Well, since last October, our staff, board, youth and community partners of Canada Bridges have all been busy contributing to the development a strategic plan for 2019-2021.
As an organization, we know that we believe in responding to community, and working by invitation, which limits the certainty that can be predicted of plans, especially years into the future. At the same time, we recognize the need to have a direction, and be moving in the same direction together.
Above all, we wanted this process to be a useful check point on our journey together – the goal wasn’t to create an all-encompassing document that we follow directly over the next three years. Our goal was to develop a strong vision of where we are going to go, dive into the strategic questions and tensions emerging in our work and develop priorities to help guide and focus our efforts moving forward. We built on adaptive strategy learning, meaningful conversations, and thoughtful feedback. A big thank you to everyone who participated and helped us along the way.
A fundamental component of the process was coming up with a new vision and mission statement to guide our work forward. While our strategic priorities and goals will continue to evolve and change as we go forward, we see these as guiding statements that set our direction and lead us forward well beyond 2021. We hope that they will provide inspiration, clarity, guidance and direction to everyone we interact with.
Right now, we’re excited to share what we came up with!
Vision
A world where youth can show up, stand up, and be heard.
Our vision presents a description of the world as it would exist if we were to succeed in achieving our grandest aspirations. It tells us why we exist and what we’re working for.
Mission
To listen, learn, and collaborate in community for unveiled youth potential.
Our mission presents a succinct expression of our reason for existence or core purpose. It tells us what we do and how we achieve our impact.
While our new vision and mission are now set, we hope to keep the conversations and evolution of the strategy going as we move forward. Rather than the end of the process, this is really just the start of a new chapter in the story of Canada Bridges, and the real work begins as we find ways to live out these statements and continue on this journey together.