5 Years of Impact: Boosting the UK’s Small Businesses 🚀

In the fast-paced landscape of the UK economy, small businesses and charities are the “heartbeat” – yet they often face the digital journey alone. Since our inception, Digital Boost has been on a mission to bridge that gap by combining the power of technology with the kindness of people, to bring small business mentoring to the UK.

What started as a simple idea to bridge the digital gap has grown into a nationwide movement. This year, we aren’t just looking back at the last 12 months – we’re celebrating five incredible years of providing small business mentoring in the UK and supporting our vibrant community of small businesses, charities, and freelancers! 🎈

The Big Numbers: 5 Years of Social Impact 📈

From a small “experiment” to a community of over 40,000 people, it’s been a journey fueled by one thing: the power of human connection. Since we began, the Digital Boost community has proven that when we share what we know, everyone wins.

Over the last five years, this community has achieved extraordinary things together:

• 36,456 small businesses, charities, and social enterprises supported.
• 5,260 skills-based volunteer mentors engaged.
• 99,643 verified hours of free human support delivered.
• 24,418 1:1 mentoring connections made.
• 74% of support requests are successfully matched within just 72 hours.

2025: Leading the Way in Digital Skills Training

The digital world moves fast, and in 2025, we made sure our community stayed ahead of the curve. This past year was all about making digital skills training even more accessible and future-ready:

• Demystifying AI: We welcomed 300 dedicated AI mentors and delivered over 8,000 hours of AI training for small businesses, helping them use new tech ethically and effectively.
• Hyper-Local Support: We upgraded our platform to allow for local matching, connecting mentors and mentees in their own neighborhoods to boost local economies.
• Empowering Female Founders: In 2025, our award-winning programme, Begin (delivered in partnership with Buy Women Built and NatWest) reached a landmark milestone by supporting its 1,000th female founder!👩‍💻

Why Small Business Support Matters ❤️

Small businesses and charities are the heartbeat of our economy. But being a founder can be lonely, and the digital landscape can be overwhelming. This is why accessible small business mentoring in the UK is so vital.

Whether it was helping an organic skincare brand scale up or guiding a traditional print shop through an AI marketing transition, our mission remains the same: to ensure no small organisation is left behind.

What’s Next for Digital Boost? ✨

We’ve built a proven model for skills-based volunteering, and we’re not stopping here. As we look toward the next five years, we are more committed than ever to scaling our impact and reaching even more founders who need a “boost.”

To our mentors, our partners, and our incredible community: Thank you for being part of the story so far. Let’s keep growing together! 💛