Living Our Values

Because Girl on the Roof is a marketing firm serving nonprofit organizations and principled businesses — many of which are startups — we are an intentionally lean team with relatively low overhead so we can keep our rates more competitive. This doesn’t mean we are less than. It means we are really good at doing more with less.

While our team members find it a tremendous blessing to work with organizations whose values resonate with our own, doing so is not always easy or convenient.

• For one, our salaries are lower than they would be if we worked at a traditional creative agency serving large corporate clients.

• Because we don’t compromise on our values, we turn down as many clients as we accept, even if it means we don’t get pay increases.

• We also don’t compromise on excellence. We don’t do things half-way, ever, even when the work is hard.

• We feel the pressure of efficiency and stewardship in all we do.

• “Unplugging” is a luxury we can rarely, if ever, afford. (I sometimes travel without my husband, but I never travel without my laptop.)

Not everyone is cut out for these sacrifices. We’ve had team members in the past who weren’t up to the task. One thought he deserved a bonus for soliciting a client who violated our “no weapons manufacturers” policy. Another demanded that I remove a social media post criticizing the term “clean coal” because her father’s business stripped the hilltops of West Virginia and polluted its waterways with coal ash, a clear violation of our values. And still another told me that my grammar corrections on the blog post she wrote for a client were “soul-crushing”; she thought “good enough” was good enough. I wish each of these folks well, but none of them work on the Roof anymore.

For those of us who stand proudly on the Roof, this is more than a job. It truly is a calling that demands all we can give. We carry the mental strain of caring deeply about our clients and what they do, for better or worse. The term “compassion fatigue” is often used for those working in nonprofits or ministry organizations, but trust me when I say that employees of principled businesses can feel it, too. Compassion fatigue can be felt by anyone who cares enough to put their heart and soul into their work for the benefit of others. That’s a choice we make, day in and day out, and though it comes at a cost, we consider it a privilege. Loving what we do — and knowing we make a difference while doing it — is a blessing we Roofers don’t take for granted.

To hire Girl on the Roof is to welcome our team into your foxhole. It’s who we are. We don’t just talk about values for the sake of marketing. We live our values through our marketing.