We’ve made some great progress around here in thinking through our mission and vision. At one level, we’ve always known what we wanted to set out and do, and had a mission statement as well. But it never was as formalized as it should have been and as I’ve mentioned before, we’ve set out as a group to commit DurhamCares to the same type of rigorous business planning exercise that we expect from the charities we work with. I’ll talk in future entries about the latter stages and completion of the business planning process but for now I’d like to answer the question posed in the title as it’s become apparent during our discussions internally.

We haven’t completely wordsmithed this yet, but the vision that we have for DurhamCares is as follows:

To transform Durham into a community of people who truly live the value of “Love Thy Neighbor” meaning they generously give of their time and resources to helping each other.

To do this we seek to:

1. Encourage and Challenge Durham’s CITIZENS to give of their time and their money to causes that better the human condition in Durham

AND

2. Encourage and Challenge Durham’s CHARITIES to excel in their core missions at the same time they would become more attractive to potential donors and volunteers.

It’s in this second point that lies the answer to the question posed above. That’s not to say that the way we approach working with Durham’s citizens will also have some unique characteristics…..for instance the way in which we do high touch volunteer matching and follow up, the way in which we do promotion and outreach etc….....BUT what is very unique is the way in which we are working with charities to help them communicate that they are WORTHY RECIPIENTS of Durham’s citizens time and money.

You see, we think that folks will feel compelled to get involved not just because their neighbor encourages them, a co-worker challenges them or the Bible tells them to do so, BUT because they can (much more clearly than they can today) see the impact that the charity makes in the community AND does so in the language that donors and volunteers understand.

Here’s how we’re going to do this:

We’re going to ask each charity that we work with to submit a plan for 2009 that includes operating metrics…...measurable goals that they seek to achieve in the coming year. In turn, we’re going to publish those goals both subjective (roll out a new program, increase training for our volunteers, etc.) and objective (serve x# of kids, shelter y# of homeless, etc.) on a new tab on the site called “Projections” that will be placed right along side the current tabs entitled “Investment” and “Return”.....see we’re trying to talk in the language that donors expecting a return will best understand.

When a charity is successful in achieving these goals we’re going to do the following:

1. Sing their praises from the rooftops. PROMOTION is, of course, one of the key benefits that we bring to citizens and charities alike. Our general thought is that fewer than 2% of Durham’s citizens have ever heard of organizations like the Durham Eagles and that less than 1/10 of 1% have ever given money to them. We seek to change that.

2. Give them MONEY. We will be setting aside a minimum of $5,000 for each charity (and in several instances, $10,000) to serve as a DurhamCares challenge grant. They achieve their goals, they get the money.

3. Enlist others to match and/or add to DurhamCares challenge grants. We’ll have a feature on each “Projections” tab that will allow donors to pledge either MONEY or VOLUNTEERing time if the charity hits their projections.

We’re hopeful, though, that the chief benefit for these organizations will be the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS that they’ll see as they go through the planning process. We’ve already received great feedback from BigBrothers/BigSisters and others that this process has been a good one for them…something that’s very encouraging for us.

So in conclusion, while there is and will be much that is unique about DurhamCares, it’s in the way that we work with charities to be worthy recipients of Durham’s citizens time and money that is most unique, and more importantly, will be most effective as we seek to transform Durham into a community that gives freely of their time and money as they “Love Thy Neighbor”

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