Balancing Profit and Purpose feat. Empower

We feature fellow B Corps, those that use business as a force for good.  Empower is a strategic digital comms agency for causes creating impact around the world. We got to chat with Ben Matthews, Co-Founder at Empower to learn more about their journey of becoming a B Corp and what it means to them. 

The purpose of our series “Balancing Profit and Purpose” is to feature fellow B Corporations, to hopefully inspire many more to join the movement.

Helena @ ADLIB: For some background information, who are you as a business and what makes your business offering unique?

Ben: We’re Empower, a strategic digital comms agency helping you create impact around the world. Our vision is to support causes that make/shape/leave the world a better place to use digital comms for social good. We’re people-centred, ethical, driven by our purpose, and – just like ADLIB- we’re a proud B Corp.

As a strategic digital comms agency, we’re committed to creating positive change in the world. That starts with the way we work as a team, continues through the way we work with our clients, and results in real, tangible progress for good causes.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI), Mental Health, and Sustainability are the three pillars that guide our work at Empower.

We believe Diversity, Equity & Inclusion are fundamental to creating a healthy, productive workplace culture, and we’re proud of the strides we’ve made in this area. We’re committed to building a team that is diverse, equitable and inclusive, and an environment that fosters the growth and development of all our team members.

We understand the importance of Mental Health and wellbeing, and we’ve taken steps to prioritise them in our team. We offer mental health resources and support to our team members, and we’re dedicated to promoting a culture of self-care and work-life balance.

Sustainability is a core value at Empower, and we’re conscious of our environmental impact. We’ve implemented initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint and to promote sustainable practices, and we’re always working to find new ways to make a positive impact on the planet.

Helena @ ADLIB: What got you interested in joining the B Corp movement and what does being a B Corp mean to you?

Ben: For Empower, becoming a B Corp is a real marker of our mission to create a positive and meaningful impact in the world.

As a small agency, it can be difficult to implement the changes you want to see. That’s why we’re so excited to be part of the UK B Corp Community and to have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from other inspiring companies who are also B Corps.

We are incredibly proud to have achieved B Corp certification and it is something the Empower team have been working extremely hard on behind the scenes over the last few years. At Empower, we care deeply about our people and creating positive social and environmental impact. And we’re beyond honoured to have these core values officially recognised.

Helena @ ADLIB: Can you share a little bit about your B Corp story, what the process was like for you?

Ben: The B Impact Assessment is a serious undertaking, but time and resources are a challenge for any business regardless of size. One of the good things about the whole B Corp certification is that it’s not actually something that’s easy to get.

When we reviewed what it took to become B Corp certified, we loved how the assessment process closely aligned with Empower’s values and the way we already work. But it also brings in a new level of accountability and a tangible way to measure our impact.

You can say all these great things about what your company does, but to actually have that backing behind it is what’s really important. The amount of questions and the detail needed is large, but as a small agency, we were able to implement new policies in an agile way, using the assessment to help make strategic decisions and develop new policies and processes that aligned with the B Corp assessment.

It’s been a big but hugely worthwhile journey, and  we couldn’t have tackled certification all by ourselves. It was valuable to get the input of B Leaders, who guided us through the process. We connected with other agencies in our network going through certification, to share tips and learnings  We also found it particularly helpful to look through the thoughts and impact reports of Certified B Corps for ideas and inspiration

Helena @ ADLIB: In your case, what does it mean for your workers, customers, community and environmental considerations?

Ben: We’re determined to leave the world in a better state than we found it. Wherever possible, we aim to measure and share the impact we’ve been able to make together. In 2022-23, we empowered, enabled and served 40 clients and 25,915,542 beneficiaries.

At Empower, we value people above all else. We know the happier our team members are, the better our work will be. Because of this, we make sure that everyone who works at Empower feels supported, challenged and inspired.

In 2022-23, we made sure everyone worked in three-person teams, so no one worked alone. We gave all of our team access to a values-aligned, senior HR consultant who knows Empower and our team. And we  Invested in operations support, tools and more team members, to help team morale and wellbeing during peak seasonal workloads.