About People & Purpose

People & Purpose is an initiative by me, Hannah Kowszun.

I have worked and volunteered in charities since 2006, in a wide variety of roles: from membership to marketing, from fundraising to strategy, from Trustee to CEO. Consistent across all of these experiences was a sense of dysfunction, of a sector led by others rather than one carving its own identity and approach.

In 2019 I started a Masters in Organizational Psychology to try and make sense of my experiences. My dissertation explored factors that affect the high voluntary turnover we have among staff. This was published in 2025 by the think tank, Rogare.

Charities and nonprofits are not like private and public sector organisations. We are the only ones to employ fundraisers; in the UK our paid staff are outnumbered by Trustees around 15:1 (NCVO, 2025); our success is measured by our impact not our finances.

We need approaches to supporting our people that are our own.

My hope with People & Purpose is to encourage, support and inspire social purpose organisations to consider values-led ways of investing in their people.

If this sounds like something you're interested in too, then get in touch or book in a chat using the button below.

Or subscribe to my Substack, where I share ideas every few weeks.