Conceptual VALUES

Personality Traits

How do you conceptualize a brand?

Every brand has a distinct set of values and personality traits. Values define how you live out your purpose, and personality traits define how you approach your people and work. We’ve identified a set of core values and personality traits that we feel reveal something honest, compelling, and remarkable about what you are doing through your business. These will help guide decisions about the appropriate visual and verbal elements of your communications.

Brand Values

Part Nership

In the trenches together

Partnership means that we’re all about relationships. It means that we see the inherent value in building them, cultivating them, and standing by them through the conflicts and setbacks that inevitably come. Words like relatability, availability, trust, and ownership show we understand that honest relationships are vital to what we do. They’re life-giving and an intractable part of the American social fabric.

What it looks like

We get to know our clients inside and out. When we partner with a nonprofit, they know from the get-go that we’re fully on board with them. Rather than rushing to conclusions or snap judgments, we take the time to learn all about what drives them, their unique vision, and the goals they’re striving for.

Partnering with others by building relationships wins trust. It allows us to be the eager, exceptional, responsive, and irreplaceable guide that sticks around through thick and thin.

What it doesn’t look like

Partnership doesn’t mean pushing services a client doesn’t really need. We don’t manipulate, sugar-coat, or force-feed anything… and we don’t back away from candid conversations which actually build and solidify trust.

Words that brought us here

Reliability, Openness, Dependability, Relationships, Honesty

LARGE-HEARTEDNESS

Give more than you get

What it looks like

We’re generous with our time and considerate of others. We go the extra mile. We make a point of spreading warmth, courtesy, and some humor among our team members and every client we interact with. While we maintain high expectations, speak candidly, and stay on track, we’re the dead opposite of some lifeless row of cubicles filled with time-card punching drones.

We laugh… and if we’re doing it right, we’re fun to be around.

What it doesn’t look like

Tiptoeing around a difficult conversation just to keep up an appearance. Being so eager to please that we overpromise, candy coat reality, or offer something we don’t have the capacity to deliver.

Large-heartedness doesn’t mean showing off how generous we are… or offering grand-sounding solutions that aren’t in a client’s best interest. Large-heartedness is a true expression of who we are, what drives us, and how we interact. Combined with wisdom, shrewdness, and candor, it’s a core strength—not an appearance.

Words that brought us here

Generosity, Belonging, Courtesy, Warmth, Decency, “Go above and beyond”

Being large-hearted means seeking to give more than you get. It means enjoying time together, lacing work with humor, fun, and generosity, and creating a net positive in all our interactions. Words like magnanimity, warmth, humor, and flourishing characterize our brand of large-hearted conviviality.

Honoring Tradition

Foundational truths that guide us

People need big ideas to be truly free. These include self-governance, independence, honesty, and the pursuit of knowledge. These ideas—and their blessings—do not come to us out of nothing. They are handed down.

Honoring tradition means not taking the wisdom of the past for granted. It means appreciating the classical, moral-ethical foundations that have made American society prosperous and free. And it means we’re committed to cultivating informed, vigilant citizens who value truth, faith, and self-governance because they understand that humans flourish in community.

What it looks like

We celebrate western heritage, from Greece, Rome, and the Renaissance all the way to the founding principles of the United States Constitution. We challenge ourselves. Like the ancient Greeks, we selfquestion, return to first principles, and seek wisdom and accumulated knowledge to sharpen our thinking. Upholding and promoting timeless values, using them to guide us through complex, thorny problems that tempt us with easy compromise.

What it doesn’t look like

Putting up busts of Socrates and George Washington but having no idea why. Champing at the bit to follow some trend in the news cycle. Throwing heritage, tradition, and wisdom out the window because it’s too offensive.

Words that brought us here

Independence, Tradition, Freedom of Association, Faith, Self-government, Pursuit of knowledge

Practical Wisdom

Timeless ideas fix problems

Practical wisdom (phronesis) is the ability to be wise in daily, practical matters. It means combining new and old, applying accumulated knowledge to seek the best of both worlds.

Those with practical wisdom draw from history, tradition, and experience, but don’t stop there. They use what’s timeless to navigate sudden change, problems, and the shape-shifting present with agility, adaptability, and a rigorous intellectual approach.

What it looks like

We stay sharp, pragmatic, and disciplined. We comb past experiences and master new skills for the best possible approach. We draw on acquired knowledge when things change rapidly.

“No magic bullet.” Cultivating good habits consistently over time.

Above all, we pay attention. Something that’s worked wonders in the past may not be the answer we’re looking for right now… but applying practical wisdom means bringing context and straightforward thinking to any new solution.

What it doesn’t look like

Staying stuck in the past, or recycling some old approach because that’s what’s easiest. Saying “I told you so,” and having nothing to offer when problems arise. Arrogance. The world is big, and we don’t know everything. So we’re willing to learn, even learning with our clients in some cases.

Words that brought us here

Practicality, Habits, Intellection, Flexibility, Diligence

Deep Thinking

Clarifying the complex

Deep thinking is the ability to comprehend complex principles, turning them into legitimate insights. Experience, inquisitiveness, and creativity are other ways to describe this value.

More than a value, it’s a disciplined approach to the pursuit of knowledge, detail, and application of experience and wisdom to new challenges. Rather than “going with your gut,” deep thinking requires a creative approach, courage, curiosity, and wisdom.

What it looks like

Deep thinking means diving beneath the surface, not just skimming it. We take a thorough look at what we know, where we’ve been, and the lessons we’ve learned before forging ahead into the unknown. We think with wisdom, but stay curious and imagine possibilities.

What it doesn’t look like

Rolling out solutions, suggestions, or models that have worked before and just plugging them into a new situation without considering all the factors involved. Encouraging clients to leap at shortcuts, even if they’re convinced they’ll take them where they want to go. Encouraging clients to simply follow a trend, go with the herd, or imitate what everyone else is already doing.

Words that brought us here

Experience, Pursuit of knowledge, Inquisitiveness, Challenge, Learning