Don’t think about your vision as a statement with a set number of words. Instead, think about it as a picture of a person — a life that is going to be impacted.
When it comes to raising money, you can only raise money for two things: Changing lives or saving lives. The challenge is to first determine, are we changing lives or are we saving lives? Then, how can we paint the picture of the person we will impact?
A way of doing this is to think of a person who reflects the ideal of what you’re hoping your organization will produce. Where were they when you first saw them or when you first started working with them? What did they become? Even if you just take the one person who embodies that and say, “This is why we do this work.”
Another technique that helps is to imagine that for the next year, every time you talk about your organization, you can only show one photograph of a person. Who would that be? That’s the only image you can show. No slides, no bullet points, no other photos. However, instead of literally showing the picture of this person, determine how you would describe that person. That brings depth to your vision.
If vision is about lives changed or saved, the more you can accompany that vision with a profile that paints a picture of the life, the stronger you’re going to be in communicating your vision.