Over a 35-year career in the media and third sector that has taken him to 45 countries, Nick Cater has acted as a consultant to non-profits big and small, from the Red Cross, World Bank and UN agencies to Oxfam, Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Among his present roles, he is senior editor of the ambassadorforphilanthropy.com site.

He also contributed to local, national and international press, radio, TV and internet outlets, from the Guardian and Sunday Times to the BBC, Channel 4 and the AlertNet portal on subjects as diverse as war in Africa, disasters in Asia, environmental conservation in Latin America and the global role of migrant remittances in driving development.

As an often acerbic commentator, Cater has championed unpopular causes, from opt-out organ donations and votes for prisoners to the legalisation - and taxation - of all drugs. In examining civil society, Cater has urged far more charity consolidations, worried about the retreating state, favoured greater scrutiny of volunteering's costs and benefits, and suggested that "if the National Lottery is the answer to charity funding, it must have been a bloody funny question".

Cater is based in the West Country