Dissatisfaction and discouragement are not caused by the absence of things but the absence of vision.
Anonymous
What’s it all about?
Having a strong vision statement can be a good mechanism for giving your organisation consistency, focus and direction. There is often confusion between vision and mission statements, or they are simply used interchangeably. There is no need to get hung up on the language as long as you are clear about how you use the terinology. Accepted practice suggests your vision statement should answer the question ‘what will we become?’ It should help you describe the difference you want to make in the world. Whereas your mission statement should answer the question ‘what do we do?’
There are some basic ground rules for writing a compelling vision statement:
- Keep it short – ideally, no more than two sentences
- Keep it simple
- Make it relevant
- It should be inspiring and ambitious
- It should embody your organisational values and culture
- Involve your team, including your governing body, and stakeholders (where appropriate)
What’s it for?
This tool will help you to create or review your organisational vision statement. Going through this process will allow you to:
- Understand and articulate your ambitions
- Clarify what is important to you as an organisation
- Ensure your strategies are aligned with your vision
- Define what is distinctive about what your organisation stands for and does
Using the tool
This tool will take you through five steps:
- Developing
- Forumlating
- Testing
- Refining
- Announcing
This is a tool that is best done in groups, which can be of different sizes. It is likely your drafting group will be much smaller than the consultation groups. Building a successful vision statement takes time and can benefit from mapping out a project plan allowing reasonable time for each of the steps. Try and avoid rushing it.