Shift designs consumer products and builds social ventures to help solve social problems. Formerly known as We Are What We Do, we're a charity with 10 years of experience working in behaviour change and social innovation

Our Approach

We aim to build social ventures that deliver three intertwined strands of value:

• Social value – the ability of the venture to deliver profound and measurable impact, tracked by specific metrics that reflect the intended outcomes
• User value – the ability of the venture to meet the immediate needs of its target user groups, driving use, re-use, recommendations and sharing
• Commercial value – the ability of the venture to generate sustainable and scalable revenue

And we aim to develop solutions that can deliver systemic change to these marketplaces and communities in two main ways:

• The development of new b2c products, which are deliberately designed and market to meet the immediate needs of low income individuals and families, whilst driving positive behaviour change amongst this audience
• The creation of b2b and b2g services that improve existing products, in order to reduce negative impacts on disadvantaged individuals and families and harness latent potential for positive influences.

Our Ventures

BfB Labscreates effective and rewarding games that use data from wearable sensors to train emotional regulation and build resilience to mental illness. BfB Labs biofeedback games motivate players to stay calm under pressure, by linking their performance and progress to the variability of their heart rate.

Through regular play, this fosters habits of self-control through diaphragmatic regulated breathing and builds emotional resilience, improving wellbeing and helping prevent mental health problems.

Historypin is a local memory sharing service that helps people build stronger community connections and reduce social isolation. It's global community of people, groups and institutions gather and share the history of the places that matter to them, using collections of photographs, documents, sounds and moving images to start conversations and trigger memories.

Good to Go is a health accreditation scheme for takeaways, which aims to help increase the availability of healthier fast food by improving standards and accountability. The service includes: an accredited health rating scheme for takeaways based on nutritional testing of prominent menu items; A package of incentives and benefits for outlets which aim to reduce costs and increase sales; and practical assessment and support services to help outlets improve their health rating.