As others have been addressing in their posts, we have spent the last few weeks drafting and redrafting our mission statement…a process I never imagined would have been quite so difficult. I assumed going into the mission drafting process that since we were all very devoted to building La Ceiba it would be easy to define why we want to form a microfinance program and how we are looking to achieve that goal.
We all had very different ideas on what a mission statement should include. After weeks of going in circles and not making progress, David and I were tasked with forming a couple of mission statements that would then be voted on during our Thursday class period. Even with the two of us the process deemed to be difficult. As I was constructing drafts I considered three factors that needed to be included:
1. Our purpose, 2. Our Business, and 3. Our principles/beliefs.
All of these components needed to be included, yet I felt that it needed to also be a phrase that would be moving. As Dr. Humphrey put it, we want our mission statement to remind us why we do what we do when things are tough and not going smoothly. We want it to motivate us every day.
David and I talked a lot about the difference between the mission, vision, and values statements. We did some research into other non-profits’ mission statments and realized that in most cases the statements are separate from one another. For example, Big Brothers Big Sisters separates out their mission and vision statement but includes them on the same informational page. We noticed, however, that they did not include a values statement. We assume the reasoning behind this is because most of their followers will already understand why their work is important and therefore they do not need to specifically define their values. As La Ceiba, however, we are often asked about the significance of our microfinance work. David and I agreed that whether included in our mission statement or not, our values statement needed to be specifically highlighted.
In the end, David and I drafted a couple of mission statements that were discussed during Thursday’s class. The first was more of a traditional mission statement, short and to the point:
The Mission of La Ceiba is to enable impoverished workers in Honduras to develop microenterprises and buttress their famillies against the indignity of poverty.
The second was a mission and values statement combined:
We believe in a world where hard work allows every individual the opportunity to achieve their inner potential. As a microfinance program that provides financial, social and educational support, La Ceiba empowers struggling Honduran communities to combat the indignity of poverty that has stripped them of this right.
While it seemed the majority of our members agreed that our mission statement should be more of a mission/values statement, we still debated over the word choice. Specifically, as David addressed in his post there was a very heated discussion over whether to use the term “poverty” or “inequality.” In the end, the concensus seemed to be that inequality better described our mission. While it was a very frustrating last fifteen minutes of discussion, I hung up my Skype call thinking that I am very fortunate to be a part of a group that is so passionate that we spend large periods of time debating the word choice of our statement. In the end, I believe we settled upon a mission that is specific enough to guide our work, yet broad enough to grow as we grow as an organization. Here is our final mission statement:
La Ceiba envisions a world in which every individual can realize their potential through hard work. As a microfinance program that provides financial, social and educational support, La Ceiba empowers struggling Hondurans to overcome the inequalities that have denied them this right. The Company of Wolves movie download