The Possibility of Centering Vision in Nonprofit Decision-Making

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

When I sat down to write this morning, the word that came to mind was: centering. Immediately, I was anything but centered. My mind split in two directions—do I write about centering from the emotional intelligence perspective, or about centering the intangible assets of an organization?

Maybe that confusion is the point.

In the nonprofit sector, we often talk about “centering the mission.” At first glance, that seems like the obvious path to staying true to purpose. If you make the mission the primary focus of all activities, decisions, and resources, then strategies and operations should naturally align with that central goal. But centering is also internal work. The mission is the external work—the programs, services, and structures that serve the community.

When organizations focus too tightly on centering the mission, they risk overlooking the assets, resources, and relationships that make the mission possible.

A Quick Reset on Vision and Mission

Hildy Gottlieb offers my favorite no-jargon framing. Borrowing from The Pollyanna Principles*, she suggests:

• Vision is what a visionary would describe. It is the future state you want for your community.
  “Our vision is a community where/that ________.”
• Mission is what a missionary would take on. It is the work your organization does today to bring that vision to life.
  “To bring that vision into reality, we do ________.”

Yes, those sentences are clunky. They won’t land in an elevator pitch. But their simplicity is powerful. They force leaders to ask: what are we actually centering—the day-to-day “how” or the shared future we’re aiming toward?

The Pitfall of Centering the Mission

When mission sits at the center, intangible assets often get reduced to costs or inputs. Staff salaries become a tradeoff against program delivery. Investments in donor systems or evaluation tools get delayed because they don’t appear in the mission statement. The balance sheet becomes the ultimate arbiter of what’s “mission-centered.”

The Possibility of Centering the Vision

When vision sits at the center, the frame shifts. Decision-making stretches beyond the budget. Leaders are challenged to weigh not just dollars, but also the time, knowledge, expertise, reputation, and relationships that can be mobilized. Centering vision opens up the assets that don’t show up on a balance sheet but absolutely determine long-term success.

Try This

Think about a big decision your organization has wrestled with in the last year.

• If you centered the mission, what would the balance sheet have told you?
• If you centered the vision, what assets, relationships, or possibilities might you have seen differently?

Which conversation do you want your board and staff to be having more often?

*I am not compensated for recommendations. This is a resource I have found professionally valuable and regularly recommend to others.