VMOSA (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans) is a practical planning

process used to help community groups define a vision and develop practical ways to enact
change. VMOSA helps your organization set and achieve short term goals while keeping sight of
your long term vision. Implementing this planning process into your group's efforts supports
developing a clear mission, building consensus, and grounding your group's dreams. This section
explores how and when to implement VMOSA into your organization's planning process.

WHAT IS VMOSA?
One way to make that journey is through strategic planning, the process by which a group
defines its own "VMOSA;" that is, its Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans.
VMOSA is a practical planning process that can be used by any community organization or
initiative. This comprehensive planning tool can help your organization by providing a blueprint
for moving from dreams to actions to positive outcomes for your community.
In this section, we will give a general overview of the process, and touch briefly on each of the
individual parts. In Examples, we'll show you how an initiative to prevent adolescent pregnancy
used the VMOSA process effectively. Then, in Tools, we offer you a possible agenda for a
planning retreat, should your organization decide to use this process. Finally, the remaining
sections in this chapter will walk you through the steps needed to fully develop each portion of
the process.

WHY SHOULD YOUR ORGANIZATION USE VMOSA?

Why should your organization use this planning process? There are many good reasons,
including all of the following:

 The VMOSA process grounds your dreams. It makes good ideas possible by laying out
what needs to happen in order to achieve your vision.
 By creating this process in a group effort (taking care to involve both people affected by
the problem and those with the abilities to change it), it allows your organization to build
consensus around your focus and the necessary steps your organization should take.
 The process gives you an opportunity to develop your vision and mission together with
those in the community who will be affected by what you do.  That means that your work
is much more likely to address the community’s real needs and desires, rather than what
you think they might be.  It also means community ownership of the vision and mission,
putting everyone on the same page and greatly increasing the chances that any effort will
be successful.
 VMOSA allows your organization to focus on your short-term goals while keeping sight
of your long-term vision and mission.

WHEN SHOULD YOU USE VMOSA?

So, when should you use this strategic planning process? Of course, it always makes sense for
your organization to have the direction and order it gives you, but there are some times it makes
particularly good sense to use this process. These times include:
  When you are starting a new organization.
 When your organization is starting a new initiative or large project, or is going to begin
work in a new direction.
 When your group is moving into a new phase of an ongoing effort.
 When you are trying to invigorate an older initiative that has lost its focus or momentum.
 When you’re applying for new funding or to a new funder.  It’s important under these
circumstances to clarify your vision and mission so that any funding you seek supports
what your organization actually stands for.  Otherwise, you can wind up with strings
attached to the money that require you to take a direction not in keeping with your
organization’s real purpose or philosophy.

Let's look briefly at each of the individual ingredients important in this process. Then, in the next
few sections we'll look at each of these in a more in-depth manner, and explain how to go about
developing each step of the planning process.
VISION (THE DREAM)
Your vision communicates what your organization believes are the ideal conditions for your
community – how things would look if the issue important to you were perfectly addressed. This
utopian dream is generally described by one or more phrases or vision statements, which are
brief proclamations that convey the community's dreams for the future. By developing a vision
statement, your organization makes the beliefs and governing principles of your organization
clear to the greater community (as well as to your own staff, participants, and volunteers).
There are certain characteristics that most vision statements have in common. In general, vision
statements should be:

 Understood and shared by members of the community

 Broad enough to encompass a variety of local perspectives
 Inspiring and uplifting to everyone involved in your effort
 Easy to communicate - for example, they should be short enough to fit on a T-shirt

Here are a few vision statements which meet the above criteria:

 Healthy children
 Safe streets, safe neighborhoods
 Every house a home
 Education for all
 Peace on earth

MISSION (THE WHAT AND WHY)

Developing mission statements are the next step in the action planning process. An organization's
mission statement describes what the group is going to do, and why it's going to do that. Mission
statements are similar to vision statements, but they're more concrete, and they are definitely
more "action-oriented" than vision statements. The mission might refer to a problem, such as an
inadequate housing, or a goal, such as providing access to health care for everyone. And, while
they don't go into a lot of detail, they start to hint - very broadly - at how your organization might
go about fixing the problems it has noted. Some general guiding principles about mission
statements are that they are:

 Concise. Although not as short a phrase as a vision statement, a mission statement should
still get its point across in one sentence.
 Outcome-oriented. Mission statements explain the overarching outcomes your
organization is working to achieve.
 Inclusive. While mission statements do make statements about your group's overarching
goals, it's very important that they do so very broadly. Good mission statements are not
limiting in the strategies or sectors of the community that may become involved in the
project.

The following mission statements are examples that meet the above criteria.

 "To promote child health and development through a comprehensive family and
community initiative."
 "To create a thriving African American community through development of jobs,
education, housing, and cultural pride.
 "To develop a safe and healthy neighborhood through collaborative planning, community
action, and policy advocacy."

While vision and mission statements themselves should be short, it often makes sense for an
organization to include its deeply held beliefs or philosophy, which may in fact define both its
work and the organization itself. One way to do this without sacrificing the directness of the
vision and mission statements is to include guiding principles as an addition to the statements.
These can lay out the beliefs of the organization while keeping its vision and mission statements
short and to the point.

OBJECTIVES (HOW MUCH OF WHAT WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED

BY WHEN)
Once an organization has developed its mission statement, its next step is to develop the specific
objectives that are focused on achieving that mission. Objectives refer to specific measurable
results for the initiative's broad goals. An organization's objectives generally lay out how much
of what will be accomplished by when. For example, one of several objectives for a community
initiative to promote care and caring for older adults might be: "By 2015 (by when), to increase
by 20% (how much) those elders reporting that they are in daily contact with someone who cares
about them (of what)."
There are three basic types of objectives. They are:

 Behavioral objectives. These objectives look at changing the behaviors of people (what
they are doing and saying) and the products (or results) of their behaviors. For example, a
neighborhood improvement group might develop an objective around having an
increased amount of home repair taking place (the behavior) or of improved housing (the
result).
  Community-level outcome objectives. These are related to behavioral outcome objectives,
but are more focused more on a community level instead of an individual level. For
example, the same group might suggest increasing the percentage of decent affordable
housing in the community as a community-level outcome objective.
 Process objectives. These are the objectives that refer to the implementation of activities
necessary to achieve other objectives. For example, the group might adopt a
comprehensive plan for improving neighborhood housing.

It's important to understand that these different types of objectives aren't mutually exclusive.
Most groups will develop objectives in all three categories. Examples of objectives include:

 By December 2010, to increase by 30% parent engagement (i.e., talking, playing,

reading) with children under 2 years of age. (Behavioral objective)
 By 2012, to have made a 40% increase in youth graduating from high school.
(Community -level outcome objective)
 By the year 2006, increase by 30% the percentage of families that own their home.
(Community-level outcome objective)
 By December of this year, implement the volunteer training program for all volunteers.
(Process objective)

STRATEGIES (THE HOW)

The next step in the process of VMOSA is developing your strategies. Strategies explain how the
initiative will reach its objectives. Generally, organizations will have a wide variety of strategies
that include people from all of the different parts, or sectors, of the community. These strategies
range from the very broad, which encompass people and resources from many different parts of
the community, to the very specific, which aim at carefully defined areas.
Examples of broad strategies include:

 A child health program might use social marketing to promote adult involvement with
children
 An adolescent pregnancy initiative might decide to increase access to contraceptives in
the community
 An urban revitalization project might enhance the artistic life of the community by
encouraging artists to perform in the area

Five types of specific strategies can help guide most interventions. They are:

 Providing information and enhancing skills (e.g., offer skills training in conflict
management)
 Enhancing services and support (e.g., start a mentoring programs for high-risk youth)
 Modify access, barriers, and opportunities (such as offering scholarships to students who
would be otherwise unable to attend college)
 Change the consequences of efforts (e.g., provide incentives for community members to
volunteer)
  Modify policies (e.g., change business policies to allow parents and guardians and
volunteers to spend more time with young children)

ACTION PLAN (WHAT CHANGE WILL HAPPEN; WHO WILL DO

WHAT BY WHEN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN)
Finally, an organization's action plan describes in great detail exactly how strategies will be
implemented to accomplish the objectives developed earlier in this process. The plan refers to: a)
specific (community and systems) changes to be sought, and b) the specific action steps
necessary to bring about changes in all of the relevant sectors, or parts, of the community.
The key aspects of the intervention or (community and systems) changes to be sought are
outlined in the action plan. For example, in a program whose mission is to increase youth interest
in politics, one of the strategies might be to teach students about the electoral system. Some of
the action steps, then, might be to develop age-appropriate materials for students, to hold mock
elections for candidates in local schools, and to include some teaching time in the curriculum.
Action steps are developed for each component of the intervention or (community and systems)
changes to be sought. These include:

 Action step(s): What will happen

 Person(s) responsible: Who will do what
 Date to be completed: Timing of each action step
 Resources required: Resources and support (both what is needed and what's available )
 Barriers or resistance, and a plan to overcome them!
 Collaborators: Who else should know about this action

Here are two examples of action steps, graphed out so you can easily follow the flow:
 

Potential
Person(s) Date to be Resources
Action Step Barriers or Collaborators
Responsible Completed Required
Resistance

 Draft a social Terry McNeil April 2006 $15,000 None anticipated Members of the
marketing plan (from (remaining business action
marketing donated) group
firm)

 Ask local Maria Suarez September 5 hours; 2 hour Corporation: may Members of the
corporations to (from business 2008 proposal prep; 3 see this as business action
introduce flex- action group) hours for expensive; must group and the
 time for parents meeting and convince them of school action

and mentors transportation benefit of the plan group

for the corporation
 
Of course, once you have finished designing the strategic plan or "VMOSA" for your
organization, you are just beginning in this work. Your action plan will need to be tried and
tested and revised, then tried and tested and revised again. You'll need to obtain feedback from
community members, and add and subtract elements of your plan based on that feedback.

IN SUMMARY
Everyone has a dream. But the most successful individuals - and community organizations - take
that dream and find a way to make it happen. VMOSA helps groups do just that. This strategic
planning process helps community groups define their dream, set their goals, define ways to
meet those goals, and finally, develop practical ways bring about needed changes.
In this section, you've gained a general understanding of the strategic planning process. If you
believe your organization might benefit from using this process, we invite you to move on to the
next sections of this chapter, which explain in some depth how to design and develop your own
strategic plan.