Mission and Vision statements are critical pieces to any successful nonprofit organization.   After all, everything else the nonprofit does flows from these two all important questions.

 

An organization’s leadership can spend countless hours brainstorming, refining and deciding its mission and vision. Earlier this evening, I worked with one of my clients, Cultivating Sustainable Communities, to craft a new vision statement.

 

After working with the organization’s leadership to brainstorm different aspects of what should be included in the vision, we narrowed it down to four major themes. Given that we had already been working together as a group for more than an hour, I suggested we break up the larger group and have each small group work on creating a sentence for one of the major themes identified. 

 

This worked quite well! Within fifteen minutes, each group developed a proposed sentence which we combined on a sheet of paper for everyone to see. Together, we then refined the vision and explored one more theme to work on. At this point, I suggested we split the group into two, one to refine the sentences we had already posted and one to add a new sentence. Fifteen minutes later, we came back together as a group and after reviewing it, agreed unanimously in concept that folks were excited about this vision, and that the only work left was some final language refinements.

 

As a facilitator, I’m constantly looking for the best structure to assist with the decision making process. I believe that breaking up the larger group into smaller groups not only led to a decision made in less time, but that it also creating an even more engaging space for all board members to participate in the decision making process. Both the board and I are very pleased with the results.