From the desk of Harvest President Kate Keller
Values are our guardrails that help us navigate the world. They are no different for an organization as they are for us individually. An organization’s values make a statement to the world about what they believe in and how they behave. As Harvest wrapped up its strategic planning process, reviewing and updating our value statements was the final step. We saved this for last because we needed to learn along the way and then reflect on who we are and who we want to be.
At our June Board Retreat, the board and staff dug deep into what makes us tick. We shared all the values that we think align with who we are and then the prioritizing began. We have lots of values but asked ourselves what are the most important. We gathered the concepts and spent the next few months trying to capture their essence in statements.
This month, the Harvest Board of Directors approved a list of value statements that reflect the organization’s journey over the past twenty years. For the next few months, I’ll share a bit about each statement, so you can understand what the statement means to us.
But first, Harvest’s Values:
- We choose hope.
- We uphold integrity beyond reproach.
- We are committed to our equity in all we do.
- We advocate for an inclusive and united community.
- We are boldly ambitious.
- We are a catalyst for generational change.
- We never walk alone.
The first one shouldn’t be a surprise. You’ve heard us talk about Hope all year. As I’ve written about before, many in our community lack hope for their future and the future of MHC. Hope is an action, it’s a response.
By choosing hope, we choose to be proactive, to be optimistic, and to believe that better times are ahead for everyone. Hope will show up in our grantmaking and the choices we make. We are looking ahead and believing that tomorrow will be better than today.
We uphold integrity beyond reproach. This value is embedded in this organization, deep. Doing things right, by the book, and being transparent about how we are managing and guiding this community resource is a top priority of the board and staff.
Those are just the first two, I’ll dive a little deeper into the others in October and November. In the meantime, enjoy the beauty of our changing season.
