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How We Work
Brink exists to make dents in the world.
To do that, we apply our framework of behavioural innovation.
We use a different mix of skills and expertise for every project. Our practices help us shape each dent differently:
Venturing
Turning funds into ideas that grow
Everywhere we look, we see amazing new ideas for products, services and ventures that contribute to the public good. We want to encourage rapid experimentation that results in genuine change, and we do that by developing funding and supporting those ideas. Sometimes that means working with start-ups, but the label “start-up” isn't what matters - the ideas are the most important thing.
To make this happen, our venturing practice provides specialist strategy, team-building and funding design services; we work with donors, entrepreneurs, inventors and investors on ventures that can scale up ideas that will make a dent in the world. Every fund and every context is different, so we deliberately take a thoughtful, nuanced, bespoke approach.
So far, we've worked with over 170 ventures in over 30 countries, across 6 funds.
Adaptive working
Enabling innovation in organisations
Brink works with organisations that want to become more adaptive, more flexible, and less held back by the structures, processes and cultures of the past.
This sort of change is fundamentally about people, which means the work tends to focus on mindsets, attitudes and behaviours. It's not so much about what people do, but more about how people get it done.
In our adaptive working practice, we have this idea of the "adaptive bureaucracy", where an organisation understands how to experiment with ideas, products, services and approaches. Learning comes from experience; becoming a learning organisation means being better equipped to have more experiences, to try more things, more often, more quickly.
Storytelling
Describing and inspiring change
It's human nature to tell, listen to, and respond to stories. Narratives are easier to pay attention to, and people usually remember more details for longer.
Brink's storytelling practice understands how a good story can bring data to life; and as a result, contribute to positive change. And we know how stories can describe impact when there's little or no data to be had; or when there’s so much data, that taking it all in would be a full time job.
Stories add more clarity, faster. Wonderful, relatable, emotional stories can be found buried within the dullest or most inaccessible subjects. Most things sound more interesting when you tell a story about real people overcoming obstacles in the real world.
Collectives
Building connections
In our experience, humans have a strong instinct for working together. We know that good things happen when groups of people have the chance to gather, get to know each other, and learn from their shared and different experiences.
So Brink's collectives practice exists to proactively and deliberately make that happen. We create spaces and opportunities for collaboration, conversation, debate, learning and sharing - because experience shows that the more this happens with consistency, patience and rhythm, the broader and more lasting the change. People share more ideas, and they spread further. There’s a catalyst effect, prompting further discussion, advocacy and experience sharing.
We've seen amazing things happen when groups of people gather and talk; or when people and organisations make new international connections; or when someone is given an opportunity to share their wisdom with an audience they wouldn’t otherwise have met.
