A quick recap
We introduced Innovation Labs recently, and this week we opened sponsorship for the first one - the Social Innovation Lab, running Monday 6 July 2026 at Discovery by Scrannery, Pennine Five, Sheffield.
In that second post we promised we'd write properly about what makes a strong Challenge Brief. Since then we've had a few conversations with organisations who liked the idea but stalled at the word "brief" - it sounded like homework, or something that needed sign-off before it could be sent. So before we get into what makes one good, here's the bit that actually matters: you don't need to write one.
All we actually need is a problem
A Challenge Brief, by the time it lands in front of the group on 6 July, is a real problem handed to a small group of sharp 13-25 year-olds for the day. The "brief" part - the structure, the framing, the polish - is something we can build with you. The problem is the only part that has to come from you.
So if you've already got a fully written brief, brilliant, send it over. If you don't, that's not a barrier. What we actually need, as a minimum, is a problem statement: a few sentences describing something that's causing your organisation real pain - something we could feasibly help relieve or shift altogether.
One of the strongest things to land in our inbox recently wasn't a formal brief at all. It was a handful of sentences describing one specific problem: young people struggling to build genuine confidence with professionals - not the two-minute-pitch version of networking, but making a real connection and following it up properly enough that it leads somewhere, an internship, a mentor, a way in. No headings, no structure, just the problem stated plainly.
It's not the right fit for the Social Innovation Lab theme, but it was plenty for us to go on and that problem statement, now turned into a brief by us, will pop up at a future Lab.
So, rest assured the legwork is ours. We'll likely come back with a few questions, and we may need a short conversation to shape it properly before 6 July - but the bit you need to bring is the problem, not the finished document.
If a problem statement is all we need, here's what tends to make one strong rather than vague.
Real, not invented
The most common mistake is reaching for a problem that's been tidied up to sound like an exercise, rather than handing over the actual mess you're dealing with.
If your organisation is genuinely unsure why volunteer applications drop off halfway through the form, or why a service that works brilliantly in one area falls flat in another, that's worth telling us. If you've invented a clean, hypothetical version of a problem because the real one feels too messy or too political to hand over - don't bother. The mess is the point. It's what makes the thinking useful afterwards, not just something nice to do on the day.
Small enough for a day, big enough to matter
"Help us fix our funding model" is too big. Nobody gets anywhere useful with that by 3pm, and the group ends up guessing at context they don't have.
"How do we get new volunteers from sign-up to their first shift without losing half of them along the way" is a day's work. It's specific enough that a small group can actually get inside it, and meaty enough that a genuinely good answer would matter to your organisation.
A useful test: could you explain the problem, and why it matters, in three or four sentences to someone who's never worked at your organisation? If you can do that, you've already written your problem statement.
But if you need half an hour on the phone to chew our ear off so we can then articulate the problem statement back to you, that works just fine, too. I mean, that's our day job, after all.
Show your working
Tell us what's already been tried, what's fixed, and what's actually up for grabs - even just a line or two. If budget is non-existent, say so. If a previous attempt at this exact problem fell over for political reasons, say that too. None of that closes down the thinking - it sharpens it. A group that knows the real boundaries will find genuinely new angles inside them. A group working blind will spend the morning reinventing something you ruled out two years ago.
This is also where we'd push back gently on one assumption.
When charities and social enterprises hear "send us a problem," the instinct is often to reach for a marketing one - more donors, more reach, a bigger mailing list. Perfectly valid, and we'd take it. But it's rarely the only good option, and often not the most useful one. You might need to get more of theright people to notice you and drive them somewhere off the back of that, but there's no point spending time and effort funnelling people to a destination that's not setup to convert.
Think: don't spend thousands marketing a hotel that isn't built yet to this year's holidaymakers.
When Bravand rebuilt the website for baby bank charity Little Village, the brief wasn't "help us raise more money" - it was understanding what each different visitor to the site actually needed, from donors and corporates through to the health visitors making referrals and the families being supported.
Our founder Jilly Cross has made the point before: the time saved by making things simpler for the people using a service affects an organisation's effectiveness just as much as fundraising does. Donor experience, volunteer onboarding, an internal process eating up staff time, three audiences fighting over the same form - all of it counts.
Leave room to be surprised
A problem statement that already contains the answer isn't a problem statement, it's a brief for a build.
If you've written "we need an app that does X," you've skipped past the bit we're actually offering. Frame it as the problem, not the solution - "how do we make it easier for new referrals to understand what support they're eligible for," not "build us a referral chatbot." The young people in the room haven't had their thinking squeezed into a particular shape yet, which is the whole reason this works. Give them a problem to wrestle with, not a spec to fill in.
Know who it's for
Every strong problem statement has a person attached to it, even if there are several.
Not "improve service experience" in the abstract, but "make it easier for a parent with no internet access at home to refer themselves into the service." The sharper the picture of who's affected, the sharper the thinking that comes back. If your problem currently reads like a strategy line from an annual report, try rewriting it from the point of view of one real person dealing with it.
If you want a starting point
None of the above needs writing up formally, but if it helps to have a shape to write into, this is roughly it - and honestly, even two sentences against the first two points is enough to get a conversation started:
- The situation: what's true today, in plain terms
- The problem: what's actually getting in the way, and for whom
- The constraints: what's fixed (budget, systems, politics) and what genuinely isn't, if you know it yet
- What good looks like: how you'd know a pitch was useful, if you've thought about it
An email is fine. So is a couple of paragraphs typed on your phone between meetings.
Send us your problem
However rough it is, get it to us and we'll talk it through together - that conversation is usually where a decent problem becomes a good Challenge Brief.
We're finalising Challenge Briefs ahead of 6 July, so the rougher the starting point, the sooner we'll need it from you to shape it together in time.
About Fresh Meet CIC
Fresh Meet CIC is a social enterprise delivering paid digital internships, Careers in Digital workshops and Innovation Labs for young people aged 16-25 across South Yorkshire. Internships are 100-hour placements paid at Real Living Wage on live commercial projects, primarily funded through Bravand's project work and events like this one.
About Bravand
Bravand is an independent, female-founded digital studio designing and building complex platforms, products and services for organisations that need things to work. Based in Sheffield and London, Bravand co-founded Fresh Meet CIC, channelling commercial project work into paid digital internships for young people across South Yorkshire.
