We’ve spent the last few years watching protections crumble: for people, for communities, for the planet. We’ve watched as the system – the world – has become more polarized, more divided. Less human and less humane.
That’s not us. That’s never been us. Good Works has been around for 40 years, led by fundraisers with an instinct to question, to cage-rattle, to change. Today, we’re a queer-owned and woman-led agency that’s proud to continue that legacy.
So as more organizations have weakened their stances on diversity and inclusion, on climate protections, on basic human decency, we felt the call to double down. To not only walk the walk, but to continue to lead the way. And B Corp™ is one way we’ve chosen to publicly hold ourselves accountable to that commitment.
Because lots of businesses say they care. They write values statements and make social posts on the appropriate dates. But a look under the hood leaves a lot to be desired. B Corp™ measures not what you say, but what you do and how you do it.
Being a B Corp™ is a message about the way we do business, the people we work with and for, and the charities we support.
And we’re enormously proud that Good Works is now a certified B Corporation™.
What Does Certification Actually Mean?
B Corp™ isn’t a logo you buy. It’s an independent audit — the B Impact Assessment, run by the nonprofit B Lab™ — that scores a company across five areas: governance, workers, community, environment, and customers. Every answer has to be backed by documentation, not just self-reporting. (Reader, it is a lot of documentation. We’re consultants; we like a good spreadsheet, and even we caught ourselves questioning that fact somewhere around page forty.)
We earned a B Impact Score of 148.5 — well above the 80 points required to certify, and nearly three times the median score of 50.9 that ordinary, uncertified businesses land when they run the same assessment.
How We Measure Up
Good governance, by design. Ownership at Good Works has always passed from one generation of fundraisers to the next — people who worked here first, then took over as owners. Most of our consultants came up through direct response themselves, drawn to agency life by the chance to multiply their impact from one cause to many. That instinct is written directly into our mission statement:
Good Works turns giving into lasting change.
We connect donors and charities across Canada through direct mail, digital campaigns, and legacy giving—all built on honest, human-centred, and ethical storytelling. Our fundraising programs generate sustainable revenue streams for charities, enabling them to create lasting, meaningful change for people, communities, and the planet.
Good to our people, with purpose. Our staff get more than 36 paid days off a year, are all paid above a living wage, and work in a flexible, hybrid environment, with benefits, career pathing, and professional development available to full- and part-time staff alike. It’s not perfect, but we hold ourselves to a standard of what an employer should be able to offer and how it should treat its people. We believe the agencies charities hire should be pushing that bar up, not quietly accepting whatever the sector will tolerate.
Good to the planet, even without an office to control. This is the area where we still have the most work to do, and we’d rather say so plainly than dress it up. We don’t manufacture anything, we don’t own a print shop or a lettershop, and we don’t own our office space — which limits how much environmental impact we can directly control. But we can still do better where we do have control: how we support employees working from home, and who we choose as vendors to recommend to our clients.
Good for the causes you serve. Our job is to help you build sustainable revenue ethically through direct response, so you can go do the work that actually changes things. Every strategy shift we’ve championed — from transactional to relational storytelling, from outdated legacy practices to a genuinely human-centred approach — has been about making fundraising work better for charities, donors, and beneficiaries alike.
Good to community, at the scale we can actually deliver. We’re not a big agency, so we won’t pretend our reach is bigger than it is. But ownership here is queer- and women-owned, and our staff roster reflects that same range: 2SLGBTQ+ and neurodivergent team members, a mix of races and ethnicities, and someone in nearly every decade of life, from their 20s to their 60s. We’re not doing this at scale. We’re doing it honestly, in the room we actually have.
Our B Corp impact score
This Isn't the Finish Line
Our B Corp™ status also makes us a vendor you can actually vet. Values alignment shouldn’t be a gut feeling in a pitch meeting. B Corp™ certification gives charities a real, third-party-verified criterion to weigh when choosing who they work with — the same rigor you’d apply to any other decision that affects your mission.
We’re not treating 148.5 as a finish line, either. B Lab™ has rolled out more rigorous standards since we certified, so the bar we have to clear at recertification, which happens every three years, is higher than the one we just cleared. Given our history, that tracks. We’ve never been especially good at leaving well enough alone.
It also means we’re willing to measure ourselves against an independent standard, share our impact publicly, and continue raising the bar as we look forward to maintaining our certification for many years to come.
Learn More
Want to know more about what it means to be a Certified B Corporation™? Visit our profile on the B Corporation website and see how Good Works is helping to shape a more equitable, sustainable future.