In our campaign branding efforts, we work with many organizations that boast about being mission-driven. This is admirable, but is it enough?
What if we could encourage them to be more vision-driven? From our perspective, a mission is in an organization’s day-to-day actions. It represents the day‘s goals when we show up for work, but it’s not what drives us.
A mission without a vision is aimless.
Mission vs Vision
If we’re being strategic, the mission is informed by the vision. For example, if the vision is to cure cancer or for humans to become interplanetary, the mission is a series of objectives to help achieve those big ideas.
A vision starts with a dream goal — something almost unimaginable. In contrast, a mission is what happens every day in pursuit of such an audacious goal.
How fundraising helps
We believe fundraising campaigns can help organizations without a strong vision. We talk about fundraising in the future tense because the goals support what the organization will do with more resources.
Fundraising campaigns start conversations about audacious goals and why they matter. This is where an organization’s future begins to take shape.
From purpose to impact
To help, we facilitate conversations exploring purpose and impact. Starting with “why” questions, we move toward what we hope a campaign will achieve. We push for audacious goals that can be life-changing, with a better world in mind. It’s the “what if” of what we do.
A mission without a vision is aimless. Once a vision is clear, we can begin to work towards it. That’s the mission.
Fundraising helps organizations move from being mission-driven to vision-driven. Embrace big ideas and clarify your mission.
Featured image composed with help from Adobe Firefly.
