To paraphrase Bob Dylan, as far as B Corp is concerned, the times they are a’ changin. After 20 years of operation in the US, and 10 years in the UK, B Corp have completely overhauled how they assess organisations and have recently rolled out a new set of standards.
These new standards move away from a points-based system towards a model centred on mandatory actions that increase over time. There is a clear focus on continuous improvement.
This makes our annual impact report this year a little unconventional. For the first time, we can’t directly compare how we’re faring compared to the previous year, at least in a numerical sense.
We’ve been a proud B Corp for three years. For anyone not familiar with the movement, its ethos is to use business for good and in this blog we reflect on the progress we’ve made in the previous key areas and the impact we continue to have.
Workers
What we set out to do
We wanted to continually support a healthy work-life balance and ensure our team remain well rewarded and supported.
What we achieved
A strong, flexible working culture
We maintained our hybrid working model, giving our team the flexibility to balance work and personal life. Working from home remains an option on Mondays and Fridays, with additional flexibility to adjust hours to enjoy longer weekends. Our additional paid day off for moving house has been well received.
Sabbaticals in action
After introducing long-service paid sabbaticals the previous year, 2025 marked the first time one of the team took advantage of this benefit, with four weeks of paid leave on top of their annual holiday allowance, to fully switch off and recharge. Four more team members are set to take sabbaticals this year, showing the real value of this initiative in practice.
Healthcare
Everyone at Uprise Up can join BUPA and most of us do; our policy covers partners and children, too. We also held on-site annual health checks which had a great take up.
Professional development and wellbeing
We’ve continued to invest in our people’s development. Last year we introduced a dedicated Trainer role. Alongside individual training, many of us attended conferences, with BrightonSEO being a particular highlight.
Looking ahead
As outlined in John’s blog at the start of the year, we’re become ‘T-shaped’ in our expertise. Our media specialists will continue to develop expertise in their core discipline, whilst also becoming well versed in adjacent disciplines, less siloed. We’re excited by this development and we’ll be placing an even greater emphasis on training to support it.
Environment
What we set out to do
We wanted to continue keeping energy usage and sustainability front of mind across the company, and minimise wastage.
We have continued to take practical steps to reduce our environmental impact and operate responsibly. While there’s always more to do, we’re proud of the consistent, incremental improvements we’ve made.
What we achieved
Maintained our low carbon footprint
Our electricity usage in 2025 decreased slightly from 2024, though gas usage (our central heating) increased slightly as more people made use of the office on Mondays and Fridays. Overall our footprint slightly decreased and we offset two tonnes of CO2 for last year. We continue to work closely with our landlord to reduce usage where we can.
Sustainable habits
We continued recycling initiatives across the business. This included donating 80 kilos of compost from our office food waste to local initiative Chesham in Bloom.
For the second year we ran our ‘Sustainable Secret Santa’ for the second year, saving landfill from novelty presents by instead buying from local charity shops.
Looking ahead
As part of the new B Corp standards we’re looking forward to creating an action plan aligned with limiting global warming.
Customers
What we set out to do
The Customers impact area in B Corp assessed the value we deliver to our customers and, in turn, the value to their own beneficiaries. Our main aim here was to grow membership of the Charity Digital Benchmark and share more digital metrics.
Charity Digital Benchmark is owned and run by us at Uprise Up, and is a community where charities benefit from shared data. The Benchmark tool allows charities to compare their digital performance against the sector average, and to charities of the same size or cause area. It’s a tool tailor-built to help charities make sure they invest their digital spend in the places that’ll actually maximise impact.
What we achieved
Growing the Charity Digital Benchmark
Membership has increased to 50 organisations at time of writing, with more close to joining. Not only that, we’ve added a wider range of metrics to the tool; Members can dive deeper and see AI traffic stats, how their Google Ad Grants perform, and split out social media metrics.
We’ve placed strong emphasis on maintaining the quality of the data within the Benchmark and as part of this have worked closely with many charities to resolve their own tracking and reporting issues so they could join us and enjoy the benefits.
Sharing knowledge
As well as sharing insights through social media, newsletters and blogs, we hosted a Benchmark webinar designed to help members improve their performance by the better use of data. This included best practice data setup, using data for campaign optimisation and preparing for soft opt-in for email for charities.
By sharing our expertise, we’re helping charities improve campaign effectiveness, ultimately delivering better results for their beneficiaries.
Our purpose-driven work
We remain committed to working with organisations that make a positive impact. This year, 93% of our clients were registered charities, the highest proportion we’ve ever had.
Looking ahead
We’re excited to grow the Charity Digital Benchmark further, with a focus on expanding membership and deepening the dataset. More data means better insights, enabling charities to make more informed decisions and maximise their impact.
Community
What we set out to do
We aimed to increase volunteering and continue strengthening diversity within our organisation.
What we achieved
Introducing dedicated volunteering time
We formalised a volunteering policy, giving employees the opportunity to enjoy paid time off to support causes that matter to them. Everyone can take up to a day to volunteer.
Royal Voluntary Service, one of our clients, has launched a brilliant digital volunteering platform GoVo tool to help companies with just this. We’ve been proud to help them with their digital advertising campaigns for GoVo and are using their platform to help our staff find what suits them.
We’ve also been excited to volunteer for the Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s Insight in Fundraising Special Interest Group. Last year, our MD John Onion began co-leading their programme of 20:20 Events. These events focus on helping fundraisers learn from data and insight and include peer-led webinars. This aligns well with our own work helping charities get more from their activity.
Local community support
We hosted a work experience placement, supporting early career development.
Diversity progress
We’ve always looking to improve the diversity of our own company and reached a 50/50 gender split which we’re delighted about.
Responsible purchasing
Wherever possible, we continue to prioritised working with local suppliers and other B Corps, supporting businesses that align with our values.
Looking ahead
We’d love to increase the take up of volunteering within our company as it benefits not just the individual but the company and the charity.
That’s a brief roundup of our impact over the last year. It’s not exhaustive but it highlights the areas we’re most proud of. While we haven’t been able to provide the usual numerical comparisons this year (as a data driven company, there’s nothing we love more than numbers, so we’re sad we don’t have the platform to calculate them!) we’re confident we’ve made meaningful progress.
We’ll be starting the recertification process towards the end of the year. With continuous improvement as one of our core values, we’re looking forward to embracing the new framework that ties this in more tightly.
We’ll let you know how we get on with the new process!
You can find last year’s report here, and our blog on our certification process here.
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