Nonprofit Vision Statements: The Ultimate Guide (+ Examples)

Developing and centering on your nonprofit’s vision statement may just be the most transformational part of strategic planning. Your vision is so much more than just a statement. It’s your opportunity to think big about what’s possible, to articulate why your work matters, and define how the future will be different if you succeed in your efforts.

Working on developing or clarifying your vision forces you to get out of the day-to-day, put aside all your hesitations and simply ask “what if…?“

What if our organization achieved all its goals? How would the world be different as a result?

The answer is often both simple and surprising, and discovering it can push nonprofits down completely new (more impactful) paths. If it’s been awhile since your organization took a good hard look at its vision or tapped its stakeholders for input into that vision, this Ultimate Guide to Nonprofit Vision Statements is for you.

Here’s what’s inside:

What is a Nonprofit Vision Statement?

Definition: nonprofit vision statement

A nonprofit vision statement describes what the future would look like if your organization achieved all its goals. 

If you truly realized your vision to the fullest extent, your organization would no longer need to exist.

An effective nonprofit vision statement is:

• Audacious: Your vision represents a dream that’s beyond what you think is possible. It is the mountaintop your organization is striving to reach. It takes you out of your present reality and constraints.
• Rooted in existing assets: Your vision builds on where your nonprofit stands today: its history, supporter base, strengths, unique capabilities, resources and programs. It should also encompass what you’ll continue to establish as you work toward your mission.
• Futurecasting: Your vision provides a picture of what your organization will look like in the far-off future, which forces you to make some educated predictions and assumptions.
• Inspiring + Motivating : Your vision engages with language that inspires. It creates a vivid image in your stakeholders’ minds that provokes emotion and excitement, while posing a challenge. Your vision clarifies the direction in which your organization needs to move and keeps everyone pushing forward to reach it.
• Purpose-driven: Your vision gives employees and other stakeholders a larger sense of purpose, so they feel as though they’re building a cathedral instead of laying stones.
• Clear: Your vision uses precise, everyday language and avoids ambiguity or hyperbole.

Here’s an infographic to help you remember those key characteristics:

If your vision feels out of reach, you’re thinking about it the right way.

And that’s exactly why getting your vision statement right is so important. It focuses everyone on your nonprofit’s team and board on the big picture reason why your organization exists, and why the work you do matters. It also communicates those same ideas and ideals to your external stakeholders, such as your program participants, community members, donors and volunteers. It is the destination that gives meaning to the journey of operating an impactful nonprofit, allowing everyone to–in the words of Stephen Covey–“begin with the end in mind.”

How is a Nonprofit Vision Statement Different from a Mission Statement?

We define a nonprofit mission statement as the work you are doing every day to drive toward your vision — what you do, who you do it for, and the intended impact.

As the definition indicates, a nonprofit vision statement operates in tandem with a nonprofit mission statement. The easiest way to think about the difference between the two is that a vision statement should describe why, while a mission statement should describe how.

Vision statements and mission statements work as a symbiotic pair, and you can’t have an effective vision statement with an ineffective mission statement, or vice versa. If your vision statement isn’t working and you can’t figure out why, there’s a good chance that the problem actually lies in your mission statement. An effective mission statement is:

• Based on core competencies: it reflects what your organization is actually good at, not just its future aspirations.
• Realistic: it can actually conceivably be achieved in the not-too-distant future.
• Focused on the present: it defines what you will do today to reach your vision in the future.
• Tactical: it focuses more on how you make a difference than why (leave why to your vision).
• Unique: while two organizations can have very similar visions, no two should have the same mission.
• Specific: it describes a particular change your organization is working to drive in no uncertain terms.

Like a vision statement, your mission statement should also be clear, inspiring and motivating. If your organization’s mission statement doesn’t meet these criteria, or if things that should be showing up in your mission statement are ending up in your vision statement (a common problem), it may be a sign that you need to work on your mission statement in order to get your vision statement right.

You may be wondering which should come first: vision development, or mission development. It’s a bit of a “chicken or egg” conundrum, but we typically see the best results from working on vision first, followed by mission, and then toggling between the two until they work together seamlessly.

What Other Strategic Elements Should Accompany a Vision and Mission?

In addition to a mission and vision statement, all nonprofits should have several other foundational strategic elements in place, and re-evaluate them regularly. At minimum, this should include:

Values Statements

Core values are a set of guiding principles that shape the behavior and decision making of everyone on a nonprofit’s team.

Reason for Being

A reason for being describes the specific sort of impact your organization is positioned to make that no other nonprofit can achieve in quite the same way.

Strategic Plan

A strategic plan outlines your nonprofit’s priorities for the future. Strategic planning asks your staff and board to evaluate your nonprofit’s vision and mission, and then to determine the most important things you need to do to advance both over the next 3-5 years by establishing pillars, objectives and key results.

Other strategic elements, such as a logic model and theory of change, marketing and fundraising plans, and program plans are also beneficial for many organizations.

How to Create a Nonprofit Vision Statement (With Sample Exercises)

If your nonprofit is creating its first vision statement, needs to rework its vision statement to better reflect its current strategic direction, or simply needs to better articulate a vision that already exists, here’s how to get started developing a nonprofit vision statement that will guide your organization’s future.

Step One: Get the Right People Involved

Ideally, vision statement development should be a collaborative process that involves not just your board, leadership and communications staff, but rather a wide array of other internal and external stakeholders, with the Shared Power Strategy™ philosophy in mind. To truly understand the perspectives of all your diverse stakeholders and develop a vision statement that reflects them, you must involve a representative group of those people in the process. Consider conducting interviews, surveys and/or focus groups with your program participants and their families, with those who live in the communities you serve, with your volunteers, donors, and anyone else who has a stake in the future your organization is working to create.

Then, use the data you gather to inform a vision workshop that includes a group of key staff, a committee of board members who are intimately involved in strategic planning, and ideally, a group of beneficiaries and other external stakeholders. Most nonprofits will ultimately have to seek board approval on their vision statements, and involving the board in the vision development process is the best way to ensure the board and staff are aligning around why the organization exists. Then, “market test” the vision statement that your staff and board members develop on more of your program participants and other stakeholders, and refine it based on their input. 

Step Two: Use Visioning Exercises to Get Wheels Turning

When we lead vision statement development sessions, we choose from over two dozen tried and true exercises that work groups toward effective vision statement development, and customize each session to the specific needs and dynamics of each group. Here are a few example exercises to get you started. We suggest conducting each with a similar committee to the one you’d gather for strategic planning. If possible, try to include both internal stakeholders (staff, board etc.) and external stakeholders ( program participants, donors etc.) as well.

Nonprofit Vision Exercise 1: Likes and Dislikes

Gather a list of 5-10 example vision statements. See some ideas below, and add more from similar organizations/your subsector. Then ask your group to consider these examples and articulate what they like and dislike about them.

Nonprofit Vision Exercise 2: Hopeful Headline

Ask participants about how an ideal news headline regarding your organization would read 50 years from now. What do you want to be newsworthy about your organization? What goals would you like to achieve?

Nonprofit Vision Exercise 3: Imagine an Award

This exercise comes from Learning Strategies: Imagine that you look up from your desk and you find yourself in an auditorium in which someone is speaking and announcing an award. You realize that the person speaking is _____________  and the award is the _______________ which goes to the organization which has __________________. 

The presenter says, “At no time in the history of the award, until now, have the judges been in unanimous agreement of the organization most deserving of this award. And this year the award goes to (this organization).” There is a standing ovation, as people get out of their chairs to applaud. When the applause dies down, the presenter goes on to list all the accomplishments that made this organization deserving. Listen to what the presenter is saying. Fill in the blanks and the long list of your organization’s big accomplishments.

Step Three: Draft Collaboratively

Once your group has warmed up with exercises like those above, it’s time to get to work on drafting potential vision statements. If you have a large group involved in the work, it’s typically best to break into groups of 2-4 individuals initially, and then come back together to review and build upon each others’ work.

As you work through early rough drafts, it can be helpful to use a “fill in the blanks” vision statement format like the ones below:

ORGANIZATION NAME envisions a world where DESCRIPTION OF WHAT THINGS WOULD LOOK LIKE IF YOU ACHIEVED ALL YOUR GOALS.

or

ORGANIZATION NAME’S  vision is DESCRIPTION OF WHAT THINGS WOULD LOOK LIKE IF YOU ACHIEVED ALL YOUR GOALS.

That said, you don’t need to feel tied to these formats, and you’ll see many vision statement examples that are formatted differently. Just be sure that your vision statement includes content that describes what the world would look like if your organization achieved all its goals, with no boundaries or constraints.

Once small groups present their ideas, you’ll likely have several different vision statements with elements you want to incorporate or build upon. As with mission development, take some time to try different approaches and tweak your vision statement until your group feels good about it.

Step Four: Get Stakeholder Feedback

If you’ve followed the steps we’ve shared so far, a wide range of stakeholders will have played a role in vision development, including staff, board members, program participants, volunteers and more. But it’s important not to stop there. Many of your stakeholders won’t be able to give their time and attention to direct involvement in vision development, but their perspectives are often the most impactful. Consider giving more stakeholders the opportunity to provide feedback via an anonymous survey, listening sessions or focus groups, direct interview conversations and more. By creating a number of channels for stakeholder input, you’ll make more people feel comfortable and safe providing honest feedback, even if its critical. For more ideas about how to incorporate stakeholder input, see our stakeholder audit and engagement tool.

Step Five: Fine Tune

Once you’ve given a wide range of stakeholders plenty of opportunity to weigh in, it’s time to take what you learned and fine-tune your vision statement into a succinct and powerful articulation of what the world would look like if your nonprofit achieved all its goals. At this point, you should have no doubt about the world your stakeholders are hoping and dreaming of, and the role your organization can play in making that dream a reality. Now, it’s just about refining that sentiment and ensuring that the words you’re using to describe your vision can be easily understood by everyone who matters to your nonprofit.

Of course, at this point, you may need to seek board approval on your new vision statement as well. If you’ve effectively engaged the board in the process up to this point, that should be a breeze. It can often be helpful to ensure that the board committee involved in vision development (and other strategic planning) serves as a liason to the rest of the board, keeping them posted on progress as the work develops.

How Often Should a Nonprofit Vision Statement Be Revisited?

If your organization takes a thoughtful approach to developing its vision that deeply involves a range of stakeholders, your vision statement should be able to stand the test of time, and guide your work for 10, 25, or even 100+ years. However, it is worthwhile to re-evaluate your vision each time you go through strategic planning (typically every 3-5 years) to ensure it still holds up. If your organization is making massive shifts to its strategic direction or working with new communities, revisiting and revising your vision statement may be in order. If not, it’s still helpful to re-affirm it and ensure everyone is grounded in why your organization exists before you get deeper into strategic planning.

Nonprofit Vision Statement Examples

As our example exercises illustrate, studying other nonprofit vision statements can be a great way to begin to develop your own. Here are 20+ nonprofit vision examples to help you get started:

• Feeding America’s Vision: Our vision is an America where no one is hungry.
• Ronald McDonald House Charities’ Vision: A world where all children have access to medical care and their families are supported and actively involved in their children’s care.
• Boys & Girls Club of America’s Vision: Our vision is to provide a world-class Club Experience that assures success is within reach of every young person who enters our doors with all members on track to graduate from high school with a plan for the future, demonstrating good character and citizenship, and living a healthy lifestyle.
• The King Center’s Vision: We envision the Beloved Community where injustice ceases and love prevails.
•  Teach for America’s Vision: One day all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.
•  World Wildlife Fund’s Vision: A future in which people live in harmony with nature.
• Sierra Club’s Vision: Clean energy, air and water for all.
• ASPCA’s Vision: The United States is a humane community in which all animals are treated with respect and kindness.
• Habitat for Humanity’s Vision: A world where everyone has a decent place to live.
• Catholic Charities USA’s Vision: Change the course of poverty in our nation.
• St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Vision: To accelerate progress against catastrophic disease at a global level.
• Global Fund for Women’s Vision: We envision a world where movements for gender justice have transformed power and privilege for a few into equity and equality for all.
• United Way’s Vision: United Way envisions a community where all individuals and families achieve their human potential through education, financial stability and healthy lives.
• The Y’s Vision: We envision a future in which all people – no matter who they are or where they come from – get the support they need, when they need it, to reach their full potential.
• Comer Education Campus’ Vision: Our vision is a world where every young person in every community has the resources and opportunities to reach their unlimited potential.
• Family Counseling Center’s Vision: We envision a Southern Illinois where all individuals are contributing to a community that is safe and vibrant for everyone.
• Ignite’s Vision: Ignite envisions a world where all young people have the support they need to be defined by their potential, not their circumstances.
• American Cancer Society’s Vision: A world free of cancer and related burden.
• Make-a-Wish’s Vision: To be able to make every child’s dream come true.

Are you ready to get to work? Vision development is deep, important, strategic work, but it’s also a lot of fun. Enjoy the process and let us know what you come up with.

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