Role of Vision and Mission Statements for an organization/NGO

Strategic planning is a key function of an organization’s management that helps to set

priorities, allocate resources, and ensure that everyone is working towards common goals
and objectives. However, for strategic planning to be effective, there are two important
tools that are needed – a vision and a mission statements. These serve as a guide for
creating objectives and goals in the organization, thus providing a road-map that is to be
followed by everyone.

Unfortunately, despite the importance of vision and mission statements, many

organizations do not have them. In other cases, the two statements are lumped together as
one or used interchangeably despite their distinctive differences. This creates a confusion
in the organization that makes it harder to achieve the set objectives and goals.

In this article, we will take a look at both of these statements, the differences between
each one of them, and the important roles they play in an organization.

What is a vision statement

A vision statement is used to describe the future state of the organization, i.e., what the
organization hopes to become in the future. It is, therefore, a long-term goal provides
direction for the organization. It also communicates the purpose of the organization to the
employees and other stakeholders and provides them with the inspiration to achieve that
purpose.

What is a mission statement

A mission statement describes the current state of an organization and its primary goals or
objectives. It provides detailed information about what the organization does, how it does
it, and who it does it for. Unlike the vision statement, it is short-term in nature. However,
it is related to the vision statement in that it outlines the primary goals that will help to
achieve the future the organization desires (i.e, the vision).

Importance of vision and mission statement in an organization

Both the vision and mission statements play an important role in the organization. Below
is a look at these roles:
 1. The vision and mission statements define the purpose of the organization and
instill a sense of belonging and identity to the employees. This motivates them to
work harder in order to achieve success.
2. The mission statement acts as a “North Star”, where it provides the direction that
is to be followed by the organization while the vision statement provides the goal
(or the destination) to be reached by following this direction.
3. The vision and mission statements help to properly align the resources of an
organization towards achieving a successful future.
4. The mission statement provides the organization with a clear and effective guide
for making decisions, while the vision statement ensures that all the decision made
are properly aligned with what the organization hopes to achieve.
5. The vision and mission statements provide a focal point that helps to align
everyone with the organization, thus ensuring that everyone is working towards a
single purpose. This helps to increase efficiency and productivity in the
organization.

The vision and mission statements are important tools of strategic planning, and thus they
help to shape the strategy that will be used by an organization to achieve the desired
future.
The importance of objectives

Whether you know it consciously or not, all individuals usually have objectives that they
hope to accomplish. However, clearly defining these objectives and visually focusing on
them is what sets most of us apart.Businesses are social organizations and in this respect
also need a set of objectives in order to stay focused appropriately allocated time, money
and other resources. As with the individual, the business’ objectives will keep everyone
motivated and interested in meeting the common target.

Conclusion

The mission and vision statements are very important and they can best be described as a
compass and destination of the organization respectively. Therefore, every organization
should develop clear vision and mission statements, as not doing so woulApplying
Mission and Vision Statements to Organizational Strategy
The mission and vision statements of a company help direct the organizational strategy.
Both provide purpose and goals, which are necessary elements of a strategy. They outline
the audience for the business, and what that audience finds important. By identifying
these elements, the business executives can develop a more step-by-step strategy that
helps the company achieve its mission in the short term, and its vision in the long term.

Mission and vision statements help businesses to outline performance standards and
metrics based on the goals they want to achieve. They also provide employees with a
specific goal to attain, promoting efficiency and productivity.

Mission and vision statements aren’t only necessary for employees and business owners
when it comes to the organizational strategy. They also apply to external stakeholders like
customers, partners and suppliers. The mission and vision statements can be used as a
public-relations tools to attract media attention, engage specific audience segments and
develop business partnerships with like-minded companies.

NRSP

Established in 1991, NRSP is the largest Rural Support Programme in the country in
terms of outreach, staff and development activities. It is a not for profit organization
registered under Section 42 of Companies Ordinance 1984. (Registration Certificate)

NRSP's mandate is to alleviate poverty by harnessing people's potential and undertake

development activities in Pakistan. It has a presence in 72 Districts in all the four
Provinces including Azad Jammu and Kashmir through Regional Offices and Field
Offices. NRSP is currently working with 3.6 million poor households organized into a
network of 230,239 Community Organizations. With sustained incremental growth, it is
emerging as Pakistan's leading engine for poverty reduction and rural development.

Vision and Purpose

NRSP works to release the potential abilities, skills and knowledge of rural men and
women, to enable them to articulate their aspirations and to effectively marshal the
resources they need to meet their identified needs. The purpose is poverty alleviation -
enabling people to break the cycle of poverty, which begins with lack of opportunity,
extends to the well-known miseries of economic and nutritional poverty and leads new
generations to endure the same conditions. The process is social mobilization - bringing
people together on new terms for a common purpose. The conceptual tools are 'social
guidance' (recruiting local men and women who will take on a leadership role), advocacy,
capacity building and awareness raising. The programmatic tools are training, support to
institutions, micro-credit, infrastructure development, natural resource management and
'productive linkages'.

Our purpose as an advocate for the poor is to bring the concerns of economically-
marginal men and women to public consciousness and to affect policy so that the poor are
brought into the mainstream of the economy.

NRSP's vision is manifested in expanded opportunities for income-generation;

community schools which provide quality primary education, community owned and
managed infrastructure schemes, improved agricultural productivity, and higher returns
for labour and so on. From the widest perspective the vision is manifested as the first
stages of a transformation of civil society.

As of May 2020 a total of 3,618,045 rural men and women decided it would be to their
advantage to take part in NRSP's social mobilization process, believing it to be the best
way to address the problems of poverty and under-development in their villages.

For both new and long-term CO members, participation brings about new levels of
awareness concerning service provision and infrastructure development in their villages.
CO membership also helps people to improve their asset base, by increasing both their
income and their 'social capital'. This might be brought about by adding land to their
holdings, increasing the number of animals they own, pooling economic resources to buy
new and improved inputs and equipment for farms or businesses, or diversifying the stock
for their small shops.

CO participation enables people to accumulate savings, perhaps for the first time in their
lives. It gives the rural poor access to an affordable financial service (micro credit) that is
designed specifically for them. It provides an outlet through which to invest their savings
for household needs and community development schemes. For some of the very poorest
and most vulnerable people, such as the former bonded labourers in the NRSP-ILO
Project in Hyderabad, NRSP membership provides the possibility of achieving a foothold
on a more certain and improved economic future.
CO membership enables rural men and women to greatly expand the purchasing power of
their savings and other assets. The best example is NRSP's partnership with the Pakistan
Poverty Alleviation Fund, in which the CO's contribution of 20% of the cost of a
community physical infrastructure scheme is multiplied fourfold by the PPAF grant. As
of May 2020 a total of 469,548 rural households benefited from these CPIs: in all, CO
contributions of Rs 765,458,565 were parlayed into schemes worth Rs 4,325,833,741.
Other examples of leverage are found in numerous small-scale partnerships between
NRSP, COs and the private or public sectors.

M. H. Khan's study of NRSP COs found " ... there is a 7.5% additional increase in income
over non-members leading to significant economic impact on the participating households
in terms of their total and farm income, total expenditure, savings, consumer durable
goods, and children in school and it tends to increase with time ...".

The fact that NRSP works in 72 Districts that encompass diverse socio-economic,
geographical and cultural conditions is evidence that the paradigm of social development
which NRSP embraces can be applied successfully anywhere in Pakistan. Wherever it
operates, NRSP is always working to improve its performance, to reach more deeply into
communities, to learn how best to respond to the issues people identify as their priorities,
and to work more efficiently and cost-effectively to deliver the programme. NRSP is
committed to continuously refining its development vision. Despite the complexity of the
task, poverty-alleviation remains the purpose of NRSP’s existence.

Objective

The main objective of NRSP is to foster a countrywide network of grassroots level

organizations to enable rural communities to plan, implement and manage developmental
activities and programmes for the purpose of ensuring productive employment,
alleviation of poverty and improvement in the quality of life.

NRSP is designed in such a way that it specializes as a support organization, which

provides social guidance to the communities. The guiding tenets of NRSP’s philosophy
are to organize rural communities develop their capital base at the local level through
savings and credit schemes, support human development endeavors and link the
communities with the government service delivery departments, donors, NGOs and the
private sector. While interacting with so many stakeholders, NRSP carefully outlines its
 role as that of a facilitator. This leads the communities and other partners to maintain their
relationship independent of NRSP.

The generic principles of NRSP’s philosophy prevent it from following a preconceived

package approach. The whole quest is to identify and support whatever activities
communities intend to do on their own according to their prioritized needs.

The only reliable indicator to assess a community’s willingness to achieve a particular

goal is the intensity of its previous endeavors to accomplish that desire and the
persistence and consistently towards the work.

Strategy

To harness people's potential to help themselves

Approach

To mobilize people's willingness through the provision of social guidance, NRSP takes
the following steps:

 Relying on local perceptions, a poverty profile is prepared to assess the intensity

of poverty prevailing in the community that seeks social guidance.
 The willing community is introduced to the philosophy of NRSP, based on
which the community organizes itself into a socially viable group called the
community organization (CO). In view of the information provided by the poverty
profile, an attempt is made to encourage the poor to join the CO.
 During initial interactions with the community, genuine activists, who have an
ambition to support their communities in their quest to overcome poverty, are
identified. The role of these activists in harnessing the willingness of the communities
is of paramount significance.
 Following the identification of an activist, a micro plan for each member is
developed to see what he or she is willing to do on his/her own. Along with catering to
the individual needs, group level and village level needs are also identified. A
thorough analysis of each is conducted in view of available resources and constraints
to assign priorities to the identified needs.
 The next step after the cost-benefit analysis, is the arrangement of the desired
resources to address the priority needs. These resources are pooled by the community,
 provided by the support organization or managed through other stakeholders like
private and public sector service delivery departments, NGOs and donors.

Programme Philosophy

The core assumption of NRSP’s philosophy is that there is a tremendous willingness

amongst the people to help themselves. However, people cannot harness this willingness
on their own. There is a need to mobilize it. To achieve this, a support mechanism is
required that can ensure the provision of social guidance to the people. Social guidance
initiates a process wherein the communities learn to organize into socially viable groups,
enhance their skills, expand their collective and individual resource base and optimally
utilize their available resources. Experience has taught NRSP that in the process of social
guidance, the availability of an honest local level activist is vital.

The idea behind the process of social guidance is to find out what people really want to
do themselves and to assess whether whatever they want to do is possible while keeping
in view the resource constraints. If it seems that the identified activity is practical, then
NRSP assists the community in arranging the desired resources which may be credit,
technical assistance, or specialized skill training for overcoming those constraints.

As a result of effective management, despite financial constraints, NRSP has managed to

extent its programme outreach to twenty four districts of all four provinces and Azad
Jammu & Kashmir (AJK).

Historical Perspective

The problems of the rural poor in Pakistan are many. These include low production, low
prices, low incomes, low wages, meager savings and unemployment due to which the
rural populace struggle day by day to fight against the never ending abyss of debt and
destitution.

In addition, over-population is leading to pressure on the capacity of natural resources,

upon which the livelihood of the rural poor depends. Many millions live in abject poverty,
marginalized from the mainstream and often hidden from the public eye. Apparently, the
rural poor have no hope to improve their quality of life.
 Development administrators of the ilk of Brayne, in colonial India, once held that the
rural poor had only themselves to blame for their poverty and misery; ignorant, lazy and
morally bankrupt.

An objective analysis of the rural poor has indicated that they are not a homogenous
group but are differentiated with respect to socio-economic conditions, agro-ecological
situations and religio-cultural patterns. They also have certain commonalties such as;
landlessness or small subsistence holding, isolation from the main economy, unorganized
and leaderless, lack capital and have no access to credit, and lack of marketable skills.

The late Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan, an eminent development scholar of international fame
called this the peasant mentality. In his view the poor in the sub-continent are mainly
subsidy oriented, look for doles, are fatalistic and follow factionalism. These
characteristic elements essentially translated into lack of capacity of the rural poor to
change their own lot. These are remediable defects, unlike the impression Brayne had, of
the shortcomings of the villagers being irremediable.

Among the lessons that can be drawn from past efforts and the current situation of the
rural poor, we can say that:

 In order to make use of economies of scale in the production and marketing

processes and compete effectively in input, output and capital markets, small farmers
and landless agricultural laborers require incentives, opportunities and the
organizational capacity to develop cohesion, discipline, human skills, and the capital
necessary to plan and implement development activities.
 Many efforts in rural development have tended to increase dependence on
development agencies rather than enhancing local capacity to conceive and undertake
development activities in accordance with local priorities and opportunities.
 The specialized agencies for training, credit, input supply, extension etc. set up
by governments are often hampered in their effectiveness and reach by the lack of a
strong and broad institutional base at the village level.
 At the village level, utilization of different resources tends to be integrated
systemically. Development agencies, however, tend to be organized on a sectoral or
functional basis instead of following an integrated, multi-functional approach. To
make optimal use of the village opportunities, it is important that villagers have the
 management capacity to integrate the assistance available from outside agencies with
their own specific needs.
 Many efforts at promoting group cooperation and activity have been captured by
special interests that seek only to maximize their own benefits. To meet this problem
requires special procedures and discipline that ensure participation of all possible
beneficiaries, and effective supervision of the development process.
Over the past decades, South Asian governments have taken various initiatives to create
anti-poverty programmes. However, despite the allocation of large sums of capital and
organizational effort, little seems to have been achieved on the ground. This failure at
poverty alleviation can be attributed to the following major factors:

Following a development paradigm alien to the region, utilitarianism sectoral imbalances,

conventional top-down strategies, ad-hocism, inequitable distribution of assets,
inaccessibility to technological innovations and finance, lack of rural productive
infrastructure, over-exploitation of natural resources, inadequate development of the
social sector, the use of development resources as political patronage, and viewing the
poor as a liability, therefore, to be shunned, ignored and disregarded.

This obviously led to the exclusion of a large number of rural poor from benefiting out of
the government initiated programmes, hence increasingly marginalizing them.

An Acceptable Solution

One solution, held for many decades, to the problem of small scale farm operation was
collectivization of the kind implemented in China and the former Soviet Union. The other
one practiced in the capitalist world envisages rapid transformation of agriculture into a
corporate system. Neither suited the rural poor of the Third World. A solution that was
needed was one that preserved the private ownership of land; at the same time it called for
pooling of resources and their cooperative management at the village level.

More specifically, it was felt that there was a dire need for combination of principles and
implementation methods which have been employed successfully to organize the rural
poor around their interests, and to service these rural organizations in a permanent and
profitable manner.
The philosophy proposed for the working of NRSP was extracted from the experience of
countries with flourishing small holder agricultural sectors. These are the principles of
Raiffeissen used with success in the institutionally based development of German
agriculture. The Japanese pursued the same principles. These principles of village
organization were also adopted with successful results in Taiwan and by the Saemaul
Undong movement in the Republic of South Korea.

In Pakistan, these ideas were first made the basis of a rural development effort by Dr.
Akhter Hameed Khan, when he initiated the Comilla project in 1959, in what is now
Bangladesh. These ideas have further been tested and proved to be successful by the
implementation of integrated development through a participatory approach by the Aga
Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) in the Northern Areas, under the leadership of
Mr. Shoaib Sultan Khan during the eighties.

The lessons learnt from AKRSP proved that organization of the poor was the best means
to alleviate poverty. Here community participation was broad-based and decentralized
with homogenous organizations at the village and neighborhood level.

Broad-based and homogenous membership was extended to all the members and decision
making was unanimous by all the members whose common economic interest was best
served by working together. Decentralized participation meant that decision making was
the responsibility of the local communities while supporting agencies, like government
and other development agencies provided technical and financial assistance, but did not
infringe upon the sovereignty of the community organization. In other words, community
participation ensured development of, for and by the people.

Community Participation

The importance of a support mechanism for implementing the conceptual package is

central. The programmes for the poor can only be effectively implemented if these are led
by an autonomous support structure, committed to the creation of a participatory village
level institutional framework. The traditional approach of establishing a large number of
specialized agencies (for training, credit, input supplies and extension etc.) for reaching
the poor has failed because they were hampered in their effectiveness by the absence of a
strong and broad institutional base at the village level. Creation of a village level
institutional framework does not fall in the purview of any of these agencies.
NRSP was therefore set up as a Rural Support Programme, which has taken the lead in
the creation, promotion and support of effective and disciplined community organizations
to manage rural development in Pakistan on a nationwide level. Wherever possible,
existing or proposed organizations of the communities have also been used or
incorporated into this effort provided that they were willing to operate in accordance with
the principles and terms of partnership offered by NRSP.