Vision and Mission statements are the guiding principles of your project. They say in both broad and specific ways what you intend to accomplish. They are principles you can check progress against.
Why are they so important? These statements actually provide the framework for your evaluation! When you set forth a set of "deliverables" in your vision and mission, you are actually also creating the yardstick for evaluating your project. These will become the things you measure and the things that guide your project evaluation.
The vision statement often is a high-level statement the encompasses the philosophy, goal and long-term position of the organization.
Here's how one might read:
That all citizens in theregion will have access to education, information and communication resources to help make the region a better place to learn, live, grow and prosper.
The mission statement is a more specific articulation of the vision, a statement of how the vision will be implemented in day-to-day operations. It can be done in a narrative form, but a list is more specific.
The mission statement provides you with specific actions you can measure. For example, if community training is part of your mission, you can count the number of trainings held, the number of people training and provide an accounting of what training they received.
You want these items to be specific enough to be measured. One measure, or outcome, of your training could be tracking the increase of local Internet users, through active e-mail accounts, web site activity and so forth.
Here is a mission statement example:
To provide a collaborative communications network for theregion in , providing people local as well as worldwide access to education, information and communication resources, promoting participation in civic life and enhancing the community socially, culturally and economically.
We will achieve this through these specific means:
- Provide a well-organized, easy-to-use computer-based network connecting all citizens throughout the region.
- Provide for broad public access, especially targeting those people and areas where personal, individual access would be difficult or financially unfeasible.
- Provide for on-going support and training for citizens, through classes, personal, telephone and online support.
- Provide an organizational structure that encourages citizen and user participation and policy and fiscal oversight to assure the highest standards of networking and networking support.
- Develop the means for citizens to interact with each other, with elected officials and government at all levels.
- Provide access and support to specific programming, or develop specific programs when appropriate, to encourage participation in civic life, growth and development. This network, especially, will develop:
- Provide sustainability and development for the network to assure on-going access for citizens to increasing amounts of resources.
- Continuously seek out additional information, education and communication resources to broaden and deepen the quality of the network and enhance its value to citizens.
- Continuously seek and develop partnerships and collaborations with individuals, government and private businesses to enhance the quality of the network.
Number six (6) points directly to the specific applications the local network intends to create under the TIF grant, so that the mission is in agreement with the program goals (which is a statement of proposed solitions to community needs and desires).
Your Community Network vision and mission statements might include some of all or these aspects -- and more! The most important thing in developing the vision and mission is that the collaborative do it as a team, that there be buy-in and that it actually represent your belief as a group because this will become the operating framework for your network. This is what you will use to measure whether you are providing the services you said you would provide and whether you are staying on target.
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