A Note from leadership
We’re grateful for your ongoing partnership, support, and trust in us. We see you doing good work in your communities and striving to make change wherever you can and it is a privilege to be part of your story. Thank you.
Much changed for us in 2023 and 2024.
To start, if you’ve been following our journey, you’ll likely notice that who this update is coming from looks a little different. In 2024, both Megan and Marie moved on from Mangrove after many years of helping us grow and nurture the business into something we are deeply proud of. Their influence and ideals will always be a part of who we are and we’re thrilled to see them prosper in new ways and build their careers in new directions.
Andrew continues to be a critical part of Mangrove's growth and continuity, and we're now a leadership team of two. With Andrew's focus on creative direction, communications, and operations, Maiya is focused on strategic partnerships, business development, and advancing Mangrove's mission and mandate as a B Corp, a woman-owned business, and an agency of record for nonprofits, foundations, and advocacy organizations.
It's been an amazing journey for us both. (Above, a kind soul took our photo in Old Montréal last fall.) With the merger in 2023, an economic downturn in mid-2024, and staffing changes toward the end of last year, we are today a tighter and mightier team of 15 amazing individuals.
The report you’re reading is a reflection on our work and our commitments across 2023 and 2024. We hope this report provides an inside view of the road we’ve traveled and where we are heading next.
Thank you for journeying with us!
An Introduction to Mangrove
Mangrove Web is a woman-owned digital agency with a diverse, talented team distributed across the globe. We’ve been designing and developing websites since 2009 to amplify the work of change-making organizations and to increase the competitive power of companies owned by historically marginalized people. As a Certified B Corp and a Public Benefit Corporation — and now a Certified WBENC — we prioritize working with businesses that share our value of balancing people, planet, purpose, and profit.
This report shares our successes in 2023 and 2024 as a small company based on values first — and it serves as our annual benefit report for these consolidated years.
READ MORE ABOUT WHO WE ARE
Milestones and Highlights
We started 2023 with a bang by officially merging with Manoverboard, a fellow B Corp creative agency based in Canada. With the expertise of our team members who joined from Manoverboard, we are able to take on larger, more complex design and development projects and offer new in-house services, including branding and identity design, advanced animations and digital data modeling, more robust accessibility services, and additional resources related to digital sustainability.
Read about the merger
This past May, we proudly marked 15 years in business, a milestone made even more meaningful following one of the most challenging years our industry has seen. Over the past decade and a half, we’ve collaborated with hundreds of changemaking organizations, from nonprofits to mission-driven companies across the U.S. and Canada. After 15 years as a woman-owned business, we achieved WBENC certification, strengthening our position with organizations prioritizing women-led vendors.
See what’s next
In the summer of 2023, we dove into strategic planning to refine Mangrove’s direction and purpose. Two key areas — digital accessibility and branding — emerged as important points for growth. After careful work and reflection, in 2024 we unveiled a reimagined version of our brand, reflecting these priorities and our commitment to creating accessible, distinctive, and typographically rich designs. The design you see here reflects our updated visual identity.
Explore the brand updates
A Challenging time for Communications
2023 and 2024 were challenging years for companies providing communications, marketing, and digital solutions. Much of our focus was on stabilizing and positioning the business in a rapidly changing landscape. Although we’ve had to defer some of our stretch goals, our curiosity, dedication, and problem-solving skills helped us stay true to our core values and maintain our fundamental purpose in helping organizations create transformational change through strategic website design and development.
Goal: Maintain or increase the percentage of business we do with clients that have a diverse leadership, defined as organizations led by individuals who identify as LGBTQIA+, gender non-conforming, disabled, BIPOC, NBPOC, or any other underrepresented or underserved groups). Continue to track this proactively.
Results: We implemented a system that allows us to methodically measure the diversity of leadership in our clients’ organizations, and we collected data back to the start of 2021. Our income from Woman-or-Non-Binary clients dipped from 34% to 30% in 2023 and increased back to 40% in 2024. LGBTQIA-led clients decreased. BIPOC-led clients increased from 16% to 17% in 2023 and then again to 23% in 2024.
Goal: Review the level of accessibility for all client sites on maintenance in 2023 and establish a plan to improve accessibility for all client sites in 2024.
Results: We reviewed accessibility levels on all client maintenance sites and measured each via the Equalize Digital plugin, developed by our sister B Corp. We also remediated various websites for clients seeking to meet accessibility standards.
Goal: Update and upgrade the Make-It-Accessible website to address a number of important accessibility issues and update content.
Results: Our team made the decision to defer this goal in 2023 and 2024 as there was not enough bandwidth to attend to this mindfully. We are committed to creating a new digital accessibility resource on a pro bono basis for the Canadian design association RGD in 2025.
Goal: Continue to learn and lead in the areas of website accessibility and sustainability.
2023 Results: We launched a LinkedIn newsletter devoted to sharing information, news, and key digital accessibility resources. We take website sustainability into consideration in most of our website builds, addressing their carbon footprint in design, content and information architecture.
2024 Results: We are committed to monitoring and maintaining the digital accessibility of our own site. Mangrove Web meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA guidelines.
Goal: Mentor other designers and developers, especially women and people from disadvantaged or marginalized backgrounds. Strengthen our onboarding processes for all new developers.
Results: We partnered with Red River College to mentor several student designers over the two years. Our development processes were also assessed and refined, supporting our current team and providing greater clarity and support in future onboarding.
Goal: Further develop the MB Studio Fund with our partners to support BIPOC design students with scholarships and internships in Manitoba as well as other provinces and states.
Results: We decided to continue focusing, along with our partners, on Manitoba as an underfunded province. The Fund provided two $2,000 scholarships in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Goal: Continue to channel our donations to organizations aligned with our values.
Results: We continued giving to organizations supporting developers from marginalized communities, including Hack the Hood and Girls Who Code.
Goal: Offset Mangrove's GHG emissions by 100%
Results: Emissions were offset by 100% with the support of our partnership Offset Alliance. Our public report is available for review.
Goal: Create a report on digital sustainability and set a 2024 goal to develop a specific service offering related to digital sustainability.
Results: While Mangrove did not create a service, we did implement what we’ve learned about digital sustainability on a few key projects for Sierra Club Canada as well as Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors. We continue to improve in these areas. Some of our practices around accessibility and performance support the goal of streamlining and minimizing our digital footprint based on organizing our code base more efficiently.
Goal: Donate 1% of total gross revenue to charitable organizations.
Results: In 2023, donations equaled 0.89% of total gross revenue. In 2024, they equaled 0.77%. We fell short of our goal in both years due to reduced revenues, but we have a plan in place to make up for this in 2025. Organizations that we supported include Hack the Hood, Girls Who Code and CCEDNet. Read more about some of our charitable giving.
Goal: Invite Mangrove team members to direct charitable giving to organizations of their choice.
Results: In December 2024, each person on the team chose a charity to receive $100 in immediate funds.
Goal: Commit to at least one pro-bono project or a minimum of 75 pro-bono hours per year.
Results: We contributed over 150 pro bono hours of design and development to non-profit organizations.
Goal: Assess ways to encourage employees to volunteer personal time in 2023 and set goals for 2024.
Results: In both 2023 and 2024 our team’s time was stretched to meet the requirements of project work.
Goal: Act as an ongoing expert B Corp resource for our peers.
Results: Andrew and Maiya met regularly with other leaders of small and large B Corps throughout 2023 and 2024. We prioritized reaching out to other B Corps that were experiencing financial and economic challenges.
Goal: Continue to support our B Local community efforts whenever and wherever we can, including B Local Bay Area and B Local Manitoba.
Results: Andrew co-led B Local Manitoba in 2023 and 2024, helping the group spread the B Corp's message of using business as a force for good while bolstering and championing new B Corporations.
Continuous Improvement
We remain steadfast supporters of B Corp and its mission. And in 2024, we managed to improve our overall score again when we re-certified. As you can see in the chart below we achieved an organizational best score of 112. To put this into perspective the median B Impact Assessment score for businesses that complete the assessment is 50.9, with a minimum of 80 required for certification.
Learn about our B Corp CommitmentEvolving our team and work
In 2023 and 2024, we said sad goodbyes to long-time friends and colleagues and welcomed new collaborations, teammates, projects, and partners.
In September of 2023, Shelby Neville, designer, project manager and all around lovely human, married her partner Jack in a lovely ceremony in the United Kingdom—their current home. Surrounded by green and natural beauty, their day was a dream. Congratulations Shelby and Jack!
In June of 2023, Daniel Lamb a senior designer and developer at Mangrove got married to the love of his life, Denise. It was a super cozy and heartwarming ceremony with about 50 in attendance, including friends, family, and other Canadian members of Mangrove. Congratulations and felicitações, dearest Dan and Denise!
In June 2024, Andrew spoke about the design process and DIY publishing at Creative Mornings Winnipeg — a chapter co-founded by longtime colleague Daniel Lamb, who was there to introduce him. Andrew spoke about zines and printed matter and participants got to make their very own collaborative zine.
The major shifts in the design profession — from the advent of AI to the rise of templates — have made designers increasingly curious about how to handle and manage their wellness, creative capacities, and professional careers. Andrew started Dear Designer in 2024 as a love letter to designers, focusing on the social, spiritual, and psychological dimensions of the design profession.
In March of 2024, Maiya joined Daman Wandke of Wandke Accessibility and Jay Wall, previously of Briteweb, to present a breakout session on designing for accessibility at the 2024 B Corp Champions Retreat in Vancouver, Canada. This was an exciting opportunity to share our knowledge and passion for digital accessibility with other B Corps.
After 15 years as a woman-owned business, in 2024 we officially received WBENC certification! This milestone affirms our identity and strengthens our commitment to equity in business. WBENC connects us with a broader community of women-owned businesses and opens doors to supplier diversity opportunities. Most importantly, it aligns with our values as a B Corp—using business as a force for good and advancing equity across our industry.
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Meet our whole team
More than just work
Collaborating with Column & Row and Radish Labs, we developed a flexible, feature-rich WordPress Gutenberg site for (RED), incorporating custom modules, a user-friendly, accessible mega navigation, and animated content blocks to enhance visibility, functionality, and support their outstanding mission.
(RED) is a global nonprofit known for iconic fundraising partnerships to fight AIDS and other pandemics.
In partnership with Sagent Marketing, we designed and built a clear, accessible, user-focused WordPress site for CAL FIRE’s Ready for Wildfire program. The site features streamlined navigation, reorganized content, and rapid-update capabilities, empowering CAL FIRE to quickly connect users with critical and emergent information.
The California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) protects the people, property, and natural resources of California.
Working closely with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s in-house communications team, we built a modern, scalable, and user-friendly WordPress site that reflects the artistry of the organization. The new WCAG-compliant site features custom top-level pages, intuitive navigation for both the Company and School audiences, and tools to make content management far more efficient.
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is a premier Canadian dance company and internationally renowned school.
For Biomimicry Institute, we designed and developed a user-friendly, accessible WordPress site which launched alongside their new 10-year strategy at New York Climate Week. With help from Dearborn Strategies, the site highlights the Institute’s work, inspires action, and helps connect with new and existing audiences. It features dynamic content, a new portfolio section, and a refined brand and content strategy.
The Biomimicry Institute is a nonprofit that promotes nature-inspired solutions to global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss.
MORE TO DO, MORE TO COME
This annual report serves as an accountability function for us at Mangrove. For 2025, we will track our progress against the following benchmarks.
grateful
To our clients, our partners, allies, friends, families, and mentors — thank you for being part of our lives and our work in 2023, 2024, and 2025. See you soon!
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