Mission, Vision and Values Toolkit
Peter Brinckerhoff, author of the Mission-Based Management series of books, often says there
are two rules of nonprofits. The number one rule is “Mission, mission, mission.” The mission
should be the driving force in all organizational efforts. And, quite appropriate to the topic of
the Recession Tool Kit, Brinckerhoff’s second rule for nonprofits is “No money, no mission!”
Nonprofits must always pay attention to both money and mission, but mission must take
precedence. Establishing vision and values statements are ways to further refine what you are
trying to achieve and how you will carry out your work. Together, these are the core concepts
that define your nonprofit and form the basis for your organizational identity.
MISSION
The mission of an organization is a statement of the purpose of the organization – why the
organization exists. Mission statements include what an organization does and for whom.
Mission statements may also include why or how an organization does its work.
For example, a mission that includes what and for whom is:
“The mission of Our Town’s Youth Center is to provide high quality after-school
activities for the children of Our Town.”
A mission that includes why is:
“…to provide high quality after-school activities for the children of Our Town to
promote positive youth development and prevent juvenile delinquency.”
A mission that includes how is:
“…to provide high quality after-school activities for the children of Our Town
by establishing community-based recreational programs.”
The mission statement should make clear to all within the organization and external
stakeholders what an organization does. At the same time, the mission also provides discipline
regarding what an organization does not do. This latter aspect of a mission may be even more
important during a recession. If an organization has experienced “mission creep,” with new
programs or services added that are only ancillary to its primary purpose, revisiting the mission
can be a significant first step in refocusing the efforts and resources of the organization.
At the start of any major planning effort, such as strategic planning or recession planning,
revisiting the mission is critical to ensure the board and staff are all “on the same page”
regarding the central purpose of the organization, and all plans stem from that central purpose.
Organizations should revisit their mission every 3-5 years to ensure it is still relevant, given
changes in the external environment or changes within the organization. Times of dramatic
change, such as a recession, may require an organization to accelerate that timeline for review.
©2013 Maryland Nonprofits
Member organizations may copy, edit and use within their own organizations only.
Produced by Heather Iliff.
Organizations need to have a current agreed upon purpose to provide the focus needed to when
making critical, and potentially difficult, decisions.
VISION
The vision of an organization describes what will be different as a result of the organization
achieving its mission. The following provides two equally valid approaches to expressing a
vision statement.
A. (Short) Vision for marketing and motivation: Developing a concise, compelling vision
statement, almost like a book-end to your mission statement, can be very useful for internal
and external communications. For example, if the mission is to “provide after-school
activities for children in Our Town,” the vision might be “children of Our Town will have
access to safe, engaging after-school activities that promote self-esteem.” This mission
provides clarity as to the end result the organization is seeking.
B. (Long) Vision for planning and guidance: Another approach to developing a vision
statement is to develop a detailed set of results the organization is seeking. This type of
vision statement may also include what the organization will look like. Using the same
example above, a vision statement could include details such as:
 Children will have access to safe, engaging after-school activities that promote self
esteem;
 Programs will draw from a variety of methodologies, including leading-edge
approaches and research-proven methods;
 Youth will participate in designing programs and providing feedback on existing
programs.
 Members of the community in Our Town will be involved in providing mentoring,
tutoring and other programs to promote positive youth development;
 Our Town’s after school programs will be served by a resource center that is staffed by
trained professionals;
 Etc.
To choose which approach is right for your organization, ask yourselves how important it is to
develop some new, compelling language to describe your work. Do you need something that is
easily remembered and can rally the staff and volunteers? If so, the shorter version may be
your best option. If your organization could use greater clarity on the end goals you are trying
to achieve as well as how the work gets done, a longer vision statement may work best for you.
VALUES
Your statement of values describes what the organization holds dear. Values describe the “nonnegotiables” of your work. Values are enduring and apply to all aspects of your organization’s
work, from how you run your programs to how you run your staff meetings. Values often
complete the sentence “We believe…” Values often include statements of inclusivity, quality,
putting the client first, etc. Values for the Our Town Youth Center might include:
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We believe that all children deserve safe, constructive environments for recreation.
We believe that recreation and play are important for child development.
Our Town Youth Center is inclusive in its program and employment practices, and
does not discriminate based on age, gender or gender identity, race, ethnicity,
economic status, or sexual orientation.
Our Town Youth Center strives for excellence in all of our programs.
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MARYLAND NONPROFITS ACTION TOOLS
How to Revisit Your Mission
This tool assumes the organization is not bringing in an outside consultant to help facilitate the
mission discussion. If you are bringing in a consultant, they will likely have their own process
to suggest.
Steps to Revisiting Your Mission
Getting Ready
1. Schedule a meeting devoted to revisiting the mission. Involve the full board and
some staff, as well as key volunteers if your organization relies heavily on
volunteers. The general rule of thumb is staff members should not out-number board
members in the meeting.
2. Choose a board member to serve as facilitator – this may be a member who is an
experienced facilitator and should be seen as “neutral.”
3. Recruit a panel of program beneficiaries to participate in part of the meeting
(generally, it is best to have this panel scheduled to kick-off or start the meeting).
Choose 3-5 individuals who are “success stories” for your organization or who can
speak directly from experience about the impact of your organization. For Our
Town Youth Center, the organization could bring in a panel of young people as well
as others such as parents or teachers who could speak to the impact of the program.
Hearing directly from program participants is the best way to get people into the
frame of mind of discussing the mission of the organization.
At the Meeting
1. Place the mission statement on the agenda and on the wall.
2. Ask the panel to share their experiences. Have them focus on both the impact their
experience with your organization had on their lives (what things actually changed)
and what it was like interacting with the organization itself (how where they treated
by staff, did the organization follow-through, etc.)
3. After your panel departs and you’ve had a break, the facilitator should invite
participants to debrief on the panel discussion. What were your thoughts and
feelings about the stories you have heard? What do you think they tell you about our
organization and what it does for the community we serve?
4. Facilitator leads discussion of the following questions. Ensure that each person has a
chance to express themselves and no one dominates.
i. What are the individual components of our mission? Write down on a flip
chart the sections of the mission that answer the questions of what, for whom,
why, and how.
ii. Discuss each component with questions such as: Is this clear? Is it too
broad or too narrow? Has anything changed internally or externally that
would cause us to change this? Do you feel this statement provides enough
focus upon which to make key strategic decisions about what we should and
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iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
should not do? Write down people’s thoughts on a flip chart. Tool: Utilize
the Mission Review Worksheet.
After this discussion, if the general consensus about the mission is that it is
still relevant, still a guiding force for the organization and does not need to be
changed, the action is to simply AFFIRM your current mission. That may be
taken as a board vote at its next regularly scheduled business meeting.
If there is a need for revision, more work is needed. Summarize the main
points that need change and why. For example, is the description of who you
serve specific enough? If an organization’s mission includes “educating the
general public” about an issue – that is likely way too broad for any one
organization to achieve. The organization may adjust the mission to
“educating business leaders and policy makers in Howard County” about the
issue. Try to gain consensus on what aspects of the mission need to be
changed and write it down on the flip chart. This may include things like, the
mission is too long, too vague, does not take into consideration our new work
in xyz area, etc.
The next step is to come up with solutions to the issues raised. Invite
participants to work individually, in pairs or in triads answering the mission
questions of “what do we do” and “for whom?” (Optional: include “why” or
“how”). Report out to the large group and write results on the flip chart.
Invite the whole group to reflect on the new ideas. Begin to put together
some of the most compelling components into 2-3 rough draft mission
statements. By show of hands, determine which ones are most favored by the
group.
Appoint a committee of 2-3 individuals to take the draft statement(s) and
refine into one compelling mission statement to be discussed/refined and
approved at the next board meeting.
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How to Develop a Vision Statement
Use this tool in conjunction with the “How to Revisit Your Mission” tool. If you have already
revisited your mission and are meeting only to develop a vision, use steps 1-3 in the mission
tool – call a meeting of board and staff, set up a panel of program beneficiaries and choose a
facilitator.
A. How to Develop a Short Vision Statement
1. Put the mission statement up on the wall.
2. As a group, work on the question: “What will be different in the world if we
successfully achieve our mission?”
3. Choose among various group processes to come to consensus on the statement.
Some options include:
i. Think, pair, share: (a) Invite individuals to think and write down their own
answer to the question (5 minutes). (b) People share their answer with a
partner and come up with a statement that both partners agree with (10
minutes). (c) Go around the room and have each pair share their vision
statements. Write them on the flip chart. (d) Discuss the statements in large
group, inviting people to advocate for the ones they like. Combine, edit,
adjust various statements based on suggestions. Re-write the favorites on a
new flip chart. (e) Vote on the favorites (straw vote – not official vote of the
board), (f) Assign a committee to take the final version(s), refine and bring
back for board vote at next regularly scheduled business meeting.
ii. Small groups: (a) Invite individuals to think and write down their own
answer to the question (5 minutes). (b) Put people in groups of 4 or 5. Each
person shares his/her vision statement. (c) The group develops a joint
statement among them. (d) Each group reports out to large group. (e) follow
steps (d) – (f) above.
B. How to Develop a More Detailed Vision Statement
1. In advance of a meeting or at the meeting itself, consider the different points of
impact for your organization, or different groups or systems that are changed as a
result of your work.
 Who do you serve?
 What do you change?
 What systems do you influence?
 What places will be different?
For example, an organization that promotes conflict resolution in schools might have
several points of impact: students, teachers, classrooms, schools, and educational
policy.
2. As a group, work on the following questions:
i. Overarching: “What will be different in the world if we successfully achieve
our mission?”
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ii. Detailed: “What will be different at each point of impact if we successfully
achieve our mission?” To follow the example above, “What will be different
for students? What will be different for teachers? What will be different in
classrooms? How will educational policy change?”
3. Group process options:
i. Option 1: Create a worksheet with each of the vision questions. Invite each
person to complete the worksheet and share with others in small groups.
Each group creates a list for each area, and shares with the large group.
Combine duplicates, refine, and do a straw vote on most important pieces.
ii. Option 2: Divide the group into small groups and each small group works on
one of the questions. For example, one small group works on the
overarching vision question, another small group works on “what will be
different for students,” another group on “what will be different for teachers,”
etc. Each group reports out and the large group adds/critiques. Or, rotate
two people in each group to react/critique in small groups.
4. Appoint a small ad-hoc committee to take the results of the brainstorming and refine
them for review/approval at the next board meeting.
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Getting at Your Values
The process of revisiting your mission and developing your vision statement will likely reveal
some key underlying values held by the individuals that make up the organization and that may
be embodied by the organization itself. It is important to acknowledge these values and clearly
articulate them throughout the process. These values strongly influence how the mission and
vision are interpreted and acted upon.
The process of getting at the underlying organizational values is not always straightforward.
Values run deep and are not always easily articulated. However, there are some questions that
can trigger discussions that may reveal what these values are.
The art of teasing out the values, truly lies in understanding when to introduce the probing
question. The easiest situation to spot is when people agree on the mission and vision but then
have conflicting assessments about whether the organization is meeting the mission or whether
certain programs fall in line with the mission and vision. Such a situation indicates that each
party is interpreting the mission based on a different set of values. At this point, it is appropriate
to probe deeper and to ask people to articulate why it is that they think something is or is not in
line with the mission. This should start to surface some of the values that drive their
interpretations.
When engaging in this level of introspection, an organization may find that there are other
important values that do not apply directly to mission, but may still be critical to how the
organization operates and may even conflict with other values. For example, an organization
may identify “supporting local businesses” as an important value because they are a
“community-focused” nonprofit. At the same time, there may be a commitment to buying only
organic materials that are not available through their local business community. If these values
are not clearly articulated, it will be challenging to figure out how to reconcile them and move
forward.
Key questions to ask to identify underlying values
1. What values do we hold dear throughout all of our work?
2. What standards do we seek to uphold?
3. What aspects of the way we do our work are non-negotiable?
Suggested process:
1. Place participants in pairs to develop 3-4 statements of core values. Statements may
begin with “We believe…” but this is not required.
2. Each pair reports their results to the full group, and a recorder includes all values
statements verbatim on the flip chart.
3. Categorize and combine the results into idea groups.
4. Discuss each of the main categories of values and what they mean for the mission and
programs of the organization. Discuss whether any of the values conflict with any
current programs or issues facing the organization?
5. Appoint an individual or a committee of 2-3 people to further refine the values
statements and bring them back to the board for discussion/approval.
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