Sage + Spark began with a friendship formed in Bangkok in 2013.
We met while working on MTV EXIT, the world's largest behaviour change campaign against human trafficking. Mia had just come from Afghanistan, where she was supporting an organization to define its strategic communications plan, after a decade in the private sector. Lindsey came from Plan Canada, where she had led youth engagement for the Because I am a Girl campaign after working in East Africa and Europe.
Through music videos, concerts and online and community engagement, MTV EXIT reached more than 700 million people globally, with Mia leading communications and Lindsey focusing on community engagement and youth participation.
When MTV EXIT wrapped up, we were part of the team that moved to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to build a successor initiative, IOM X. Once again, Mia led communications and Lindsey led community engagement and youth participation, working with diverse partners and across multiple regions to counter exploitation and promote informed migration. Over its duration, IOM X reached more than 800 million people.
Then our paths branched out.
Mia moved to Senegal to establish and lead a new Media, Communications and Awareness Raising unit for IOM’s Regional Office for West and Central Africa. The first of its kind within IOM, the unit led innovative regional communications projects and campaigns across the region. Four years later, Mia moved to Singapore to lead communications for the International Finance Corporation’s Asia Pacific region.
Lindsey went independent as a facilitator, instructional designer and Social and Behaviour Change Communication consultant across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the South Pacific. Her work ranged from community policing in Iraq and online safety across Asia to co-developing learning resources with young people on migration, human trafficking and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Through all those years and time zones, we kept coming back to the same question: what if we combined our skills in communications and community engagement to help organizations learn, act and communicate better?
That might mean rethinking how people take part in a workshop or conference, so they’re moving and connecting rather than sitting and listening. It might mean changing how an organization talks about its impact so it resonates on paper and in the moment. It might mean a new approach to empowering partners, staff and volunteers to learn, act and share through resources that are tailored to their needs and focused on usability.
We wanted to help make every gathering, learning resource and communication product relevant, accessible and actionable.
In 2025, that idea became real. Welcome to Sage + Spark.