Introducing Camp Sunshine's New Values Statements
There’s some hazard in introducing a new values statement. What was wrong with the old one, someone might ask. Are we abandoning our long-held values? Are we changing as an organization? In the case of Camp Sunshine, we’re not abandoning any values, and we continue to hold dear the core principles of our previous statement.
What we realized, on reflection, was that our shared work and community would be well-served by stating those values in a way that was clearer to everyone, new to the organization or long-time participants. We realized that adding a layer of interpretation would provide clarity, and that clarity would help us to hold ourselves and each other accountable. Taking the values from concepts to actions would help us to live them in our day-to-day interactions. Describing more active intentions helps with decision-making, whether about long-term strategies or tomorrow’s to-do list.
As Camp Sunshine’s board and staff, we embarked on a months-long process, in parallel with our strategic planning, of discussion, exploration, and iteration. We cross-referenced the values statement Camp Sunshine had had for more than a decade with questions that had arisen about the culture that we intend to nurture and build. We drafted statements, shared them for review and conversation, and revised. Finally, we asked several other nonprofit leaders in our region to review what we’d done for clarity.
This is the product of that work, Camp Sunshine’s statements of commitments our values call us to make:
We commit to honoring the dignity, individuality, sufficiency, agency, and potential of each person.
We commit to welcoming, affirming, and giving voice to persons as they are.
We commit to building a community of compassion and understanding for all volunteers, campers, and staff members.
We commit to patient listening, clear and authentic communication, and using our unique positions, abilities, and voices to advocate for ourselves and others.
We commit to being open to change, transformation, and continual learning, and to providing safety and space for others to do the same.
We commit to cultivating an environment in which our staff, board, volunteers, and participants reflect the breadth of diversity within our communities, including race, religion, ability, geography, and socio-economic status.
We commit to engaging fully with the current reality for each person within our community, holding fast to the belief that people, organizations, and communities can and do change from day to day and year to year.
We commit to recognizing obstacles and barriers and offering accommodations and alternatives.
We commit to expanding accessibility as we build organizational capacity.
Will we be perfect? Unlikely. We’re still human, and life is complicated. We hold some challenging ideals. What our new statements give us, though, is a “red thread” that pulls us in the direction we intend to go. That phrase originates in Greek mythology (although there are other historical references, too), when King Theseus followed a “red thread” to find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. That image fits, because there will be twists and turns for Camp Sunshine—and we will hold on to our red thread.
And that may lead us back to one of the questions that some might ask when they see this introduction of a new values statement: Is Camp Sunshine changing? The answer is yes—and no. As one of our “we commitment” statements describe, we believe organizations, like people, change. We hope that we adapt to changing opportunities in our community, to differing needs as they emerge, and to new constraints that emerge. What we intend to hold the same is our core values, and we believe this new statement, as a living document, will help us to make sure that is true.
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