"We need to stay with the trouble, meet in places where we can be met by the world in return, hopefully defeated in our attempts to understand it.

Where confusion becomes a form of research inquiry.

Confusion becomes a philosophy, an epistemology. And maybe there, maybe there, we might learn about the world and about ourselves anew."

— Bayo Akomolafe

Screenshot from #OLDMATE promo video of two people putting on makeup
spur: team sitting together

History

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spur: is an atypical company.

Many commercial organisations grow in success and decide to launch a charity or foundation. We’re the opposite: all of this started when a group of young do-gooders got together and founded the mental health non-profit that would become spur:org.

spur:org developed a reputation for out-of-the-box thinking to behaviour change and social impact - helped by a lot of media coverage of our projects, a few gracious awards, and a strong  following of supporters.

Our work has always been bold, ambitious, and with a strong focus on solving complex social challenges with unexpected thinking.

Unveiled in 2017, spur: is the commercial little sister to the non-profit, providing a revenue stream to fund the non-profit projects, as well as an avenue to expand the challenges we work on. We work with those who are interested in the same thing: making the world better by moving people to action.

Since then, we’ve worked on social impact projects from Sydney to Shenzhen to Switzerland, and beyond. Our clients and partners have included governments, major tech companies, non-profits both big and small, professional services firms, and innovation labs trying to do good. We’ve tackled problems in child safety, sustainability, hospitals, employee wellbeing, mental health,  innovation for citizen outcomes, equal rights, and much more.

William Smith Stubbs, Olivia Roney, Lee Crockford
Olivia Roney and William Stubbs
Olivia Roney
Lee Crockford and Olivia Roney
Lee Crockford

A family of orgs

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spur: works symbiotically with our sister NGO, spur:org.

As a shareholder of spur:, spur:org receives a share of revenue, IP, and team expertise from spur: to continue to produce mental health projects.

Visit spur:org >

We're also in the process of launching the latest member of the family: Toucan—a digital platform to improve mental wellbeing. We're pretty excited. We'll be talking more about this soon.

Screenshots of the Toucan app
Visit Toucan >

People of spur:

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Zinger

Chief Pats Officer

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He / Him

Zinger is our resident Chief Pats Officer and largely in charge of office morale. He can regularly be found napping under desks or chewing his way through the latest copy of The Economist.

Steph Perry

Analyst

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She / Her

Steph has a diverse background in behavioural science, psychology, marketing, graphic design, digital strategy and web analytics—bringing a multifaceted approach to social and market research.  

Working as a Senior Research Executive at Ipsos, Steph has a Master of Business with a major in Integrated Marketing Communications, a Bachelor of Science with an extended major in Psychology and a Diploma of Graphic Design.

William Smith-Stubbs

Chief Executive Officer

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He / Him

With a decade of experience in strategy, research and analysis, William has consulted to some of Australia’s largest governmental organisations and some of the world’s largest non-profits.

An active social commentator, Will regularly speaks at conferences and on television and radio about social change and technology.

William is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and Davos Annual Meeting panelist, a Gates Foundation Goalkeeper, G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit Australian Delegate and the Digital Brisbane Ambassador to Berlin.

William was also a founding Global Talent for the UNLEASH Innovation Lab in Denmark 2017 and a Talent Facilitator in Singapore, 2018.

Susie Lee

Executive Assistant

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She / Her

Our resident organisation expert. Susie is a soon to be graduate with a Bachelor’s of Business (Management) and Bachelor’s of Communications (Professional). Her passion for people and her desire for improvement is what allows Susie to drive herself. She believes that with the power of people, teamwork and an open mindset, we can all grow together.

A born and bred Brisbane-ite, she’s an adventure seeker who will never shy away from new experiences. When Susie isn’t keeping the ship running smoothly at spur:, she is also the VP for the QUT Tennis Club and Corporate Liaison Officer for QUT AMPed. In her downtime, you can find her baking or running around on the tennis court.

Feda Adra

Chief Business Officer

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She / Her

Feda Adra is a business and industry leader driven by an entrepreneurial mindset, and strong desire to achieve towards “the greater good".

Feda has driven innovative approaches to community care, whilst leading extraordinary organisational growth.

Passionately committed to collaboration, Feda established strong industry and cross-sector connections enabling strong collaboration to find game changing services and products to improve the health and wellbeing of communities.

Feda has lived in the Sunshine Coast since 1995 and has led for purposes organisations providing services to youth, aged care and disability for over 20 years.

An optimist who continually challenges the status quo to bring novel solutions from concept to reality. This has enabled delivery of game-changing products, services and initiatives that enhance the health and wellbeing of communities, and the viability and sustainability of businesses.

Dr. Priyanka Naidu

Wellbeing Designer

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She / Her

Priyanka has a background in research and teaching in psychology, and wellbeing resource development. She is passionate about making mental health education more accessible.


Through her work, she has created resources that share evidence-based practices to support health and wellbeing, goal-setting, behaviour change and confidence building. Priyanka’s work combines her experience as a researcher with her passion for supporting mental health practices.


At spur: Priyanka’s role is focused on the research and development of a range of resources, tools and solutions to improve outcomes through behaviour change, learning and development and access to resources.

Vivian Vu

Marketing Specialist

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She / Her

Vivian is passionate about marketing and the way that creative storytelling can empower the world - and has made it her mission since her early age. She has been an inspirational ambassador for Study Brisbane and Brisbane Marketing, working with international students to help them make sense of new and unfamiliar lives in Australia.

Vivian holds a Bachelor of Business, Marketing & Advertising and International Business - and a secret Instagram account full of her favourite homemade dishes. Vivian prides herself on building authentic relationships and conversations, and crafting meaningful communications that truly move people to make the world to be a fair, sustainable and well place.

Benjamin Moriarty

Financial Officer

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He / Him

Motivated by an interest for all forms of social enterprise, Benjamin is an experienced financial administrator having overseen financial functions in a wide variety of organisations.

He is passionate about driving outcomes over simply reporting figures and a focus on sustainable initiatives to create social impact.

With a background in both management and analytics he has driven both social and commercial outcomes to a range of clients ranging from startups to multinational corporations.

Urusaro (Trisha) Rwagaju

Strategist

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She / Her

Trisha is passionate about the power of story telling and cultural exchange in advancing communities. Trish is particularly interested in equality, social justice, and the environment.

Trisha combines art and science in her work, including holding an Honours 1 in Geological and Earth Sciences and several accomplishments in the arts. Trisha is also the COO for We Are the Movement, a social enterprise focused on improving access to services for BIPOC communities.

Who we've worked with

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How we think

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Our values are more than posters on a wall—they're how we think.

This set of principles help to keep us on track and guide us in making difficult decisions. They help us cut through noise and find the path again when we may be struggling to see it. These values manifest themselves in everything we do—whether thats in our interactions, making business decisions, or designing solutions. They even form the basis of our dress code.

Architectural thinking

It stands
Is it not only complete, but built to last the test of time?
It works
Is it functional, practical, and serves a clear purpose?
It is beautiful
Is it joy to the senses and to experience?

Connected thinking

It is big
Does it consider the interconnected nature of complex systems?
It is human
Does it consider human needs, behaviours, drivers and diversity?
It improves
Does it demonstrably move the world towards being fair, sustainable, and well?

Empathetic thinking

It is self
Is it both authentic and reflective of oneself?
It is others
Is it appreciative and respectful of others?
It context
Is it appreciative and respectful of the situation, time, and place?

Curious thinking

It seeks
Does it explore and take action?
It learns
Does it listen and understand first?
It is truthful
Does it speak truth to power?

Our impact

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We have a saying at spur: "Outputs are are those who can't measure their outcomes". Don't get us wrong, outputs are critical, but if that's where the conversation ends, then chances are the impact is going to be limited.

It's no surprise then that we've spent countless days and weeks pouring over our own impact model.

This impact model outlines how spur: and spur:org wants to improve the world, how we are doing it, and how we measure our progress.

It's quite large, so you might find it easier (and for screenreaders, too) to download the PDF.

The trophy cabinet

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For us, our work isn't about accolade or praise. But, it's always nice to know other people like our work, too. Here's a few of the nice items of recognition we have in our cabinet:

Winner · Social Impact

Little Giant Startup Award

Queensland Not-for-Profit Marketing State Award for Marketing Excellence (YouBeYou)

Winner · Social Impact (#OLDMATE)

Asia-Pacific Leader

Gold

Not-for-Profit Marketing Excellence (by proxy)

Impact 25 Finalist

Social Enterprise Award Finalist

Davos 50

Australian Representative

Gold (Inclusion category) and Silver (Health category)

Australian Representative

Tomorrowmaker Award

Brisbane Top Social Entrepreneurs

Community Digital Champion

Junkee Media

Global Laureate Fellow

Mental Health Award

Global Fellow

Work with us

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Although we're not specifically looking for people to join the team right this second, you're always welcome to get in touch via  romeo@wearespur.com.

What should you send through? Whatever you think best communicates who you are and why you'd want to be part of the spur: mission to create a world that's fair, sustainable, and well. That can be in any format you like.

See the new spur: cookbook >