Everyone who’s ever joined our team at Platypus did so to make a positive difference in the world.
They could have joined any agency, marketing the wares of any number of for profit industries. But they joined Platypus, an agency that only works for charities, and they did so to amplify the brilliant work of organisations that make a positive difference in the world.
That means the main focus at Platypus will always be our client work. Everything we do exists to help charities raise more money, reach more people, and make a bigger impact through digital marketing. That focus is what gets us up in the morning. It can sometimes mean that wider impact work that isn’t on behalf of charities – much of the important work in this report – sometimes has to compete for our attention with the day-to-day demands of serving our charity clients.
But 2024 was a year where we made real progress on that wider work too. We spent time strengthening our internal operations, bulked out our Notion staff handbook so everyone knows their rights and what we empower them to do, and started having open conversations about money at Platypus through Town Hall sessions.
We strengthened our anti-racism policies, created new recruitment and onboarding processes, and maintained a hybrid working model that works for our team and their lives.
We served 43 charities across the year, managed over £3.6 million in media spend on their behalf, and started working with some brilliant new clients including Amnesty International UK, Plan International UK, and Hospice UK.
We donated £12,199 to charities close to the hearts of our team, and our team gave nearly 348 hours of pro bono time to causes they care about.
We’re honest in this report about where we fell short of what we wanted to achieve, particularly on our environmental commitments. But we’re proud of the foundations we’ve built, and we go into 2025 with a plan to keep improving.
Matt Collins, Managing Director
Our B Impact Score
Platypus Digital is a certified B Corp with an overall score of 108.
The median score for ordinary businesses who complete the B Impact Assessment is 50.9. To achieve B Corp certification, a company must score at least 80.
So while we’re determined to improve our score, it is well above the baseline.
Here’s how the score breaks down.
| Impact Area | Score |
| Governance | 17.3 |
| Workers | 34.5 |
| Community | 26.8 |
| Environment | 9.3 |
| Customers | 19.9 |
| Overall | 108 |
- ‘Governance’ evaluates our mission, ethics, and transparency.
- ‘Workers’ evaluates our contributions to employees’ financial security, health, safety, wellness, and career development.
- ‘Community‘ evaluates our engagement with the communities we operate in, including diversity, equity, inclusion, and charitable giving.
- ‘Environment‘ evaluates our environmental management and impact.
- ‘Customers‘ evaluates our stewardship of clients through quality of service, ethical marketing, data privacy, and feedback channels.
Governance
We started Town Hall conversations about money at Platypus, which can be a very awkward conversation at work!
The aim was to open up financial transparency for the whole team so that they feel a sense of understanding and ownership on the financial performance of the agency.
We did not formalise our wider stakeholder engagement in 2024.
Our team
In 2024 we had a team of 14 employees.
Our aim this year was to continue to invest in making Platypus a great place to work.
To do that, we:
- launched our online staff handbook on Notion so everyone easily find our policies and understand their rights
- strengthened our anti-racism policies
- maintained hybrid working to ensure it works for everyone
- created new recruitment and onboarding processes to improve the experience for new joiners
- updated our Equality, Modern Slavery, Anti-bribery, and Pensions policies
- signed the Muslim Employment Charter, committing to creating a more inclusive workplace for Muslim employees
We also launched a team satisfaction survey using the eNPS model so we can get an understanding of what matters to our team and what we can do better.
Diversity, equity and inclusion
We set up an EDI working group in 2024, giving our team more opportunities to be involved in shaping change within the organisation.
Key initiatives included:
- Monitoring diversity across the organisation and our talent pipeline and selection process
- Joining Change the Race Ratio, with a commitment to improve opportunities for People of Colour in the marketing industry and within our agency
- Establishing a calendar of key cultural and awareness moments to show Platypus’s support and improve inclusivity
- Making changes to flexible working to better acknowledge the role of fasting during Ramadan
- Delivering neurodiversity presentations to all staff to increase understanding of neurodivergence and reasonable adjustments
Our main challenges were finding time for the team to work on EDI alongside client commitments, and working within a limited budget. These are common constraints for a relatively small agency like ours, but the working group made meaningful progress despite them.
Community and sector contribution
Pro bono
We give up to 10% of weekly hours per team member to deliver pro bono work for charities of their choice.
In 2024, the team contributed approximately 348 hours of pro bono time to 11 charities.
This work was a mix of trustee work overseeing and contributing to their missions, supporting others with digital fundraising campaigns and mentoring people looking to develop their skills within their charity.
We also donated £12,199.12 to charities close to the hearts of our team.
Our pro bono clients were:
- Ashinga
- Disability Sports Coach
- FLO
- Lymphoma Out Loud
- Ramadan Tent Project
- Sanctus
- Simba
- Safer Places
- Trees for Life
- Pregnant then Screwed
- Migrateful
Digital Candle
In 2019, we founded Digital Candle, a free expert matching service that connects small charities with digital volunteers.
This was in response to a huge need within smaller organisations for digital support but with little to no budget to pay for it.
Digital Candle has now connected more than 1,000 people to digital experts who have helped them solve their digital problems.
2024 was a year of great support from Catalyst, who funded Digital Candle and maintained a community of support with other funded organisations, which was invaluable to us.
In 2024, the service fielded 282 questions from charities across a wide range of digital challenges, from CRM selection to Google Ad Grants to website development.
Each was introduced to a digital expert for a one hour call who helped steer them through the often bewildering world of digital. Each expert gave them both answers and confidence in their own problem-solving abilities for the future.
Environment
We carried out our first extensive staff emissions survey. This allowed us to find out the true carbon impact of the agency by finding out how our team typically travel to the office when they do so, how green their home energy supplier is and whether they have received new IT equipment in the past year.
This allowed us to benchmark our carbon intensity, which will give us a platform to build on for future years.
In 2023/24, our total estimated annual emissions were 3,607 kgCO2e. This gives us a carbon intensity of 3,121 kgCO2e per million pounds of revenue, and 277 kgCO2e per employee (based on 13 employees at the time of measurement and £1.16m revenue).
Here’s what we did achieve:
- We maintained our carbon neutral status through our World Land Trust certification
- We maintained our vegan food policy for all work-related meals and events (a plant-based diet being the biggest way individuals can reduce their emissions)
- We supported Climate Outreach, a climate charity, with their digital tracking setup
Our clients
We work exclusively with registered charities. This has been our focus since Platypus was founded in 2014, and it’s what makes us different from other agencies.
Our team of 14 specialises in Google Ads, Google Ad Grants, SEO, paid social media advertising, and digital strategy for the charity sector.
Our work in these areas have a big impact on raising awareness and funds for the vital work our clients do.
We continue to survey client feedback via NPS surveys and act on the results.
Key clients
Our clients in 2024 included:
- Amnesty International UK – campaigning for human rights and justice for people worldwide
- Samaritans – providing emotional support to anyone in distress or at risk of suicide
- Sightsavers – preventing avoidable blindness and advocating for disabled people’s rights in developing countries
- Plan International UK – advancing children’s rights and gender equality for girls globally
- Parkinson’s UK – funding research and providing support for people living with Parkinson’s
- War Child UK – protecting and supporting children affected by armed conflict
- Young Lives Vs Cancer – supporting children and young people diagnosed with cancer and their families
Client stories
Here are a few stories of how we created a positive impact in the world in 2024.
Haven House Children’s Hospice
Haven House provides specialist care and support for children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions.
They approached us to help create a digital fundraising strategy. We did this by delivering a comprehensive digital fundraising review, conducting stakeholder interviews across the charity to understand their challenges and opportunities.
We distilled our findings into a clear plan with priorities to help Haven House use digital to fundraise more effectively.
Simba Charity – Pro bono Meta campaign
Through our pro bono programme, we ran acquisition campaigns on Meta for Simba Charity’s annual Stroll for Simba event.
Despite a smaller budget in 2024, we re-strategised and narrowed our targeting based on previous learnings.
The campaign delivered outstanding results, with the charity raising £4 for every £1 spent on advertising.
Trees for Life – Pro bono SEO
Our senior SEO executive Rob used his pro bono time to support Trees for Life, a Scottish charity dedicated to rewilding the Highlands.
He provided SEO strategy and recommendations that helped transform their organic search performance, demonstrating the tangible impact our pro bono programme can have for smaller organisations.
Looking ahead to 2025
We’re committed to building on the foundations we laid in 2024. Here are our commitments for the year ahead:
| Area | Score | What we did in 2024 | What we’ll do in 2025 |
| Workers | 34.5 | Launched staff handbook, strengthened anti-racism policies, created new recruitment processes, updated key policies, set up EDI group | Continue EDI working group. Introduce new HR/wellbeing policies. Continue monitoring diversity across the talent pipeline. |
| Governance | 17.3 | Started Town Halls on finances, new team structure for progression | Formalise financial transparency into monthly reports. Update equality policy. Formalise stakeholder engagement. |
| Community | 26.8 | Donated £12,199, ~348 hours pro bono to 11 charities, Digital Candle continued | Encourage pro bono time take-up. Support local community in Southwark Continue support through Digital Candle. |
| Environment | 9.3 | Carbon neutral via World Land Trust, vegan food policy, supported Climate Outreach | Continue environmental working group. Engage with office provider on supply chain. Work towards becoming carbon negative. |
| Customers | 19.9 | Client NPS +50 average, 43 charities served, £3.6m spend managed | Continue tracking NPS and aim to improve consistency. |
We go into 2025 knowing that our priority will always be the charities we serve. But we also know that being a better business makes us better at serving them.
We’ll keep being honest about where we fall short, and keep working to do better.
