Impact Report 2025-26

Today we launch our Impact Report for our work from April 2025 to March 2026, which you can download here.

It’s fair to say the last 12 months have kept us on our toes!

War, strife in world economies, political comings and goings, and AI encroaching on every part of life amongst the many curveballs being thrown our way.

A 15th birthday celebration and a name change of our own too, just to make sure we had enough on our plate!

And yet, despite navigating these changes and challenges, we’re delighted to be donating £53,226 to Zarach and Moving Mountains from our work throughout the year.

I’m incredibly proud of how the team has handled all the obstacles that we’ve come across, which has resulted in the second-largest annual donation so far from our 100% initiative since we began 5 years ago.

Charity Impact

This year, that donation means 177 beds for children who didn’t have one through Zarach. And that lifts 329 children out of bed poverty when taking into account other children in those families that are affected too.

All told, that is 698 beds since we first started supporting the wonderful team at Zarach, and over 1000 children lifted out of bed poverty. That is a humbling number when I look back 5 years to when we started this process.

The team has also done 90 hours of volunteering throughout the year with Zarach to help deliver those beds and get them to the people who need them. We’re proud to be able to support Zarach on the ground as a local Yorkshire charity, as well as making financial donations, and our team gets a huge amount from being a part of the process.

“Simply put, we don’t get to do this body of work without the amazing support of partnerships like this one with north9. We’re incredibly grateful that we’re able to provide vital, practical support to children without a bed of their own, because of the generous financial contributions made, but we also benefit from the team’s professional excellence, in the design of our website and branding, and the way we communicate our mission to the world. We can’t thank north9 enough for the continued support they give, and the impact that that support has had on hundreds of children’s lives.”

ANDY PEERS, ZARACH CEO

For Moving Mountains, our donation will go towards a range of initiatives. 

These include continuing to establish a support system for mental health on the ground in Kenya and funding the running of 5 early child development centres which provide over 15,000 meals every month and more than 200 children with life skills and sports development programmes every day.

As the amount of aid provided by governments around the world continues to be slashed, the emphasis on smaller charities like Moving Mountains to fill that gap increases, and we’re doing everything we can to help Gavin and the team keep the wheels turning for people who have no other support as governments turn a blind eye.

“Moving Mountains has expanded a good deal since north9 became involved several years ago; the reassurance and confidence that comes from the annual donations has enabled us, both trustees in the UK and the staff in Kenya and Nepal, to build on existing programmes and fundamentally increase the number of beneficiaries. 

“Since the major Western countries stopped supporting nation-states last year with aid budgets and the entire landscape of international development altered, small charities like ours have been stepping up. The money this year from north9 will enable us to deliver a raft of increased commitments to ever more disadvantaged children and families. The support from your company and other donors enables us to move those mountains, one child at a time.”

GAVIN BATE, MOVING MOUNTAINS CHAIRMAN

Pro Bono Work

We’ve also had the opportunity this year to support both charities with marketing work to further enhance their visibility and drive impact through other channels. 

We’ve delivered new branding and websites for both Zarach and Moving Mountains, which have given them a new lease of life and brought some much-needed support from other companies and individuals. 

And as we speak, we’re supporting Shaunna Burke who has just become the first woman with Stage IV cancer to summit Everest. She’s a true inspiration, a wonderful human, and we’ve loved helping her with the marketing aspect of her campaign as she raises money for Macmillan Cancer Support and awareness of the impact of exercise on cancer. 

1.2 million views on Instagram later, we’re just getting started. More about her story here.

It’s been really rewarding for the whole team to use their specialist skills to support these people and charities and the fabulous work they’re doing, as well as purely through the financial aspect of what we do.

Half Way There

We’re now 5 years into our 10-year quest of giving £1 million to charity through our 100% initiative.

Are we 50% towards the total? Not yet. 

But with this year’s donation, we’ll break the £200k barrier, which is no mean feat. 

The world has been a rollercoaster the last few years, and plenty of businesses have fallen by the wayside with the challenges popping up around every turn.

To have given this much towards such incredible organisations and helping support the work they do, whilst navigating those pitfalls, is something I’m super proud of and is a testament to the diligence and commitment of the team when times have been tough. 

And whilst we’re not halfway there, I’m still bullish about the prospect of hitting our target 5 years from now. 

We’ve learned a lot on the journey so far and spent a lot of time and effort positioning ourselves to prosper in a rapidly changing world.

Maybe I’m being naive/optimistic/stupid. Or maybe, just maybe, we’ve got a plan that can deliver the hockey stick growth needed to drive towards £1 million…

The Year Ahead

There’s no doubt that the next 12 months are going to be fast-paced, unpredictable and full of change. 

No-one really knows how AI will impact business and marketing specifically, but I feel really positive about where we sit in the current landscape and the potential for growth as the technology evolves.

We can’t affect the wider political and economic landscape, so we’ll stay focused on the things we can control. And what I’m seeing at the moment on that front is very exciting. 

There are also some hard-earned and highly rewarding announcements coming very soon (B B B B B B B……) alongside our usual array of travel community-building endeavours, like The Travel Sauce and The Travel Growth Podcast. We love spending time with anyone and everyone in the travel industry, and we’re continuing to cook up ideas of useful and interesting ways to do more of that.

But that’s enough from me for now. 

I’ll finish the way I always do, by saying thank you to everyone who’s supported us along the way. Clients, partners, family and friends; if you didn’t choose to work with us or spend your hard-earned time and effort helping the cogs turn, we wouldn’t be able to deliver the work we do and donate the time and money we have so far. 

So thank you. It means a lot to me and all of us here at north9 🙏

Now on to the year ahead and chasing that £1million target. 

Game on!

About The Author...

Tom McLoughlin

Founder

Tom is here to steer the ship in the right direction, to ensure what we offer is best in class, and to keep clients and the team happy! Naturally, he loves to travel, but Honduras is a favourite destination after having spent a year there teaching after finishing school.