement at the Refugee Council. Abi presents the findings of research conducted by the Refugee Council into barriers encountered by refugees navigating the UK job market. She describes the intersectionality of challenges facing peopl…

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts joined by Bekki Wilkins, special events manager at the Willow Foundation, and Sam Dimond, director of the event production company Spotlight Sound. Bekki recounts the challenges of organising events such as the Willow Ball and the London Football Awards in the face of inflated costs and lower corporate ticket sales. …

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Robyn Mountain Wade, director of income generation at Martin House Children’s Hospice, to find out how the charity recruited major donors for the first time to meet a £21.9m fundraising target. Robyn explains how Martin House engaged local philanthropists by inviting them to events co-hosted by their am…

Senior reporters Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Berenice Levenez, director of strategy, technology and transformation at Girlguiding, and Liz Gadd, environmental lead at the think tank NPC. Berenice describes how feedback from members that Girlguiding should be doing more to address the environmental crisis prompted the charity to deve…

Lucinda and Emily are joined by Rebecca Linford, senior legal adviser, and Mark Ellis, head of communications, at the whistleblowing support charity Protect. Rebecca describes Protect’s role in the development of a storyline about whistleblowing for the BBC medical drama Casualty. She outlines the scripting process and stresses the need to be clear…

Lucinda and Emily are joined by James Dunbar, chief executive of the poverty reduction charity New Start Highland. James describes how the charity was able to move from being a predominantly grant-receiving organisation to generating three-quarters of its income through trading and contracts. He explains how he identified income-generating opportun…

Lucinda and Emily reflect on a recent visit to the RNLI headquarters in Poole, Dorset, where Lucinda met the charity’s outgoing chief executive, Mark Dowie. Mark identifies the principal challenges of his five-year tenure as having been the Covid-19 pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and small boats crossing the Channel. He explains how his corpor…

In a session recorded at the Third Sector Conference, Lucinda and Emily are joined by Rhodri Davies, director of Why Philanthropy Matters, to reflect on some of the themes covered in Third Sector’s recent podcast documentary, The End of Charity. These include the rise of influencer philanthropists, such as the YouTube megastar MrBeast, and their po…

Lucinda and Emily are joined by David Welch, chief executive of the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance, to consider how charities can effectively build trust with their staff, service users and donors. David describes the role trust played in enabling KSS to raise almost double its £1m fundraising target during a six-week emergency campaign. He …

Lucinda and Andy are joined by Liz Cooke, chief executive of The Hive Avon, and Kevin Barker-Lee, a people partner at Lloyds Banking Group and chair of the charity. Liz outlines the broad range of skilled volunteer support provided to The Hive, from fundraising planning to an annual visit from a florist. She notes that the most valuable skilled sup…

Lucinda and Andy are joined by Denise Hayward, chief executive of Volunteer Now, which supports and promotes volunteering across Northern Ireland, and Margaret Starkie, partnership and communications manager at Volunteer Scotland. In a conversation recorded before the general election announcement, they discuss the trajectory for volunteering in th…

Lucinda and Andy discuss the road ahead for charities following Wednesday’s general election announcement. Later in the episode, Lucinda and Emily are joined by the strategy specialist Sharath Jeevan and Hannah Stevens, chief executive of Elect Her. They discuss the importance of inflection moments in planning an organisation’s strategic direction.…

Lucinda and Emily are joined by Paul Streets, chief executive of the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, to reflect on more than a decade of working with small charities as he prepares to step down. Paul celebrates the resilience of small charities, likening them to cockroaches for their ability to endure challenging environments, and sug…

Lucinda and Emily are joined by Fola Komolafe, chief executive of World Vision UK, to discuss the charity’s role in a wider drive to integrate African philanthropists into the established global charitable landscape. Fola also provides her views on the merits of child sponsorship and the growing recognition of the importance of faith-based charitie…

Lucinda and Emily are joined by Mary Rose Gunn, founder and chief executive of the small charity funder The Fore, to discuss the challenging funding environment facing small charities. They start by listening to an account by Jane Evans, chief executive of West Norfolk Carers, about the growing difficulty of securing enough funding to keep the char…

Lucinda and Emily are joined by Holly Penalver, founder of Indigo Volunteers and volunteer development manager at ShelterBox, and Karolina Praskova, a volunteer at the education charity Climate Ed. Holly provides pointers for effectively managing the volunteer recruitment stage and stresses the importance of an induction to motivate new volunteers …

In November 2023, the finance officer of West Norfolk Carers came to a devastating realisation: after more than a year of rejected funding applications, the charity wouldn’t be able to stay afloat for longer than four months. Several months earlier, the Lankelly Chase Foundation, a grantmaker tackling severe social disadvantage and extreme marginal…

Lucinda and Andy are joined by Matt Corbishley, deputy chief executive of Ashgate Hospice, to discuss the charity’s use of new tech solutions in its operations and service delivery. Matt explains why Ashgate Hospice encourages staff to experiment with new forms of IT and artificial intelligence, and outlines the benefits of a digital apprenticeship…

When The Times newspaper’s chief reporter Sean O’Neill broke the story that senior Oxfam aid workers had committed sexual abuse while working in the disaster zone of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, it sent shockwaves around the charity sector and wider society. O’Neill reflects on his memories of uncovering the scandal, while experts including Chilande …

Lucinda and Emily are joined by the author and mental health consultant Dimple Dhabalia. Dimple warns of the dangers facing organisations that focus on their charitable mission at the expense of staff wellbeing. She notes the sense of guilt often felt by humanitarian workers suffering the effects of workplace trauma. She provides pointers for how o…

In May 2018, three climate activists called time on lukewarm campaigning over the climate crisis. They wanted a different and radical approach. The plan: mass civil disobedience. The name: Extinction Rebellion. And the first major act of the movement? Stage an occupation – of the Greenpeace offices in London. Why is it that charities are so often p…

Lucinda and Andy are joined by Philippa Cornish, head of client experience at the Charities Aid Foundation. They discuss the implications of CAF’s report into individual giving, which found a smaller pool of donors giving more led to a total uplift in 2023 in spite of the median monthly figure remaining stagnant at £20 since 2017. Philippa provides…

Why donate to a charity if you can just help out a fellow human yourself – or buy a piece of premium fashion that promises to generate a similar result? In episode three of The End of Charity, Lucinda Rouse explores two very different alternatives to the charity model: mutual aid theory, and the rise of buzzy “for good” business. The activist and f…