Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Saskia Konynenburg, executive director of voice and impact at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, and the volunteering strategist Gethyn Williams.

Saskia describes the struggles reported by charities in recruiting and retaining volunteers, in the face of a growing preference for more informal roles with less rigid commitments.

She suggests ways charities can attract new volunteers by showcasing their values on social media, and stresses the importance of communicating effectively with virtual volunteers.

Gethyn outlines ways in which charities can use digital solutions to grow a charity’s volunteer base, improve its management systems and enhance the volunteer experience.

Find out more about the Third Sector Awards here.

Access the Digital in Volunteering Toolkit from the Association of Volunteer Managers, TeamKinetic and Gethyn Williams.

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Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Russell Winnard, chief executive of the care leaver support charity the Drive Forward Foundation, to discuss the introduction of a new model to guide the organisation's corporate partnerships.

Russell explains how a combination of insufficient partnership income and the need for more joined-up pathways to employment opportunities for the charity’s service users prompted it to rethink its approach to working with businesses.

He stresses the importance of researching corporate priorities and warns of the risk of being drawn into partnership arrangements that service a company’s needs more than the charity’s bottom line.

Find out more about the Third Sector Conference here.

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Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Lynne Guyton, chief executive of John Lyon’s Charity, and Sacha Rose-Smith, chief funding director at the City Bridge Foundation.

Lynne describes the realities for a grantmaker that has gone from being a nice-to-have to an essential funding pot. She explains why John Lyon’s Charity did not consider it responsible to pause funding and outlines the alternative ways it has navigated the surge in demand.

Sacha explains how the measures taken by the City Bridge Foundation during its temporary closure to new applications will strengthen its capabilities going forward, stressing the importance of understanding its place in the system and the areas where it could have the most impact. 

Read our analysis about funders pausing their programmes.

Find out more about the Purpose Awards here.

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Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Dan Tickle, chief executive of the National Migraine Centre, and Peter Holbrook, chief executive of Social Enterprise UK.

Dan recounts how the National Migraine Centre adopted a social enterprise model to deliver its services in the face of declining voluntary income and expanded its patient offering in the process.

Peter echoes Dan’s assertion that one of the biggest changes needed for a charity moving to a social enterprise model is a cultural one. He lays out various financing options for social enterprise activities, including crowdfunding and community shares.

Listen back to our previous episode with St Helena Hospice and Social Finance.

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Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Ben Williamson, director of recruitment at the incubator organisation Charity Entrepreneurship.

Ben outlines the different ways of modelling, tracking and evaluating the cost-effectiveness of direct delivery and systems change programmes.

He explains why it can pay off to apply the risk appetite of a start-up entrepreneur to voluntary sector initiatives, and potential ways of communicating failure to donors.

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Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Iain Heaton, deputy chief executive and chief financial officer at the Blue Cross, and Tiggy McCool, partner at the management consultancy Nine Feet Tall.

Iain describes how the Blue Cross implemented major changes to its animal rehoming services, starting with the closure of four rehoming centres in response to Covid-19-related financial pressures. 

He recounts the charity’s subsequent adoption of a new pet foster model, which has reduced the overall cost per pet in spite of a budgetary uplift to pay for new specialist roles.

Tiggy explains the concept of organisational design and its use by the Blue Cross to improve service delivery. She stresses the importance of establishing communications principles at the beginning of the process to build the confidence of leaders and their teams.

They both provide their tips for managing a redundancy process.

Read Nine Feet Tall’s guide: The role of organisational design for charities, and Nassim Taleb’s book Antifragile.

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Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Claire Goodwin-Fee, chief executive of the psychological support organisation Frontline19, to consider the mental health challenges facing charity leaders.

They discuss recent research by Fair Collective, in which 85 per cent of participating small charity leaders said their mental health had been negatively affected by their work.

Claire describes her own experiences of burnout in Frontline19’s early days and shares some of the approaches she took to recover. 

She suggests ways of separating professional and personal life in order to manage the stresses of a demanding charity role, and calls for the sector to come together to help solve some of the systemic problems.

Find details of accredited counsellors and therapists at the Counselling Directory.

For immediate mental health support, call Samaritans on 116 123 or visit the Samaritans website.

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Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Philip Goodwin, chief executive of Unicef UK, to discuss the realities facing international development and humanitarian charities following announced reductions in overseas development assistance by the US, UK and other European governments.

Philip stresses the need to communicate with the public on the sector’s achievements and explain the importance of foreign aid as an investment in domestic security, as well as advocating the government. 

He explains why he believes applying a child-focused lens to development work would make ODA more effective.

Also in the episode, Lucinda shares clips from a recent interview with Moazzam Malik, chief executive of Save the Children UK.

Moazzam puts forward his view that the aid cuts accelerate a broader geopolitical shift and changing attitudes to international development that the sector needs to adjust to.

This includes increasing investment in local actors and strengthening the spirit of partnership and collaboration to solve major global issues.

Do you have stories of people whose lives have been transformed for the better thanks to your charity? If so, we’d like to hear them! All it takes is a short voice message to be featured on this podcast. Email [email protected] for further information.

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Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Louise Harris, chief operating officer of the homelessness charity Crisis, to learn about successful and meaningful approaches to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the voluntary sector.

Louise outlines the importance for organisations working in the social justice space to treat DEI as a strategic issue as well as a people one, with accountability mechanisms included in monitoring frameworks to keep track of progress.

She stresses the need for leaders to take time and create space to reflect and learn about DEI issues and acknowledge them as a collective organisational challenge, rather than rushing to find a solution single-handedly.

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Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Claire Gauci, public safety campaigns and programme manager at the Canal and River Trust, and Emily Rayner, senior consultant at the behaviour change and communications agency Claremont.

Claire describes how a video intended to educate teenagers about water safety fell flat, prompting the charity to adopt a co-design approach involving a youth group in Wigan.

She explains how the process led to a realisation that social media was not an effective way to reach the target audience for its water safety campaign, with young people expressing a preference for an interactive classroom environment.

Emily outlines the principles of co-design and some common methods used in successfully co-designed campaigns. She suggests some cost-effective ways to embark on co-design in the absence of generous budgets.

Also in the episode, Dami recounts his two days in court as the judicial review opened into the Charity Commission’s inquiry into Kids Company. 

You can find guidance about co-designing campaigns from Claremont here.

Do you have stories of people whose lives have been transformed for the better thanks to your charity? If so, we’d like to hear them! All it takes is a short voice message to be featured on this podcast. Email [email protected] for further information.

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