Pros
- A critical and timely mission
- A highly inspiring founder and CEO
- A great group of programme associates and alumni across the network
Cons
Unfortunately, the founder's mission and vision don't easily translate into the day-to-day operations of the On Purpose Associate programme:
* During my time on the programme, the work placements caused a good bit of stress and frustration among those involved, even tears. In 2025, several On Purpose Associates - from across cohorts - discontinued their work placements. The underlying problems included (1) a lack of meaningful and/or appropriately challenging work from the perspective of the On Purpose Associates, (2) poor overall fit between On Purpose Associates and placement hosts. For context, it is important to understand that fees generated through the work placements are the main source of income for On Purpose. That said, the programme operators seemed to place way more emphasis on signing up / retaining enough work placement providers to make the On Purpose organisation financially viable than on making sure that the work projects themselves (1) were truly purpose-driven and appropriately scoped; (2) matched the professional experiences and purpose-driven aspirations of the Associates.
* The weekly learning curriculum was mainly delivered through unpaid volunteers, given the limited capacity of the (very hard working and capable) core team. A lot of the learning lessons seemed random, sometimes last-minute and often disconnected from the thoughts that the founder shares publicly on social media.