MVV

One of the workshops that we offer is Mission and Vision Articulation and one of the messages that we share with participants is that the easiest things to do is to criticize someone else’s mission and vision statement. The hardest thing to do is to effectively articulate your own mission and vision. After six years our mission and vision statements are still in the process of refinement. Having said that, our primary strategic drivers are:

Our Client is the Mission-Based organization.

This term mission-based is used interchangeably with nonprofit organizations. By referencing the mission-based organization, we include nonprofits that are organized under the nonprofit laws of the state and authorized to accept tax deductible donations under §501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. But, this also includes unincorporated community-based organizations (CBO’s) and unincorporated associations. Our primary attention is given to those mission-based organizations that address personal, artistic and social issues and concerns.

Our Mission is to Assist Mission-Based organizations to Maximize their Mission-Impact.

When you review our philosophy and the background of our President, it should not be difficult to understand that we strongly believe in the value of the nonprofit sector in its delivery of services to our community. It should also not be difficult to understand that we sometimes feel a certain amount of frustration in the realization that if nonprofit did more to maximize their mission delivery our community would be so much more blessed by their hard work.

Our Vision is to create an community culture and dynamic where every nonprofit is expected to maximize its mission-impact.

We want to change the existing paradigm that is found in the San Antonio nonprofit community. It is not enough to survive as a nonprofit. If you truly believe in your mission and vision then you owe it to your client and the community to be the best you can be – you should be constantly striving to transition from good to great (our apologies to Jim Collins' and his best-selling management book).

Our Core Values. Values represent our unique or distinctive set of rules that define how we engage with our stakeholders (internal and external) on a day-to-day basis. That is to say what values do we practice that distinguish us from other consultants. We like to think the values we list below represent such a distinctiveness. These include:

          · our clients deserve to hear the truth, not what they want to hear;
          · there is always room for improvement;
          · the levels of success for any organization are limited only by their ability to dream
             a vision;
          · you will never be any greater that your greatest dreams for success;
          · you cannot achieve great things without thinking great ideas;
          · you should reward excellent failure and punish mediocre success;
          · be the first, be the best or be different; sitting around a campfire and singing
             Kumbaya does not get it done;
          · being different is good if not absolutely essential;
          · it is not enough to share, you must also educate and inform;
          · every important decision and important action taken is based on the articulated
             mission, vision and values of the organization; and,
          · the greatest failing is not to constantly seek to maximize mission-impact.

Our Philosophy – is built around certain concepts which include:

          · nonprofits are businesses too;
          · all nonprofits can benefit from being efficient and effective;
          · all nonprofits operate with limited resources;
          · all nonprofits compete;
          · nonprofits must continually seek to maximize their mission-impact through
             doing more mission, providing better mission and delivering mission to more clients.

Therefore for us the nonprofit’s greatest failing is characterized by the following statement:

The Greatest Failing – The primary function of any board and its chief executive is to maximize mission-impact. They should constantly be asking of themselves: How can we deliver more mission, how can we deliver better mission, how can we expand our mission delivery audience? Failing to focus on this effort at maximizing mission-impact is the greatest failing for any nonprofit organization!