What is it?
Vision, mission, and strategy are three distinct but connected concepts that together describe why your charity exists and how it intends to achieve its goals.
Your vision is the long-term change you want to see in the world: the ultimate destination. Your mission describes what your charity actually does to work towards that vision: your role and purpose. Your strategy is the plan that sets out how you will deliver your mission, including your priorities, approach, and the resources you will need.
Why does it matter?
A clear vision, mission, and strategy give a charity direction and focus. They help trustees and staff make consistent decisions, particularly when faced with difficult choices about where to spend limited time and money.
For small charities especially, clarity here can be the difference between spreading resources too thinly across everything that feels worthwhile, and making focused progress on what matters most.
Funders, donors, and partners also look to your vision, mission, and strategy to understand what you do and why, and to judge whether your charity is the right fit for their support.
Who needs to know?
Trustees hold ultimate responsibility for setting and approving strategy, but it works best when developed collaboratively, drawing on the knowledge of staff, volunteers, and the people your charity supports.
Finance staff have an important role in testing whether a strategy is financially realistic and in translating strategic priorities into budgets and financial plans.
Where do we start?
If your charity does not have clearly articulated vision and mission statements, or if they feel outdated, a good starting point is a facilitated discussion involving trustees and key staff, asking three simple questions:
- What change are we ultimately trying to achieve? (vision)
- What do we do to work towards that change? (mission)
- How will we get there over the next one to three years? (strategy)
Keep your vision and mission statements short and memorable. A strategy can be more detailed, but should still be realistic and grounded in your actual capacity and resources, particularly for a small charity with limited staff time.
Revisit your strategy regularly, at least annually, to check it still reflects your priorities and the environment you are operating in.