Most not-for-profits have some sort of a Vision – even if they don’t necessarily articulate it that way – otherwise it’s unlikely that they would continue to exist for very long. Essentially, any organisation’s Vision will be something that roughly equates to making the world a better place in the context of whatever it is that they do to add value to the world.
But how is that Vision brought to life? How do we ensure that what brought us together in the first place actually gets delivered?
Well, a clear, documented Vision statement, that everyone subscribes to and is working towards, is a really great starting point! But even for those NFPs that haven’t quite arrived at that level of clarity yet – and there are more in that camp than you might think – there are still ways to ensure your front line work reflects what your organisation was initially established for.
For smaller grass-roots NFPs this is often easier, due to their ‘flat’ structures, where everyone, including those on the governing body, is usually involved in the day-to-day ‘service delivery’ work – whatever that means in the context of what your NFP does – and therefore the Vision is front-of-mind and quite apparent in the operational work that takes place. For example, I think back to when I was the president of our local Landcare group, and not only was I talking about strategic directions with the other committee members in our committee meetings and planning sessions, but I was also out there on weekends picking up rubbish or planting trees or spraying blackberries – working on the front line, doing whatever was involved in our latest project to help the environment.
But I think for organisations that are bigger and more complex, the governance of the organisation – including that sense of some sort of a ‘Vision’ – risks becoming somewhat at a distance from what happens at the coal face…unless we make an effort for that not to be the case.
I think it is critical that in our larger NFPs we work at a systems level to imbue every aspect of our organisation with the essence of why we exist and who we serve, and we promote an organisational culture that reflects that. This means everything from our Code of Conduct, to our policies and procedures, to the way we train our people, and everything in between, needs to be consistent with culture.
At the end of the day, I think the bigger we are as NFPs, the more critical it is that we DO make the effort to craft a clear Vision statement. And that we ensure that Vision is clearly documented for all to see, widely promoted to everyone across the organisation, regularly reinforced to those same people, and periodically revisited for ongoing relevance and currency.
However you make it happen, I think the message is clear – make sure your NFP ‘lives your brochure’.
And if your not-for-profit needs help to better articulate YOUR Vision, and live YOUR brochure, check out my Good Governance for Not-for-profits program, where one of the key outcomes is clarifying an organisation’s Vision for all to see.
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