Lucinda and Andy are joined by Duncan Shrubsole, director of policy, communications and research at the Lloyds Bank Foundation, and Elizabeth Jiménez-Yáñez, policy and communications manager at the Latin American Women's Rights Service (Lawrs), to talk about charities’ influencing work. Duncan highlights the importance of enabling grassroots organisations to influence policy by amplifying their voices, while acknowledging the difficulties of doing so. He gives his thoughts on the outlook for influencing work in the current political climate and explains how the Lloyds Bank Foundation is helping to strengthen the capacity, capability and confidence of small charities to engage in influencing work.Elizabeth describes Lawrs’ work to raise awareness of the plight of Latin American women in the UK who have an insecure immigration status and are experiencing domestic violence. She suggests different ways that charities can influence through storytelling and stresses the importance of working in coalition with other organisations, particularly on issues the government is less receptive to. Also in the episode, senior reporter Emily Harle makes her podcast debut, commenting on the worrying outlook for sector infrastructure bodies following the announcement that Children England will close after 81 years.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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.