About Good Cause Work
Why we started
Good Cause Work began with James Hobbs’s own experience as a charity trustee, and with how hard he found it to recruit the people a board needs.
The free routes he tried left the charity doing most of the work itself — writing the advert, sifting the responses, chasing people who had lost interest — with no one accountable for the result. The paid arrangements he was offered wanted money before anyone had been appointed, which is a difficult thing to justify from a charity’s budget when the outcome is still unknown.
He wanted a third option: a recruiter who does the work properly, and who is paid when a charity actually has someone in post. So he spoke to Rob McInnes, an old colleague from the BBC with over twenty years in recruitment, including running a not-for-profit and charity desk at Michael Page.
That is the recruitment service: Rob runs the searches, and the fee is contingent on an appointment being made. James also reviews charities’ software and IT costs, for a share of what the review saves.
Who you work with
Rob McInnes
Your dedicated recruiter
Rob personally handles every employee and trustee search Good Cause Work takes on. You work with him directly, from agreeing the brief through to appointment.
He has over twenty years in recruitment. At the BBC he was Senior Resourcing Advisor for Design & Engineering from 2017 to 2019, recruiting digital and technology people for News, Sounds and iPlayer. He has also held recruitment roles at Microsoft, Trainline and Spotify, and earlier in his career ran a not-for-profit and charity desk at Michael Page.
Alongside this he works on the front line as a key worker at the Amber Foundation, supporting young people into employment and independent living and helping them with their wellbeing.
James Hobbs
Founder, and the trustee this started with
James is a charity trustee, and it was recruiting for his own board that led to Good Cause Work.
He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the British Computer Society. He led engineering for BBC News and World Service, and as Chief Technology Officer at Remo he cut infrastructure and vendor spend by more than four-fifths in 14 months. He now advises boards and technology leaders, and carries out the software and IT cost reviews himself.
In his spare time he is a Shakespearean and modern stage actor.
New, and run lean
Good Cause Work is new. We use AI throughout our own work, so that a small team can give charities a high standard of service and the latest technology, with every fee paid only on results.
Good Cause Work is run by Good Cause Work Ltd.