When we built Viaduct Generation, there were a hundred decisions to make. Pricing models, service lines, the team structure, the kind of clients we wanted to work with. Most of those decisions got revisited, refined, and sometimes scrapped entirely as we found our footing. One decision we made early on has never wavered: we would give 5% of annual profit to charity, and we would bake it into the financial model from day one.
Not as a feel-good add-on. Not as something we'd consider once the business was comfortable. As architecture.
I want to explain why, because I think the reasoning matters more than the number.
Most businesses that donate to charity do it reactively. A good year comes in, someone suggests a donation, a cheque gets written, and it ends up in the Christmas newsletter. I understand how that happens. The intention is genuine. But the structure is fragile. When margins tighten, when a quarter disappoints, when the business faces pressure, the charitable commitment is the first thing that quietly disappears. It was never structurally protected, so it doesn't survive.
That model also creates a strange psychology inside the business. Giving becomes contingent on comfort. It becomes a reward for good performance rather than a reflection of values. I didn't want that. If your values are real, they have to hold up when things are hard, not just when things are easy.
So we structured it differently. The 5% is a line in the financial model, sitting alongside salaries, operating costs, and everything else that makes the business run. It doesn't get reviewed when things get difficult. It exists.
We direct that 5% across three organisations. Each one was chosen deliberately. Together, they represent a view of the world we believe in: that the most persistent human suffering is structural, and that the most meaningful responses are also structural.
The first is Camfed. Camfed is a pan-African movement that tackles poverty and inequality through girls’ education and women’s leadership. They work in rural communities across sub-Saharan Africa, removing the social and financial barriers that keep girls out of school. What makes them different is that the girls they support grow up to become the leaders, teachers, nurses, and entrepreneurs who go back into those same communities. The network compounds on itself. When you support Camfed, you’re not funding a one-time intervention. You’re funding a cycle of leadership that sustains itself.
The second is Frontline AIDS. Frontline AIDS has been operating for more than 30 years, working in over 100 countries to support community-led organisations that break down the social, political, and legal barriers preventing a future free from AIDS. They work with some of the most marginalised people on earth: sex workers, LGBTQI+ communities, people who use drugs, children living with HIV. These are communities that state systems frequently fail or actively exclude. Frontline AIDS goes where others won’t, and has been doing it long enough to know how.
The third is Anti-Slavery International. Founded in 1839, they are the oldest international human rights organisation in the world. They work to eliminate all forms of modern slavery: human trafficking, child slavery, forced labour, forced marriage, and exploitation buried deep in global supply chains. Their approach is not to treat symptoms but to address the structural roots that make slavery possible in the first place.
Here is something I should be transparent about. Until recently, we haven't made this widely visible. Clients haven't broadly known that this commitment exists. That wasn't a deliberate act of concealment. It was partly because we were building, heads down, focused on delivering work rather than talking about ourselves. But I think there's also something uncomfortable to admit: talking about charitable giving can feel self-promotional, and I was wary of it appearing that way.
I've changed my view on that. Not because I want credit, but because I think transparency creates accountability. If we tell people what we're committed to, we have to honour it. And if clients know that choosing Viaduct means their work is indirectly funding girls’ education in rural Africa, the fight against AIDS in marginalised communities, and the elimination of modern slavery, that feels like something worth knowing.
When you commission any piece of work, part of what you’re doing is deciding whose model to fund. Revenue flows into a business, the business makes decisions about how that revenue gets used, and those decisions reflect values. Most of the time, that chain is invisible. We’re making it visible.
If you’re thinking about working with a digital growth agency, I’d ask you to think about that chain. Not just what work the agency does or what it costs, but what the business actually stands for and what happens to the money you put into it.
For us, the answer is: it flows into work, and work flows into growth, and growth flows into profit, and 5% of that profit flows into changing lives for people who need it most. That’s not marketing. That’s the model.
If you’d like to understand more about how we work or explore what a partnership looks like, you’re welcome to visit our growth engine or get in touch directly.
