Lucinda takes a look behind the scenes of Comic Relief’s grant-making team with Poonam D’Cruze, head of the charity’s poverty and injustice programme.Poonam explains the various functions of her team and provides tips for organisations seeking grants from Comic Relief to strengthen their applications.She describes her motivations for entering the funding space after years of working for small charities, driven by a desire to influence the funding landscape and create an ecosystem more responsive to the needs of the communities it supports.She outlines Comic Relief’s use of experts by experience to inform the grant-making process, and the charity’s commitment to interrogate what is asked of funding applicants, in order to shift some of the onus and burden of applying to the grant-maker.Later in the episode, news editor Steven Downes sheds light on the funding crisis facing hospices.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.Read the transcript. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.