2022 impact report

We’re excited to share our 2022 Impact Report. It’s the first one we’ve made as a company, and we talk about why in the report itself. Click below for the full report, and a text-only version is further down on this page.

Mediocre 2022 Impact Report

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All guts, no glory

We’re not here to be performative. We’re passionate about walking our talk.

Choosing to become a B Corp was the easy part. The drive for betterment is in us.

At our core, we are do-gooders hell-bent on supporting our community, clients, and team. We set ambitious goals, and we work hard to make them a reality.

Impact reporting helps us maintain accountability and transparency, and share ideas with others.

This matters to us.

Learn more about our mindset and the certification process.

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High-velocity impact

In 2022 we were prepared for our impact to shatter the Earth, or at least make a hefty dent.

Current Hi-Score: 94

The median B Impact score for ordinary businesses who complete the assessment is currently 50.9. We beat our own expectations, and are eager to do more. See our breakdown here.


The 5 B Impact Areas: Community, Workers, Customers, Governance, Environment

What do these mean? Dive in.

Our Impact Business Model: Local Economic Development

We vowed to devote a majority of our resources to boosting up our local economy of Lexington, Kentucky.

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Small cogs in a large wheel

As a small Lexington business ourselves, we value the importance of doing things locally. Here’s what we did to help keep things rolling in our community.

Local Ties

• 90% of our active clients in 2022 were local businesses.
• Goal for 2023: We plan to keep it in the family and continue to prioritize work with local movers and shakers.

Pro-Bono & Volunteering

• Hours tracked for pro-bono client work & employee volunteer efforts: 216
• Goal for 2023: We learned a lot about keeping tabs on volunteering time this year, and we’re excited to tweak the process a bit to get more specific this coming year. As a team, we’re going to begin tracking our collective community volunteering time (for instance, working a soup kitchen or cat shelter) separately from client-specific volunteering (i.e., projects that utilize the skill sets specific to our jobs/pro-bono clients).

Charitable Donations

• Total amount: $7,596.24. That’s 23.6% of our company’s net income for the year.
• Those donations were spread across 27 organizations/causes. Find the full list here.
• Goal for 2023: Aim for 25% of our net income, and get more input from the team/community on where to focus our support.

Supply Chain Management

• 64% of our suppliers in 2022 were owned locally or by a member of a minority population.
• That’s a 12% increase from 2021. We met and surpassed our goal for 2022 (60%).
• Goal for 2023: 70% of our suppliers are local or diversely owned.
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A peek behind the curtain

Our team consistently shows up and shows out. We try to match those efforts.

The Basics

• Employees: 14
• Regular Freelancers: 8
• Active Clients: 21
• Revenue: $971,778.18

Culture & Satisfaction

• Average employee satisfaction score: 4.7/5. This score is based on a quarterly questionnaire with 10 questions (this is the combined score of all questions for all team members).
• Goal for 2023: Average score of 5/5. To get this score up, we intend to identify action items from each questionnaire and review with employees at their quarterly 1-on-1 check-ins to create a plan for implementing improvements.

In Four, Out Three

In September, we shifted to a 4-day workweek (Monday-Thursday). Our hours didn’t increase for the remaining work days, we just removed Fridays.

Our employees have shared that they feel more refreshed, more focused, less burned out, and have more work-life balance with the new model.

Based on studies throughout 2022 (like this one), companies that adopted a 4-day workweek reported resounding successes – including an average of 8.14% increase in revenue.

Flexibility is key. This is paired with a hybrid-model. Working from home? Great. Coming to the office? Would love to see you. 50/50 split? That’s a’ok. This has positive effects on the environment (see here) and employee satisfaction (check it out).

Goal for 2023: Look for ways to quantify the results for our team. Can we tie it to revenue? Retention? We’re not yet sure how to expand on this yet, but we’re working on it. Every quarter we review with each team member individually to discuss how these are working.

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A new bag of tricks

To avoid a creative stalemate, we encourage active growth. Here’s how we do it.

All team members have 4 hours of paid time per month to dedicate towards sharpening 
their tools, brushing off the dust, and pursuing new skills of their choosing.

Staying in their skill lane, this increases the speed for knowledge that allows them to stay on top of new trends and explore the depths of their abilities. We are simply supplying the gas.  

Collectively, we focused on beefing up our digital platform acumen (think Photoshop, Figma, etc.), as well as core leadership, development, design, and language skills. Head to the next page for more from the team about their experiences.

In 2022, our team tracked 105 hours for Skill Improvement on the clock.

Goals for 2023:

1. Have every team member consistently track 4 hours of skill building per week;
2. Consider our client work and internal workflows to ensure team members have the time 
and resources to get in their allotted hours per month; and
3. Find a way to quantitatively apply those new skills to company projects.

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On the record

• Teagan: “I’ve studied leadership skills and work-life balance coaching tools, which led to starting some wellness initiatives in our workplace. There’s also a harder-to-quantify element of feeling more confident and capable in my daily responsibilities/role.”
• Elizabeth: “I compiled professional creative portfolios to source as inspiration, hoping to broaden our influences and stay aware of current trends, as well as avoid that which our industry is already inundated with. I have also taken courses on Adobe After Effects, and got a broader understanding of her capabilities, as well as learned how to work faster/more efficiently.”
• Caleb: “I’ve learned new techniques to add texture and character to vector designs and text, which I’ve been able to incorporate into client and internal projects. I’ve also been learning new production methods, such as CNC routing, which builds on my existing vector design skill set.”
• Bronson: “I learned the logic behind “Regular Expressions”, which is a powerful method of searching and replacing text over a large body of work. Basically, this has allowed me to more quickly complete repetitive tasks that would otherwise take a lot of time manually.”
• Sarah: “I read The Naming Book while in the process of naming a client, and this time allowed me to dive in deeper than if we were keeping it within the client’s time.”

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It takes a village

We’re all part of a capitalist system, for better and for worse. So, we try to empower team members to branch out.

Giving away your time and skills 
for free, especially from a place of privilege, helps shift the focus away from the bottom line 
and towards building real community. All team members have 4 hours of paid time per month to volunteer with whatever community-based initiative calls out to them.

Some of our favorite intersections of community and skill included website assistance, creative mentorship, the arts, and more. Our team lays it all out on the following page. Take a look.

In 2022, our team tracked 145 hours for Volunteering Efforts on the clock.

Goals for 2023:

1. Have every team member consistently track 4 hours of volunteering per week;
2. Consider our client work and internal workflows to ensure team members have the time and resources to get in their allotted hours per month; and
3. Find a way to share and amplify our collective efforts, whether that’s donating to organizations financially, promoting a cause or our platforms, or just starting discussions with our communities.

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In full swing

• Teagan: “I became a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bluegrass. My Little Sis and I spend time each week doing nature walks, cooking, art projects, and more. It’s hard to describe how cool and rewarding this is; I really love it and would likely not have done it without our volunteering infrastructure.”
• Elizabeth: “I made a mini brand identity & assets for Orlando Neighborhood Fridge, a grassroots mutual aid community project combating local food insecurity.”
• Caleb: “I’ve mentored design students at UK and EKU through AIGA’s The Ment program, giving guidance/feedback to an upcoming generation of designers. I’ve also been leading a woodshop orientation at my local Makerspace in Berea, and have volunteered design work for an event by the Musician’s Emergency Relief Fund (MERF).”
• Bronson: “I’ve given website assistance to The Southeast Michigan Land Conservancy, a non-profit dedicated to conserving and managing wildlife, and set up hosting and WordPress software for Draft 303, a writing club for high school students in SCAPA’s Literary Arts program. I’ve also assisted with the Lexington Poetry Month (LexPoMo) Writing Challenge, a local literary event that challenges participants to write a poem a day.”
• Sarah: “I used my volunteering time to manage The Parachute Factory, a local art gallery. During my time with Mediocre, volunteering with TPF exhibited 11 local artists through 4 exhibitions, benefiting around 500 community members.”

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Keep 'em happy

Our clients are the icing on our proverbial cake. Without them? We are just a bunch of creatives with a bunch of ideas.

Average client satisfaction score: 5/5* And, this goes both ways.

We value and, dare we say, love our clients. 5/5 in our books too. We actively seek out those who align with our values, or who have the desire to do better. This keeps us true to who we are, and, most importantly, models mutual respect and champions being good and doing good, always.

Of course we want to lend our creative prowess and solutions to all who ask, but we believe in selectivity for the sake of the greater good. You can read more here.

*This score is based on survey responses we received from clients in early 2022; we plan to contact clients again in early 2023.

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Never turn a blind eye

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging are important pillars of the true human experience and connection. We celebrate that.

From 2020-2022, our team spent time on the clock each week researching, reading, and sharing resources focused on anti-racism, meaningful community engagement, and ways to improve our workflow to enact long-term change in these areas.

We turned to Change Cadet for guidance on how to go further with our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) accountability. They guided our team through a review and reflection period, discussing areas we hadn’t thought to explore, and ways to go deeper in our existing efforts.

We arrived at the following statement, akin to a mission that we want to see inform all of Mediocre’s operations:

We identify and act on opportunities to include, collaborate with, and lift up intentionally-ignored people. These collaborations are:

• Vocation-based (people who work in the same field as us, regardless of location);
• Location-based (people in our local communities and neighborhoods, regardless of profession);
• Human-based (people who share our values and allyship principles).

Our plan of action for 2023 includes the following:

• Using this statement to actively seek out talent by Black and Brown makers.
• Using this statement to improve our workflows (and criteria) for pro-bono and volunteer projects, including finding existing barriers and increasing accessibility to our team.
• Acknowledging there is no point of arrival, and that we’re intentionally working to make consistent progress, both internally at the company and externally as an organization.
• Talking about Change Cadet (and the Action Network) and their ongoing guidance for our team (including explicitly crediting them).

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Greasing the wheels, not the environment

Our efforts are focused outside of the office as well. While saving the planet is a task too large for our plates, we do what we can.

Waste

Office waste generated in 2022, per bag:

• Landfill “wet” trash: 16
• Landfill “dry” trash: 10
• Recycling: 17
• Goal for 2023: Improve our team’s sorting and adoption, so we’re maximizing compost and recycling over landfill waste.

Bike Friendly Initiatives

• Miles biked collectively by our team: 275
• Bicycle tune-ups completed (company-paid): 3
• Bicycle gear/parts (company-paid): $473.80

Carbon Offsetting

• We offset over 200% of our energy consumption by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) through our energy provider, KU.
• Our office power-down policy helps to conserve electricity, and increase the longevity of lighting and electronics in the office.

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Hitting the ground running

We have some big goals for 2023. Here’s the scoop.

• Fine-Tune: We learned a lot about tracking, measurement, and goal-setting in 2022. It was our first year of implementing/following through on a lot of the improvements we made as a result of doing the B Impact Assessment. We’re looking forward to mastering the tracking process.

• Keep It Sustainable: We bought an office building this past year, so we plan to go through Lexington’s GreenCheck Recertification process again to make sure everything is up to our sustainability standards (we were awarded Silver Level in 2020).

• Make An Impact: Create/expand our initiatives for local economic development (our Impact Business Model) and foster equitable, local business opportunities. For instance, we recently connected with an organization called Canopy, whose mission it is to grow Kentucky businesses, so we’re excited to see where that goes.

Follow Along With Us. If you want to go far, go together. Read our latest updates on our blog, or email admin@mediocre.team to connect with us directly. We’d love to hear your thoughts.