Our Values

PURPOSE-DRIVEN WORK

At Grounded Growth Marketing, we work with companies that serve others—coaches, creatives, consultants, non-profits and arts organizations. That means we know how to pitch, plan and create communications that achieve short-term goals, like event registrations, but also align with a longer term vision. We center your voice in your marketing, and we infuse your values in your communications.

STRATEGIC THINKING

One of Amy’s top results on the Strengths Finder test is “strategic”—that is, she designs solutions and pathways forward based on desired outcomes but also an understanding of potential issues. Someone once called her a “project clairvoyant.” She has trained her entire team to always ask “why” before proceeding with a task, and we relish in creating new ways to engage, interact and connect through marketing.

INTEGRATIVE APPROACH

Our approach integrates the analytical & creative, encircled by something we call being an actual human. Our signature framework—Grounded Growth Strategy— involves a critical assessment of your marketing and client relationships so far, creative brainstorming around evergreen topics of interest for your audience and work, and culminates in a marketing strategy that takes into account your actual capacity. We bring left brain, right brain and full soul to every project. Empathy is a part of our design process.

DEPENDABLE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Our team is highly organized but never rigid in our approach. We love to offer organizational approaches and potential tools to structure your project, without restricting our clients to our proprietary systems. We know a lot of projects break down due to poor planning or miscommunication. That’s why we structure our projects with realistic timelines and clear expectations. Most importantly, we pay ample attention to checking in and anticipating needs, even when we’re heads down, executing the work.

MEANINGFUL BOUNDARIES

We believe that careful planning mitigates the need for stressful, last-minute work. That’s why we develop reasonable and respectful timelines with our clients, ensuring that neither our team nor yours will be overtaxed in providing revisions and feedback. When things are truly urgent, we will address them as soon as possible. But we will not work from a place of panic. Please understand, we will address your concerns with respect to our mutual capacities, setting clear expectations for when we are available to you.

CLEAR COMMUNICATION

In order to cultivate dependability and trust, our team communicates in a clear and direct manner. We share next steps with one another. We define our deliverables clearly, and we offer explicit and comprehensive instructions. We encourage direct and honest feedback, and share our expectations with one another. Just as your marketing endeavors should refrain from ambiguity, we value sincerity and openness in our interpersonal communications as well.

KINDNESS

Above all, GGM values warmth and support in our relationships with clients. We choose to work with clients we respect and truly want to see succeed. We bring joy and positivity to our work, even on a deadline. We’re real and human, and know you are, too. Excellent care is our M.O.

Three team members hugging

A Commitment to Anti-Racism, Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Access

It is outrageous that this is controversial –Amy Jacobus

As a team, we are committed to the messy, hard and ongoing work of becoming and being an anti-racist company.

We value progress, and we know progress cannot happen if hampered by perfectionism.

We encourage our clients to consider how their categorization of their ideal clients and audiences may be classist, sexist, racist or otherwise discriminatory and work to minimize or eliminate the perpetuation of discrimination through marketing. We think critically about language and process.

We are living in a moment where our clients—arts organizations, nonprofits, small business owners, and the like—are being bullied by the U.S. government to back down from their DEI initiatives. It is our hope that many of these organizations will be courageous in their support of marginalized communities despite threats of reduction in funding, support, and other resources. We understand, however, that resistance takes many forms, and we will support our clients the best we can to continue operating within the principles that prop up their mission.

We continue to stand in our values, no matter what, and we will NOT market statements that contradict them. GGM will candidly share with clients if and when we feel a statement, campaign, program or response is problematic or out of alignment with our values and offer suggestions for reflection and revision. Our clients ultimately run their own companies by their own principles, and should a client choose to forge ahead, our team has the right to decline to distribute that message. GGM cannot be responsible for writing, crafting, or creating diversity, equity, access and inclusion statements on behalf of our clients. This is the client’s internal work and responsibility, and we recommend working with a DEIA consultancy or expert to aid in this work.

In this marketing firm:

  • We work towards solidarity, resiliency and inclusion through culturally responsive messaging, visionary planning, and by welcoming discomfort and discourse.
  • We promise to regularly affirm our position in support of and solidarity with Black lives, with the AAPI community, with Latinx folks, with Indigenous peoples, all people of color, trans, gender-nonconforming, and all LGBTQIA+ folks, and the disability community. Often, this means listening to and platforming underprivileged voices vs responding to crises or movements with broad institutional messages. Often, it means working with input from community, which requires a slower process. We aim to keep our clients informed of important discussions and movements online in their networks. To be clear: this is not to enable the comfort of our clients who are in privileged groups. We will work to be responsive to and responsible to the needs of harmed communities.
  • We commit to continuous evaluation, assessment and thoughtful revision of our framework, resources, teachings, programs and processes we provide as a company to our clients, and creating structure around recurring meetings to discuss progress, practices and promises as a team.
  • We commit to allowing open-conflict and discomfort — providing space for team members, contractors and clients to be heard; to fight impulses to get defensive and instead take action to address underlying issues.
  • We’re working towards a bigger picture or long term vision for a company that models equity and inclusion, as well as one that acknowledges and adjusts systems and processes rooted in white-centered leadership or white supremacy.
  • We will give voice to others through listening to, helping to shape and marketing their personal and professional stories. And we will invest in Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Latinx, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and disability communities by engaging diverse teams in professional coaching services and trainings; purchasing company gifts from businesses owned and run by diverse creators; and actively recruiting, referring and hiring a pool of diverse contractors, employees and collaborators.

The statement above was inspired and influenced by the Anti-Racist Small Business Pledge, designed by Rachel Rodgers / Hello Seven, and the Social Ecosystem Map from Deepa Iyer, Building Movement Project. SM, © 2018 Deepa Iyer. All rights reserved. All prior licenses revoked. Last updated April 2025.