21st century changemakers
are part visionary part chameleon

image of a chameleon looking intently forwards

I'm Sarah Hughes. I work with social impact leaders to keep the mission clear, the pressure lighter, and the progress real. You're carrying a lot - I help lighten the load.

It's tough shaping change

In a sector full of complexity and urgency, even the most visionary leaders can get stuck in the day-to-day.
That’s where I come in.

I partner with changemakers, founders, and ecosystem builders to elevate what matters, simplify challenges, and make progress feel possible again.

Think of me as a companion for the hard yards, a strategist when the path needs redrawing, and a trusted extra brain when you’ve run out of bandwidth.

What I Offer

Strategist

When you need a clear-eyed view and a workable path forward.
I help you set direction, frame compelling cases, and turn intent into action.

Useful for: strategy resets, case for support development, pitching or proposition design.

Co-Pilot >>>

When you could use a second pair of hands, I'll be your double. Calmer, clearer, and somewhat more available.
I help you influence, prioritise, unblock, and breathe again.

Useful for: mission alignment, decision support, and giving your best ideas room to breathe and space to start.

Consultant/Associate

When you need a partner inside a bigger assignment.
I collaborate within teams, collectives or consultancy groups to help deliver bigger outcomes.

Useful for: stakeholder collaborations, ecosystem initiatives, learning partnerships, landscape reviews.

My Grounding

I bring 30 years across five fields where systems meet social purpose:

Philanthropy
Wealth for Good
Social Impact Infrastructure
Networks & Collective Impact
Tech for Good

Whether you’re a foundation, social entrepreneur, infrastructure network or donor movement, I bring pattern recognition, creative strategy, synthesis, and grit.

Ready to move forward?
Drop me a message, and we’ll explore what you need—and whether I’m the right fit.

Let's talk!

In a complex world, it takes more than one lens to build things that matter. Social change needs scaffolding. I help with that.

Big change needs heart, hustle, and a map

I bring the perspective of an empath, the edge of an entrepreneur, and the rigour of a systems thinker—grounded in 30 years across philanthropy, digital innovation, and social sector leadership.

I viscerally understand the tensions changemakers face: big missions, tight margins, competing priorities.

I’m also actively embracing AI as a force for good—using it to support strategic thinking, train agents, and free up mental bandwidth for what matters most.

I believe in building the social impact commons—tools, knowledge, and initiatives that are open, interoperable, and available to all.

Whether you're:

Trying to scale vision without burning out
Holding up a network that needs better scaffolding
Building something bold without full staff or skills
Or simply stuck with too many loose ends

I offer clarity, co-creation, and calm momentum.

And I'd love to connect on LinkedIn.

Let's link

Are you a CV kind of person?

Learn more about my qualifications, experience, and skills by exploring my CV. Find out how my expertise can benefit your projects and goals.

Sarah's CV

I do not benefit from this link

I'm a lean impact advocate

Late in 2019, whilst closing the doors of my traveltech startup, I read 'Lean Impact - How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good' by Ann Mei Chang. It was instantly clear that I had found the nexus of my own experiences in the non profit, small business and startup worlds.

Lean impact is where startup principles meet social impact imperatives. As a people-focused approach, lean identifies where you are today and begins with what is already working. It then guides you through cycles of continuous learning, measurement and improvement until your value and efficiency are at their best. The exciting part is when you also look at your long-term impact audaciously and work backwards from these radical ambitions.

If you are interested in learning more, I recommend Ann Mei's book. If you are short of time you could read my synopsis...

Social change is multi-layered. This makes finding the right solutions and innovating more complex than in other sectors. In a seemingly counter-intuitive way, Lean Impact brings forward practises that simplify and validate the path to maximum impact.

It allows ethical leaders to work backwards from a notion of the problem solved and iterate forwards through the most effective increments of social good. Vitally, this is done in close collaboration with beneficiaries and stakeholders so that all learning is validated and all failures are paths towards success. In Lean Impact we do more with less and we learn by doing, so we always have real-world experiments in play and we routinely test our assumptions to be sure that we are making verifiable progress on the problem. The call to action for Lean Impact is to start with an audacious goal, much like asking yourself the question "are we trying to empty the ocean with a spoon?" (Ann Mei Chang). It is a joy to work with.

The 3 principles that underpin Lean Impact are:

Think Big – set audacious goals and build an engine for growth that will move the needle relative to the size of the problem
Start Small – build the agility to run fast experiments and drive feedback loops that will accelerate your pace of learning and reduce waste of time and money
Relentlessly Pursue Impact – identify and track the metrics that matter to increase impact and scale