— Bayo Akomolafe
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.
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.
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.
Ravi is a marketing generalist with experience working across corporate, not-for-profit, and government industries. He is passionate about equity, social justice, queer advocacy, and making a difference in the community.
Strategic communication, community engagement and stakeholder management are his core foci of interest. He puts people at the center of his work, enjoys meeting new people and hearing new perspectives. He is also the Strategic Communications Coordinator at VicHealth.
Olivia is a social entrepreneur who uses her legal and economic backgrounds as frameworks for social change. She graduated from QUT in 2021 in Law and Economics, and works as a strategist for spur:, a social impact strategy and venture studio. She is a Foundation for Young Australian's Young Social Pioneer, Enactus National Champion, UNLEASH Talent in 2019, and UNLEASH+ talent in 2020. In 2021, with spur: Olivia's work won a Good Design Award for social impact in co-design.
She is a Committee Member at GiveOUT Australia, volunteers for the LGBTI Legal Service's law reform portfolio and represents Queensland on Amnesty International Australia's Youth Advisory Group. Her work has spanned donor engagement for health research, technology and elder inclusion, cultural attitudes to poetry, conversion therapy, design of AI in administrative design making and wellbeing at work.
Sean has a passion for driving social change through innovation.
At spur: Sean works as a Project Associate for the 123+ project, which allows him to combine his interests in social innovation, LGBTIQ+ rights advocacy, and legal reform.
Sean is also President of the UQ Law Society and has worked at a number of legal, community and social organisations including as the State Director of IMPACT Social Enterprise.”
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.
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.
Lee is a seasoned innovator and strategist with deep experience working on social impact projects around the world—particularly in mental health, equality, and education.
He has been recognised internationally for his ground-breaking work and approach to social change and impact measurement, and is a Global Laureate Fellow, UNLEASH Innovation Lab winner, representative to the G20 Youth Entrepreneurship Alliance, and D&F Academy Global Fellow.
Living by the motto "Creating awareness is for those that can't get people to take action", he is not only passionate about instigating social change, but ensuring that this is change is both profound and measurable.
Lee is also a non-executive director of the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
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?
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.
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
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.