Third Sector

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Clara Govier, managing director of the People’s Postcode Lottery. Clara outlines the process for disbursing funds to charities and explains what the People’s Postcode Lottery looks for in prospective charity partners.  She gives her thoughts on how funders could work together more effectively and puts forward the case for lifting the sales cap on...

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale  are joined by Jane Ide, chief executive of the charity leaders body Acevo, to reflect on some of the issues facing sector leaders. Jane provides an update on work relating to the Civil Society Covenant, which was published in July, saying more momentum is expected from the government in the first quarter of 2026. She warns that charity leaders should be lowerin...

Lucinda Rouse, Emily Harle and Emily Burt reflect on two significant sector issues from the past month. Emily Harle shares findings from a recent roundtable meeting of leaders from refugee and migration charities, whose staff have experienced a surge in targeted hostility in recent months. And after the government launched its new Office for the Impact Economy, Lucinda asks what the phrase actuall...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Vic Harper, chief executive of the food redistribution charity The Bread and Butter Thing. Vic describes how the charity has taken a holistic approach to the way it supports communities by working alongside other charities and local authorities at its food distribution hubs.  She outlines the process of identifying suitable community partners and exp...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Leicia Feare, associate director of communications and campaigns at the youth empowerment charity Mission 44. Leicia talks about the charity’s first campaign, Nothing Happens in Isolation , which aims to promote inclusion in schools. She describes how Mission 44 convened partners to formulate a list of recommendations that the charity’s founder, the moto...

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Ruth Hollis, chief executive of the Olympic legacy charity Spirit of 2012. Ruth reflects on the responsibility of being a funder approaching close-out as Spirit of 2012 prepares to wind up in early 2026. She acknowledges the difficulties for charities seeking to ensure the sustainability of their programmes in the absence of long-term funding and sugge...

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts share their thoughts on the announcement this week that Dame Julia Unwin has been named the preferred candidate to be the new chair of the Charity Commission. Andy explains the role of the chair, suggests how Unwin might be different to her predecessors and provides a summary of reactions from sector leaders to the prospect of her appointment. An excellent choi...

Lucinda Rouse, Emily Harle, Emily Burt and Dami Adewale reflect on some of the top sector stories from the past month. Emily Burt gives her thoughts on the state of the sector in 2025 following her recent return from maternity leave. Lucinda shares snippets from an interview with Peter Sparkes, chief executive of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, in which they discuss a new five-year plan t...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle discuss snippets from a recent interview Emily conducted with Andy Fletcher, chief executive of Muscular Dystrophy UK. As Andy enters his second year in post, they reflect on his ambitions to almost double the charity’s income by 2035, raise awareness for the organisation among people living with muscle-wasting and weakening conditions and cultivate a sharper strategi...

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts  are joined by Laura Kerby, chief executive of Prostate Cancer UK.  Laura outlines the due diligence conducted by the charity to try to alleviate concerns about its partnership with the gambling company Paddy Power, which has allowed it to deliver live-saving interventions to men at risk of prostate cancer. She describes the complexities of engaging with p...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by the civil society consultant Alex Evans to talk about the role of freelancers in the charity workforce. They discuss the findings of a  survey by the freelancer platform Blume, from the pros of flexibility and autonomy reported by self-employed workers, to feelings of uncertainty and the fact that more than a fifth of respondents began freelancing as...

Lucinda Rouse, Andy Ricketts, Emily Harle and Dami Adewale reflect on some recent voluntary sector news. Emily shares snippets from an interview with Breast Cancer Now’s chief executive Claire Rowney, in which she articulates her vision to shift the organisation from a medium to a large charity mindset, accompanied by a £40m annual revenue uplift. Dami asks what the move by several charities to di...

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Helen McShane, director of research, innovation and systems change at Young Lives vs Cancer. Helen explains how Young Lives vs Cancer came to launch an innovation lab, with the aim of using its assets as a trusted charity brand to support the development of early stage business ventures that align with its mission of supporting children and young people...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Paul Winyard, head of policy at the Fundraising Regulator.  Paul provides insight into the new Code of Fundraising Practice, which will take effect from 1 November. He explains how a more prescriptive set of rules has been replaced by a principles-based approach to regulation. He describes how the Fundraising Regulator is working to overcome the rep...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle  are joined by Manny Amadi, chief executive of C&E Advisory, to talk about the firm’s Corporate-Non-Profit Partnerships Barometer 2025 . Manny provides context to the finding that corporate partnerships remain a resilient and effective mechanism for driving societal change, in spite of concerns that businesses are reneging on their environmental, social and gover...

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Mark Russell, chief executive of The Children’s Society. Mark speaks openly about the challenges of leading a major charity through half a decade of polycrisis and the toll it has taken on his mental health. He stresses the need for chief executives to act as role models in maintaining boundaries between work and personal life, and the critical role of...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Stuart Pearson, head of innovation at Citizens Advice Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale and Trafford, and Zoe Amar, founder of the digital consultancy Zoe Amar Digital. Stuart explains how Citizens Advice developed Caddy, an internal-facing AI-powered chatbot that provides information to the charity’s advisers and eases demand on supervisors fielding high volu...

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Emma Revie, co-chief executive of Trussell, and the strategy and change management specialist Martyn Drake. Emma explains why Trussell’s mission statement has been altered to place the provision of food aid second to its aim of eliminating the need for food banks.  She stresses the need to work with others to drive systems change and shares her bel...

Lucinda Rouse and Andy Ricketts are joined by Ruth Marvel, chief executive of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, to talk about the charity’s new impact measurement framework. Ruth describes the importance of a theory of change to guide DofE’s activities and inform the development of its measurement framework to test assumptions. She explains how using national open data sets for comparison purposes ha...

Lucinda Rouse visits the Dogs Trust’s head office to meet the charity’s chief executive, Owen Sharp. Owen talks about the recent restructure of Dogs Trust as part of a new strategy and shares some of the lessons he has learned from an ongoing redundancy process involving 300 staff. He gives his view on ways in which the voluntary sector could be responding differently to current instability,...

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Toby Freeman, chief executive of the Robin Cancer Trust, and the charity finance and governance specialist Pesh Framjee. Toby shares his experiences of founding a charity to which he has a deep personal connection, and outlines the ways in which he is preparing the organisation for his departure. Pesh puts forward his view that founder’s syndrome is a r...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Nicole Sykes, director of policy, communications and research at the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales. They discuss some recent research by Lloyds Banking Group that found charities are the second-most trusted source of financial advice after family members. They consider how charities can best respond to the finding, and why it should be a c...

Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Natasha Friend and Robin Morgan-Chu, the director and chair respectively of the grantmaker Camden Giving, to discuss the merits and challenges of participatory grantmaking. Natasha describes how grantmaking decisions at Camden Giving have been devolved to panels of people with first-hand experience of the challenges the funding is seeking to address. Ro...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle summarise the contents of the recently-launched Civil Society Covenant between the government and civil society. They reflect on comments made by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, and consider what’s next for the charity-state relationship. Read our analysis : What will the Civil Society Covenant mean for charities? Tell us what you th...

Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by are joined by Dan Lawes, co-chief executive of the youth democracy charity My Life My Say, to consider how charities working in all cause areas can interact effectively with younger people. Dan explains how My Life My Say engaged with brands including Tinder, Lime and Snapchat to promote its 'Give an X' campaign to encourage young people to vote in the 2...