Brink Foundation

In the world of international grantmaking the crucial decisions about how much funding flows to what and where is often decided by a privileged few who are located half the world away.

At Brink we believe that how money is designed and what gets invested in and what scales matters.

When we look around and see what has been funded and scaled, it’s obvious that there’s work that needs doing to make fairer and more equitable funding systems.

This matters to us because we see missed opportunities to innovate and have impact. We set up Brink Foundation to play our part in a better reality. With a Foundation, we are able to be both a grant recipient and grant-maker.

Brink has long worked to design and implement grant funds through accelerator and innovation programmes, and our Foundation will allow us to take this further and become the grant-maker. We're very excited and hopeful about what we’ll be able to do through new partnerships.

We’re asking:

How might we unite fragmented players and use funding to spark uncommon partnerships?
What’s the best way to mix funds to invest in single point solutions and technologies alongside policy and other enabling elements?
What is the next generation financial instrument, bond, prize or microcredit?
Can we prove the value of trust-based, bottom up power flips?

Meet our Board of Directors

To help guide us on our mission we have four non-executive directors alongside Brink’s Founders, Abigail Freeman and Lea Simpson.

Teresa Mbagaya

Teresa is Founding Principal at Imaginable Futures. Teresa has extensive experience at the intersection of education, innovation, and finance. Teresa will help us chart new paths in philanthropy - from new models of patient capital to democratising access to role models.

Read our interview with Teresa.

Magdalena Banasiak

Magdalena is Associate Director, Global Development and Partnerships at Acumen. Magdalena has had an exciting career in both international development and impact investing, with a focus on climate change, gender, poverty. We know Magda will keep our strategy sharp and visionary.

Read our interview with Magdalena.

Kristoffer Gandrup-Marino

Kristoffer is Chief of Innovation at UNICEF and brings deep innovation and global health expertise across start-ups and corporates, in venture capital as an investor, and within the UN. We know he will push the boundaries of our work, while keeping us grounded in reality.

Read our interview with Kristoffer.

Sheena Raikundalia

Sheena brings over 18 years of experience spanning legal, financial services, and impact investment sectors across Europe and Africa. Her career has taken her from London law firms to serving as Country Director of the UK-Kenya Tech Hub for the FCDO, to her current role as Chief Growth Officer at agri-tech company Kuza One.

Read our interview with Sheena.

Abi Freeman

Abi is one of Brink's two co-founders and an organisational psychologist. She believes in the power of mindsets, collaboration, lifelong learning and what people and (mindfully designed) technology are capable of, together.

Lea Simpson

Lea is one of Brink’s two co-founders and Director of a number of its programmes and funds.Lea has over 20 years experience working from Silicon Valley to Kathmandu on all things tech, innovation and supporting organisations and governments to get fit for the future.