A clear organizational culture should start with core values but not stop there. Whether you’re an organization or company, core values are important as they ground your decisions and show staff internally and partners externally what matters most to you. In a time where nonprofits, employees, and organizations of all types are feeling uneasy about where they stand, it is even more important to define what your organization stands for through your values, your mission, and your commitment to your employees and customers. A defined company or nonprofit culture gives you a more solid footing in a world that feels like it is shifting all the time. This blog talks about how we evolved as a company through core values and how we work with organizations to build out and act on their mission, vision, and values.
In 2013, I visited the headquarters of Zappos and learned about the impact of core values on company culture. None of the firms I had worked at previously had written core values. When I read the book Delivering Happiness after my first visit, I was so impressed that I brought my whole team back to Las Vegas (see the photo of us above). Over the years, we have developed a list of The Campaign Workshop’s core values that align with the company culture we want to foster and the staff members we want to attract. This has served as a blueprint for how we lead and grow the company, including Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, employee feedback, and our overall philosophy as a company.
When we moved into our company office (pre-COVID), we designed prints of each value and placed them front and center on our kitchen wall. I now have them in my home office. Still, just because you write down the principles by which you want to run your business, it does not guarantee you live them day-to-day. In addition to distributing our core values to our team and displaying them on the wall, we also set aside time during our annual company retreat to talk through them and how they apply to every aspect of our business. This gives our team members a chance to weigh in on how effectively we embody these ideals and where there is room for improvement. The core values have evolved over time and become that blueprint.
The process of creating our core values entailed working as a team, but as the firm’s founder, I helped to drive the process. I had to keep in mind that while businesses are not democracies, buy-in is important. If you can’t get your team to buy into the culture you want to create, you will not succeed. Through my years of experience, I learned the hard way that a lack of clarity on my expectations can lead to a failure to yield results. By getting input from the people I work with, I can make sure our values are inclusive to all my staff. Their input also helps me see where I can be more direct in my expectations and goals for them and the company.
Core values are the rudder for your ship. As our business grows (we started with one employee in 2009 and now have 12 employees), these values have become increasingly important. They help new staff understand how they are expected to treat their team members and vice versa. We also use these principles to guide who we take on as clients and what vendors we work with. We have also worked with clients who were way ahead of us on this, and we have learned a lot from them.
Core values are not something you stick in a drawer but are guideposts on your journey to stay on track.
For us, core values were just a start. They have changed over the years with staff input, and we’ve expanded them into a culture document and a written commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This helps to provide a better understanding of how we follow our values and implement an HR philosophy with a grief-at-work policy, removing college education from all job requirements, adopting a direct feedback model, and dedicating energy to DEI initiatives that all stem from our values.
Below are TCW’s core values as of 2025:
Embrace change, be curious, learn from mistakes, and don't blame. Test, ask, explore, and collaborate—leadership is a two-way street.
Communicate, especially when it’s hard. Together, we make a better workplace and product. Hard conversations are needed for growth and problem-solving.
H.H.S. Be hungry, be humble, and be smart, and hire those who are hungry, humble, and smart. Having clarity around the kind of employee traits we want is beneficial to the team.
Work with intent. Be intentional with coworkers, vendors, clients, and your own time. In our world, a lot of time can be wasted on wheel spinning. We are committed to reducing this as much as we can.
Pay it forward. Help folks out. Be a mensch. Heal the world. We want to make the world a better place and we need to start by helping the folks we meet along the way.
Our experience has shown us that by being intentional with core values, whether you are a nonprofit or a for-profit company, you can build the culture you want for yourself and the people you work with. At the end of the day, we want to make sure everyone we work with feels supported and able to adapt and evolve in their work. It may help your organization be more effective, too. Once your organization has identified what core values represent the workplace you want to create.
If you have questions about core values and a culture document for your organization or team, reach out to us or sign up for our blog to hear more about organizational and nonprofit culture.