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February
2003
>>>>>>back
to e-newsletter
WINTER
TIPS, UPDATES, and SERVICES from LAPA
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IN THIS ISSUE:
-- Clarifying Your Mission, Vision, and Values: Better Definitions
for Better Results
-- New Resources from the NYC Non-Profits Project
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WELCOME!
Winter greetings from Laurence A. Pagnoni and Associates, Inc.
(LAPA). Our e-newsletter is designed to provide you with updates
about our current services and to keep you informed about innovations
in nonprofit management.
As we start the new year, I encourage our clients not to give
in to the idea that the recession and fallout from 9/11 make
it impossible to find funders. The key principles of fundraising
still apply: If you want support, you have to show up to ask.
And, by conveying your passion and purpose, you have to give
donors an emotional reason to support your organization.
The feature below on Mission, Vision, and Values can help you
do that. And the new resources we highlight from the NYC Non-Profits
Project can help raise the profile of your organization.
Please forward this to others whom you feel it would benefit.
If you would like to be removed from our list, please follow
the instructions at the end of the page. Thank you, enjoy, and
stay warm!
Laurence A. Pagnoni, MA, MPA
lapagnoni@mindspring.com
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On Our Web Site:
Did you miss a copy of LAPA’s newsletter? Want to take advantage
of resources and information profiled in an earlier update?
Visit the e-newsletter page at http://www.lp-associates.com
for archived versions of our past mailings, which highlight
free software and reports, as well as Laurence’s recommendations
for addressing problems that you may be facing now.
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CLARIFYING YOUR MISSION, VISION, AND VALUES
Better Definitions for Better Results
Organizational mission, vision, and values help you know who
you are, where you want to go, and what makes your organization
special. As Dr. Holger Nauheimer explains, ″Without an
understanding of the organization's purpose, its actions are
confined to management by objectives. Consequently, members
of an organization without vision are not able to really take
part in creating their own professional future—and the future
of their working environment.″
LAPA recently had the privilege of facilitating a planning
retreat that revisited and refined one 30-year old organization’s
basic assumptions around its mission, vision, and values. After
experiencing dramatic growth in the past two years, the organization
required some redefinition. Its Executive Director, Board, and
management staff needed to realign its history and philosophy
with its current goal of vast program expansion. When participants
understood the subtle distinctions among mission, vision, and
values, they were able to apply the concepts meaningfully to
their own work, and to emerge with a stronger sense of shared
purpose.
Given that ″mission,″ ″vision,″ and
″values″ often circulate as vaguely-defined buzz
words, how do we make sense of these fundamental ideas?
″Mission″ is your purpose and reason for being.
It is what your organization wants to be remembered for doing.
(I.E., to improve the health of the South Bronx community by
providing affordable and high-quality primary and specialty
medical care.)
″Vision″ is what you want--a picture of the future
you seek to create. It communicates a deeper purpose that motivates
staff and excites funders. (I.E., a broad and highly accessible
network of community-based health centers that incorporates
state-of-the-art medical technology.)
″Values″ are specific behaviors that help
you move toward your goals. They differentiate your organization
from the dozens (if not hundreds) of other groups with similar
missions. (I.E., we recognize and understand the cultural differences
of our patients, meet individual patient needs one person at
a time, and promote an internal staff culture of professional
growth.)
To help organizations clarify their mission, vision, and values,
LAPA uses a four-phase plan of action. This includes 1) the
drafting of mission, vision, and values statements by key staff,
2) a half-day retreat to spark an organization-wide exchange
of ideas and perspectives, 3) revisions that incorporate core
ideas from the retreat, and 4) widespread promotion of the redefined
statements, both internally and publicly.
LAPA can help tailor this process to your organization’s specific
needs. Call Melissa at 212-932-8001 ext. 4 for a free consultation.
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NEW RESOURCES FROM THE NYC NONPROFITS PROJECT
The NYC Nonprofits Project recently announced two new resources
that may be valuable to your organization: a major report on
the city’s nonprofit sector, and a new database of community
organizations.
After noticing that the number of nonprofits more than doubled
in the last decade, The Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of
New York, the Fund for the City of New York, and the City of
New York launched an initiative to map this fast-growing sector.
After three years of collecting and analyzing data, the New
York City Nonprofits Project has released a final report.
This report contains statistics on volunteerism, funding,
trends in giving, demographics of employees, revenues, deficits,
and findings of all sorts garnered from their investigation
into 9,078 local organizations. An executive summary can be
found at http://www.nycnonprofits.org.
A related resource that can help you to raise your organization’s
profile is the Nonprofit Project’s online Service Atlas for
NYC. LAPA’s review of this database determined that it is still
in its preliminary stages and lacks listings for many groups.
However, if it lives up to its potential, the Atlas may soon
become the authoritative guide to area nonprofits. It will contain
a registry of every nonprofit in the city, what they do, and
their contact information. Using this resource a person could,
for example, look up all the housing organizations within a
two-mile radius of any address in the city and get a detailed
map.
We encourage you to visit the Atlas online at http://www.nycnonprofits.org
and to make sure that you are listed correctly. In the future,
the Atlas could help service users find you. It could help you
to network with other nonprofits within a geographic or service
area. And it could help potential funders or government contractors
identify your services.
All requested changes to your Atlas listing will be made within
a month of the request.
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LAPA associates may be reached as follows:
Enid Harlow, MA: eharlow@lp-associates.com
Melissa Shurkin, MMHS: mshurkin@lp-associates.com
Bodi Luse, MS: bluse@lp-associates.com
Mark Engler, BA: mengler@lp-associates.com
Katie McMullen, BA: kmcmullen@lp-associates.com
Elsa Rios, MSW: elsarios7@aol.com
Julia Ritchie, CSW: ritchieinc@aol.com
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