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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Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Okela Douglas-Norgrove, chief executive of Sister System, which supports young women and girls who have been affected by the care system.

Okela outlines how Sister System has grown since its formation in 2018 in partnership with 17 care leavers. She describes some of the challenges of co-creating the charity’s strategy with its service users, including additional time and resource demands. 

She provides insight into navigating the often-complicated power dynamics between charity staff and beneficiaries, and suggests ways in which funders can better support projects that place a heavy emphasis on co-creation.

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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Acting editor Andy Ricketts and senior reporter Emily Harle are joined by Emma Guise, director of marketing and communications at Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity.

Emma talks through the reasons behind the charity’s first rebrand since 2017, what it was hoping to achieve and how it will measure its success. 

She discusses how the charity worked to update its brand for a new digital era and reveals her top tips for charities of all sizes about to embark on a rebrand of their own. 

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 Dami Adewale are joined by Keith Wilson, director of income and engagement at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance.

Keith explains how depressed fundraising revenues during the Covid-19 pandemic prompted a major restructure that saw corporate, community and individual fundraising roles merged into supporter engagement officers.

He describes how removing income targets and scaling back one-off, transactional donations, such as merchandise sales and the charity’s lottery, has stimulated a culture of engagement that has increased regular giving.

He outlines the practicalities of this approach in the face of a £3.6m capital appeal to build a new air base, with external targets retained for supporters and the public.

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 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 need for charities to develop long-term relationships with major donors and to treat them as individuals, rather than a homogenous income subset.

Charlotte describes the gap between the low tendency of wealth advisers to raise the possibility of philanthropic giving with their clients and the demand, particularly among younger philanthropists, to receive advice about making charitable gifts.

Read CAF’s recent High Value Giving report 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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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 home.

Sohail describes the role of the National Zakat Foundation in collecting and distributing zakat among communities in the UK, with donations rising in response to increasing levels of domestic poverty.

He suggests opportunities for collaboration with non-Muslim charities and stresses the need to encourage grassroots community support initiatives.

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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