Share
Third Sector
Charities’ use of artificial intelligence
•
Lucinda and Emily are joined by the digital specialist Zoe Amar and Karen Marter, head of technology strategy at the British Heart Foundation.
Zoe outlines key developments in the AI space over the past year and how charities are reacting to them, including the use of virtual assistants in working life. She stresses the need for a sector-level response to the increasing normalisation of AI usage.
Karen describes the function of the BHF’s AI working group, which focuses on education, governance and conducting an ongoing value assessment of AI innovations to the organisation.
She explains how the BHF is learning by doing, supported by infrastructure and frameworks to ensure safe and ethical AI usage, as well as an informal community set up to share information on the latest developments between colleagues.
Also in the episode, Lucinda and Emily introduce The End of Charity, a new six-part podcast documentary from Third Sector which will be launched on 19 March.
Fill in the survey for the Charity Digital Skills Report 2024 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 lucinda.rouse@haymarket.com for further information.
Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
More episodes
View all episodes
Partnering with peers to get through tough times
32:07|Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by Saskia Lightburn-Ritchie, chief executive of the domestic abuse support charity MyCWA.Saskia recounts how a long-standing commitment to partnership and collaboration, which forms one of the charity’s three key missions, strengthened its ability to execute a £500,000 emergency appeal when it lost a significant council contract.She explains why it is so important to place the domestic abuse survivors the charity supports at the centre of any partnership discussions, and how MyCWA is able to withdraw from negotiations that are not in survivors’ best interests with no hard feelings.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
Small charity infrastructure, donation decline and an AI fundraising experiment
33:13|Lucinda Rouse is joined by Third Sector colleagues Emily Burt and Emily Harle to reflect on three significant sector stories from the past month.Emily Burt shares her perspective on concerns raised by small charity representatives following the news of a restructure at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.Lucinda considers the findings of the Charities Aid Foundation’s UK Giving Report, and asks whether falling levels of individual donations point to the need for a strategic shift in fundraising.And Emily Harle provides details of an experimental AI agent that has raised £500 for a London Marathon runner.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
Crisis chief on becoming a landlord and why charitable status may lack appeal
15:54|Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle discuss snippets from a recent interview Emily conducted with Matt Downie, chief executive of the homelessness charity Crisis.Matt provides insight into Crisis’ plan to buy a thousand homes in the next decade and become a landlord for people experiencing homelessness.He shares his view that the voluntary sector is entering a ‘third wave’, which will require businesses and wider society to play a part in solving social problems, and questions the value that charitable status offers to social purpose organisations.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
How to approach safeguarding concerns
30:38|**Content warning: This episode contains references to suicide and sexual abuse**Lucinda Rouse and Dami Adewale are joined by safeguarding specialist Joanna Nicolas and Sebastian Rocca, founder and chief executive of the LGBTQI refugee support organisation Micro Rainbow.Joanna identifies some of the most common safeguarding challenges facing voluntary organisations, which principally stem from the power imbalance between a charity’s trustees, staff and volunteers and its service users.Sebastian describes how Micro Rainbow is approaching safeguarding in the face of increasing hostility towards the groups it supports. He explains why he no longer perceives the identification of a safeguarding issue to be a failure on the part of the organisation.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
How to build new income streams and secure board buy-in for left-field ideas
33:40|Lucinda Rouse and Emily Harle are joined by Stephen Roberts, chief executive of North Devon Hospice, to discuss the organisation’s response to some of the challenges facing the hospice sector.Stephen explains why the charity is aiming to reduce its dependence on legacies and how it encourages innovation in its fundraising work.He stresses the importance of factoring local need into ideas for new income opportunities, which has led to the opening of a lucrative dog-walking field on land belonging to the hospice. He shares his tactics for gaining trustee approval for new ideas and describes how a focus on positive psychology has improved the culture at North Devon Hospice.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
How to scale your impact when local authority funding shrinks
32:56|Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Emma Turner, chief executive of Mind in Croydon.Emma lays bare the operational realities of meeting soaring service demand in the face of cuts to local authority and integrated care system budgets, which form the bulk of Mind in Croydon’s income.She explains how the charity has formed partnerships with other local organisations at the instigation of commissioners, enabling all parties to innovate and find new solutions to collective challenges.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
Remembering an HIV charity pioneer
28:04|Lucinda Rouse and Emily Burt are joined by Richard Angell, chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, and Rupert Whitaker, psychiatrist, immunologist and co-founder of the charity. They discuss the legacy of fellow co-founder Martyn Butler, who died on 21 February, remembering the use of his home telephone number as the charity’s first support line in the early 1980s.Rupert shares his memories of Martyn as an organiser and driving force in the organisation’s early days and reflects on the ebbs and flows of their involvement with the THT over 44 years.Richard shares his perspective on the role played by both co-founders in keeping the THT at the cutting edge, rather than falling into the common trap for charity founders of idealising times past.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
Schrödinger’s air ambulance, AI summaries and unions for charity workers
23:55|Host Lucinda Rouse is joined by Third Sector colleagues Emily Burt, Emily Harle and Andy Ricketts to reflect on three significant sector stories from the past month.Emily Burt draws attention to recent cases of charities declining to voluntarily recognise workers’ unions. She questions the likely trajectory for union action in the sector in the face of increasingly challenging working conditions.Andy outlines different ways that charities are attempting to inform AI-generated Google search summaries and explains why this is important.And Emily Harle provides context to regulatory investigations into Stoke Air Ambulance, which advertised free helicopter rides for volunteers and supporters despite having no provision for air transportation at the time.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.
A whistlestop AI tour for small charities
30:04|Andy Ricketts and Dami Adewale are joined by John Fitzgerald, digital evolution project manager at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations.John describes some of the easy-to-use AI tools that can improve efficiency in working life and shares examples of charities that are already employing them effectively.He warns of data privacy issues associated with using free services and the risk of “buzzword bingo” when AI is leaned on heavily in funding applications.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.