Clear talk for the charity sector.
Third Sector Podcast offers measured discussion and debate on the charity world, from fundraising culture to safeguarding governance. Its episodes pair editorial team discussions with focused interviews on how voluntary organisations adapt under pressure.
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Third Sector Podcast is a weekly editorial forum about the pressures, trade-offs, and decisions facing charities and voluntary organisations. It concentrates on the UK charity world, but the themes are broadly useful for anyone who has to turn mission into daily operations. The show moves between interviews with charity leaders and editorial team discussions about recent sector stories. Its strongest moments are practical. A conversation about fundraising becomes a close look at who should gather service-user numbers, how project teams feed evidence into bids, and why fundraising cannot sit in one isolated job description. A partnership episode uses MyCWA to explore formal consortium work, ad-hoc collaboration, transparency, and shared values. Safeguarding is treated as lived governance, not paperwork. Funding pressure is a constant backdrop, whether the subject is hospice income, donor decline, infrastructure support for small charities, or Crisis considering a move into providing housing directly. The podcast also follows newer tensions, including AI search summaries, website adaptation, and charity worker union action. It has a newsroom rhythm: grounded, specific, and alert to policy, regulation, public trust, and money. Guests supply operational detail, while the editorial team draws connections across stories. The register is professional but accessible. It does not glamorise charity work. It shows the sector as a place of governance duties, cultural change, funding risk, collaboration, and moral urgency. For listeners who need to understand what is happening inside charity management, it offers a useful half-hour of context and judgement.
Made for: Designed for charity leaders, trustees, fundraisers, campaigners, policy staff, and anyone working around the voluntary sector. It suits listeners who want practical context on governance, funding, partnerships, and sector news.
What sets it apart: The show combines newsroom analysis with operational detail from charities facing live pressures. It stays close to how decisions are made inside organisations, not just the headline version of sector change.
A weekly podcast from Third Sector, the UK’s leading publication for everyone who needs to know what’s going on in the voluntary and not-for-profit sector. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Charity-world ideals meet awkward numbers and an air ambulance without the ambulance, so you arrive briefed, not bedazzled.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Who supplies the answers when a charity puts together a funding application?
A funding application may be written by one person, but the answers often sit elsewhere in the charity. Andy Ricketts and Lucinda Rouse discuss that division of labour with International Care Network chief executive Rebecca Fell and fundraising consultant Atul Kumar.
After losing a contract, a charity leader makes the case for open talks about expertise, payment and lived experience.
After MyCWA lost a contract, chief executive Saskia Lightburn-Ritchie still saw a place for its expertise. She tells Lucinda Rouse and Damiad Ewale how she approached YMCA: openly, with a clear account of what each organisation could offer.
Third Sector's editorial team discusses an air ambulance charity, union recognition and inaccurate AI search results.
An air ambulance charity has run for more than a decade without an operational air ambulance. Third Sector's editorial team returns to that case during its monthly meeting, alongside staff applications for statutory union recognition after charities rejected requests for…
Fundraising evidence for working nonprofit teams.
Fundraising advice with operational backbone.
Practical leadership conversations for the social profit sector.
Mission 44's associate director discusses the charity's first national campaign to reduce preventable exclusions and promote inclusive education.
This episode discusses why fundraising should be a shared responsibility across charity teams, focusing on separating project development from fundraising to increase bid submissions.
This episode explores how MyCWA charity uses partnerships and collaboration to navigate financial challenges and deliver its mission.
The Third Sector editorial team discusses recent declines in individual giving, changes in charity infrastructure support for small charities, and an AI fundraising experiment for the London Marathon.
Crisis chief executive Matt Downey discusses the charity's plan to become a landlord by buying homes to house people experiencing homelessness.
This episode discusses safeguarding in charities, focusing on recent failures and regulatory actions involving the Church of England.
Stephen Roberts, CEO of North Devon Hospice, discusses diversifying income and improving culture to better equip the charity for challenges.
Third Sector Podcast's editorial team meeting covers union recognition disputes, AI-generated search summaries, and the Stoke Air Ambulance case.
Mission 44's associate director discusses the charity's first national campaign to reduce preventable school exclusions and promote inclusive education.
Lucinda Rouse interviews Dogs Trust CEO Owen Sharp about the charity's adaptation to post-Covid changes, cost of living pressures, and strategic shifts including legacies and international expansion.
This episode discusses how charities can effectively engage with younger generations, featuring insights from Dan Laws of My Life, My Say on youth-led democratic engagement.