Why a Podcast Mic Is One of the Best Things That Can Happen to a Charity

A conversation with James Hodgson, a UK specialist in the charity sector and founder of Humanise Live, which helps charities launch and run their own podcasts.
Interview by Jeremie Mani, co-founder of Podcasthon.

Jérémie Mani: James, let me start with the thesis I keep coming back to, and feel free to disagree. Audiences today are completely fragmented, and attention spans are short. A charity barely gets a chance to explain what it actually does — what’s at stake, the work on the ground, the why. Instagram and TikTok are fine, but the format is too short; the video scrolls past and nothing remains. A podcast episode is different. The listeners are loyal to the host, and the format gives you thirty minutes or more to explain, to convince, and to connect emotionally. That’s my pitch. Is it just a pitch?

James Hodgson: It’s not just a pitch — it’s exactly what I hear from the charities I work with. Even when we take most of the production work off their plate, they tell me the same thing: this is the most direct way they’ve ever engaged their members, their supporters, and the people they’re actually helping. Compare that to sending a newsletter to a hundred thousand people. What do you really get back? Who is even reading it? A lot of charities are good on social media, but how much is short-form content really inspiring anyone to act? Nothing connects and resonates like a human voice telling a human story.

Jérémie Mani: People underestimate just how much attention a podcast actually commands?

James Hodgson: They do, and the numbers back it up. I gave a talk recently in the UK, and I opened with the consumption figures. In terms of time spent, podcasting is now well ahead of social media, it’s overtaken radio, and it’s getting close to TV. It’s rapidly becoming the number one medium. But here’s the thing about fragmentation: to be in the top 50% of all podcasts, you only need about thirty downloads a week. That tells you how niche it all is — everyone goes off and finds the specific thing that interests them. And that’s why the engagement is so deep. People open TikTok more often, but they don’t really engage. When someone starts a podcast episode, there’s roughly a 75% chance they’ll finish it — and that might be forty minutes, an hour, two hours. So what you’re getting isn’t a passing impression. It’s deep connection, deep involvement.

Jérémie Mani: So a thousand downloads isn’t a thousand glances. It’s a thousand people who chose to sit with you, if I may say.

James Hodgson: Exactly. A thousand downloads is a completely different thing from a hundred thousand views on an Instagram post. Someone on a panel put it perfectly: if you stood up to give a talk and a thousand people were in the room listening to you for an hour, you’d consider that a serious success. That’s what a download actually is — a person attending your conference for an hour.

Jérémie Mani: And for the hardest, most sensitive causes, that depth isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s the only way the story can land.

James Hodgson: Right. One of the organisations we interviewed was a charity supporting refugees who’ve survived torture. Incredibly sensitive, lived experience. On the one hand it’s very difficult material to handle; on the other, that’s precisely the point. If you don’t talk about it, people simply don’t realise. Here in the UK, as in much of Europe, there’s a near-total demonization of migrants — and you sit down and you say, this is what a proportion of these people have actually been through. Having that conversation, with context, humanises people. My company exists because I kept finding that charities just weren’t explaining what they do, why it matters, and who they help — in the spaces where people actually get their information. A podcast is where those human stories can finally breathe.

Jérémie Mani: One worry I hear constantly from charities is that they’re “too small” for this.

James Hodgson: That’s the wrong way to think about it. If you’ve got any kind of audience you want to engage — even a hyper-local animal shelter with a hundred people who genuinely care — why not talk to them directly? It’s the logical thing to do. And being featured on someone else’s podcast is the safe way to find out whether the medium is for you. A lot of charities don’t know how to get onto podcasts, or whether it’s even for them. An invitation is a low-risk way to test it, to try something a bit different, without committing to running their own show.

Jérémie Mani: And the impact rarely stops at the episode itself. What I find most compelling is the ripple effect. I was talking to a charity in Switzerland that had been featured in a serious podcast during Podcasthon week. A journalist from a very well-known Swiss magazine happened to be listening; and a few weeks later that turned into a six-page article about the charity. Six pages! For potential donors, for potential volunteers, for the existing volunteers who got to see their cause in a magazine they respect. None of it came directly from the mic, but the consequences were enormous and concrete.

James Hodgson: That’s the network effect, and it compounds. If you record an interview, publish it, and then the charity shares it with their own audience, a new set of people hears about Podcasthon every single time it goes out. Those charities are connected to other charities. They’re far more likely to come back and take part again next year. The tide turns slowly, but it turns — people tell people, the network expands, and the whole thing grows. Not growth for its own sake — growth that means more impact.

Jérémie Mani: And the content doesn’t expire the moment the episode ends.

James Hodgson: No — that’s one of the most underrated benefits. Once you’ve recorded something, you can use it in so many different ways. You can turn it into a blog post, pull out quotes for testimonials, build a case study on your website. One recording, many assets. For a charity that’s short on time and budget — and most of them are — that efficiency matters.

Jérémie Mani: Last point. Some podcasters tell me they worry a one-off charity episode looks like green-washing: doing a good deed just to look good. How do you answer that?

James Hodgson: I actually think the format protects against exactly that. It runs over a defined one week period, it’s a clear one-off, a bonus episode — so it can’t read as you simply performing virtue. The host does an introduction explaining what it is, and listeners who aren’t interested can skip it. But for those who are, it’s right there, it exists, and the charity can use it however they want. What’s the harm? And honestly, as a podcaster, you’re always looking for interesting content. Being invited to the mic is also the spark for something bigger: it’s the charity’s first real taste of reaching listeners through audio. Some will stop there and become regular guests on other people’s shows, purely for awareness. Others will go on to launch their own podcast. Either way, it starts with that first invitation.

Jérémie Mani: The ripple effect of positive storytelling. That’s what I genuinely believe keeps this whole thing growing. And why we’re so obsessed with doing it better. Thank you, James.

James Hodgson: My pleasure!