If you haven’t already created vision and mission statements for your library ministry, now is the time! Vision and Mission are essential to the planning process, and you cannot move forward without them. They will direct and guide the remainder of the planning process. Your congregation probably has at least one of these statements, and that can serve as a jumping off ground for your library’s statements.

There is conflicting advice on how to construct these statements. In my graduate school course, the professor argued that the vision statement is a short, concise statement that declares the dream or driving ideal for your organization. The mission statement is then the longer, more detailed statement of current purpose – what is your library’s function within the congregation right now. I admit, I struggle with these definitions as I am accustomed to seeing mission statements as the concise statement of purpose and vision statements as the more elaborate statement of what an organization hopes to achieve. I encourage you to take a cue from your congregation and follow whatever format they have used in their vision and mission statements and mirror the library’s after their model.

Examples of a vision statement are the tag lines I have used for Mission: Information. We started out with the tag line, “Connecting congregations to the world through information services.” This changed to, “Rethinking library and information ministries,” when our website was redesigned in 2010. As the vision clarifies and sharpens, the vision statement/tag line changes to reflect those clarifications. Followers will notice a new manifestation of our vision with our next web incarnation: “Empowering library ministries.”

As I revisit the progression of my vision for Mission: Information, I notice that with each iteration the statement is more concise, more direct, more powerful. Vision statements are meant to be bold – dream big! Imagine the greatest possibility and encapsulate it in a short statement. This is your vision.

The mission statement can then be the more formulaic, “The mission of [fill in the blank] is to [enumerated tasks].” I offer up the mission statement I crafted for my former church library:

The mission and purpose of the William D. Thomson Library at Druid Hills UMC is to support the church’s mission as it is “called to embody a resurrection faith.” It seeks to enhance the church’s ministry by helping individuals develop an understanding of the Christian faith and by providing resources for disciple making.

This is a fairly straightforward mission statement for a church library that draws directly from the church’s mission statement, elaborating upon it with activity specific to library ministry. Some church libraries may want to be more specific or original in their mission statements, highlighting unique projects or ways they contribute to the community. I would strongly encourage church libraries to reference the church’s mission statement in its own mission statement, even if it is only in a small way. The church library is part of the ministry of the congregation as a whole; the church’s mission statement applies to the library just as it does to all the church’s other ministries.

With school starting and the crispness of autumn returning to the air, I cannot help but feel this is the season for new beginnings and fresh starts. It may seem odd, especially since Spring is the season for new birth and new life. But for me, Fall has always been the season of new beginnings. What better time than to take stock of where we’ve been, look at where we want to go, and lay out some solid plans of how to get there? Yes, it’s time to start strategic planning!

I have avoided the strategic planning process for several months now. Mission:Information is in dire need of a strategic plan and I am in need of a the chance to get all my thoughts out onto paper and figure out how my visions for this ministry will happen. Perhaps you are in the same place with your library ministry? You’ve got some ideas for a new project, need a new marketing strategy, want to finally get around to weeding your collection, conducting an inventory, or look into automation. The planning process can help to focus our attentions, hone our visions and give us a sense of order amidst the chaos. Yet, I am daunted by the mere thought of engaging in the process. But engage I must, and I encourage you to do the same. So, we’ll spend the next few weeks looking at the strategic planning process and how to use it to strengthen our library ministries.

First, an overview. There are many websites out there on how to craft a strategic plan, and many of them are fine and usable resources. For the writings I share here, I am primarily informed by one of my graduate school classes, “Management of Information Organizations.” (Yes, I pulled out all my old coursework and even listened to a recorded lecture to help motivate me to tackle the planning process!)

There are five main stages for developing a strategic plan. Some of these you may have already done while developing your collection development policy. If it hasn’t been too long since you reviewed your collection development policy (CDP), you could probably cut and paste from your CDP into your strategic plan. If you haven’t reviewed your CDP in the last two years or so, take the time to use review and revise the corresponding elements for your plan and use the same revisions to help guide your complete CDP review (it is advisable to tackle that task after you have completed the planning process – don’t want to be doing too many things at once!)

Stage 1: Establish the background information of your ministry.
Stage 2: Vision and Mission Statements.
Stage 3: Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT).
Stage 4: Set forth Strategic Outcomes
Stage 5: Action Plans

Each of these stages deserve a focused treatment, and I don’t want to overwhelm readers by trying to cover everything in one post. Check back over the coming days and weeks for individual posts on each of these stages.

In a final word about strategic planning for today, I would like to share something that is impacting the way I think of planning. The strategic plan model is much different from previous business planning models that were prevalent pre-1990s. Those planning models were very linear in design and thought, focusing on setting goals and the steps necessary toward achieving these goals. Strategic planning is more about developing strategies and setting a direction for your ministry, project, or organization. It is a flexible document, something to revisit and revise as you become clearer about each of the elements and as you evaluate how your organization is functioning. Speaking as someone who is drawn toward to-do lists, obsessed with setting goals and checking things off, developing a strategic plan for Mission:Information will require a slight shift in my natural approach to planning. In the past, my tendency has been to set impossibly high and lofty goals, only to consistently fall short and feel rotten in the process. Shifting the focus away from setting goals and on the more practical and flexible principle of setting directions and developing strategies, I have hope that this will be a healthier and more uplifting planning process than what I have known previously.

Thanks for joining me on this journey!