iilo Benefit Report, Year 3
iilo Creative Alliance is committed to addressing social & environmental sustainability & supporting the many dedicated changemakers working locally and across Canada.
Our efforts make a difference
iilo Creative Alliance headed into its third year of business with plans to increase engagement with values-aligned collaborators, businesses, and clients. We’re proud to report on our progress and to share highlights from the past year.
We’re embracing our B Corp certification
It’s been over a year since we became a Certified B Corp. As a service-oriented business, our greatest impact is seen in the community and customers categories. Meanwhile, the B Impact Assessment identified that we can improve in the environment and governance categories. We aim to continue refining our operations and business model to raise our overall B Impact Score.
In the past year, we’ve also begun to participate more in the B Corp community. We’re proactively sharing our B Corp story and attending events such as the B Local social event hosted by B Local Vancouver in March 2024. We’ve loved connecting with like-minded businesses and look forward to serving more B Corps!
We’re a registered Benefit Company
iilo has been registered as a Benefit Company in BC since the founding of our business in 2021, which means our values are woven into the foundation of our business. We’re committed to amplifying the work of impact-driven organizations and businesses focused on environmental and social sustainability. As a Benefit Company, we also publicly report on our impacts each year.
We’re aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
We aim to align our impact with the United Nations’ global Sustainable Development Goals: #5 Gender Equality, #8 Decent Work and Economic Growth, and #10 Reduced Inequalities.
Our impact
“I’d say that flexible hours and a collaborative approach to work/projects are probably the two main contributors to my healthy work-life balance.”
We’re growing our team and services
In year 3, we expanded iilo’s communications team with two more writers and an editor. This means we can now support clients in a deeper way by sharing expertise in research, writing, editing, as well as social media strategy and content development.
We also built out our core team in our hybrid employee/contractor team model. Our part-time employee hired in fiscal year 2 is now a full-time graphic designer. In addition, we hired two part-time project managers who are enabling iilo to take on more projects and adding resilience to our team workflows.
With our growth, iilo continues to be a proudly women-owned and operated agency consisting of a mostly female team. We’ve also been pleased to hear that new clients have sought us out because we’re a women-led business.
Our impacts & actions
Our goals for year 3 (as stated in year 2 report)
- Increase the number of B Corp clients on our client list
- Host bi-monthly in-house learning opportunities and increase the use of iilo’s professional development benefits
- Continue evolving our hybrid team model by hiring more iilo employees
- Retain our KPI of 100% of our team reporting that we helped them maintain their life/work balance
- Aim for 100% of our clients to report that we helped them amplify their missions with our work together
Governance
- Learning from other business owners is a priority for us. We’re ongoing participants in The Forum Mentor Program, working one-on-one with an experienced business mentor. Additionally,
we joined The Forum Peer Mentorship Program in the spring of 2024, where we took part in a series of peer support groups for growth-minded women entrepreneurs in Canada. - We were recertified as a Living Wage Employer and take pride in the fact that our workforce can make a decent living by collaborating with us.
- We’re working with new professional service partners that are dedicated to serving B Corps and values-driven businesses. HR consultants Reimagine Work is helping to enhance our people management practices, and Lift CPA is supporting our accounting.
- iilo is dedicated to promoting accessibility in our work and in our workplace. Hence, we continued to deepen our knowledge of accessible design and communications, and we’ve engaged a disabled designer, Jessica Oddi, to consult with us in fiscal year 4.
- To create a more accessible work environment for persons with disabilities, we obtained a Workplace Accessibility Grant from Small Business BC.
Community
- Our annual team survey showed that the percentage of iilo team members who identify as a racialized person, an immigrant, or a member of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community has risen to 58%.
- We sustained our KPI of 100% of our team reporting that we helped them maintain their life/work balance.
- iilo team members got together in both Nanaimo and Vancouver for food, conversations, and in-real-life connections this past year.
- We hosted our first team photoshoot in Vancouver! Collaborating with professional photographer Maxine Bulloch, we’re excited to now have a collection of photos that showcase our belief in interconnectedness.
- We’re delighted that everyone on the iilo team has been committed to learning about artificial intelligence (AI) and accessibility by engaging with our AI policy and accessibility discussions.
- Leaning into our value of lifelong learning, we hosted three team member-led lunch and learns: Lisa Hemingway provided information about B Corps, Crystal Lee led laughter yoga, and Trina M’Lot shared learnings from a Trauma of Money course.
- iilo introduced the Be Ceremonial app, a tool to apply rituals and ceremonies for self-care, as a new benefit for employees and collaborators.
- Over all, more team members took advantage of iilo’s professional development benefit. For some of us, that meant attending the Design Thinkers Conference in Vancouver organized by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers.
Our impact
“Working with iilo gives me the freedom to make space for self-care and to live my life more fully.”
Environment
- Our environmental footprint is relatively small as a virtual-forever creative agency. We continued with our usual practices of meeting virtually as often as possible, minimizing our work travel, and reducing, reusing, and recycling materials and equipment in our workspaces.
- Prioritizing sustainable design is core to iilo’s mission. Therefore, we refine and improve our workflows and processes on an ongoing basis.
- We also continued to add to our team’s internal resources library to educate our collaborators on sustainable design principles and accessibility.
Customers
- We continued to measure how much revenue was generated from mission-aligned clients, and 91% of our revenue came from clients who lead with their mission to make the world a better place.
- Our clients’ impact areas swung toward the social space in fiscal year 3, with 86% of clients focused on addressing social causes, and 12% addressing primarily environmental causes.
- Thanks to increased customer awareness and greater team capacity, we completed more branding and communications projects this year.
- As an ongoing member of 1% for the Planet, we continued to donate 1% of iilo revenues to organizations focused on supporting causes that are close to our team members’ hearts.
Our impact
“iilo’s team not only understood our needs, but were responsive to feedback, met deadlines, and worked within the agreed-upon budget.”
In addition, since we now have employees aside from the owners at iilo, we’ve unlocked a fifth B Corp impact area: “workers.” We’re excited to learn more through the lens of the B Corp assessment — more on this next year!
Our momentum is building
As we enter iilo year 4, we’re striving to amplify our impact in all areas of
our business. We’re grateful that our business has grown thanks to client referrals and hope to support even more causes in the next year.
Our goals for year 4
- Keep increasing the number of B Corp clients on our client list
- Continue with in-house learning opportunities and increase the use of iilo’s professional development benefits
- Increase our team’s collective knowledge around accessibility and AI, and explore related operational efficiencies
- Lean into the hybrid team model we have created, and continue building leaders within the company
- Retain our KPI of 100% of our team reporting that we helped them maintain their life/work balance
- Aim for 100% of our clients to report that we helped them amplify their missions with our work together
We look forward to year 4 as iilo Creative Alliance! To learn more about our vision, mission and values as a company, explore iilo Creative Alliance’s brand platform and subscribe to our newsletter to stay connected.