Above are the first three passes at the Mission statement for MUAN. Any suggestions, thoughts, issues?

My vote is for #3 — it’s direct, concise, easy to grasp. #’s one and two feel clunky.

What are the criteria for a good Mission statement?

Come to think of it, the first two of these actually look more like simple descriptions. Doesn’t a mission statement describe what the organization exists to do? “Our mission is to … “

Hmmm…, Tegan you make a good point. Perhaps an organizational description could look like this:
MUAN is a network of individuals and organizations collaborating to support Milwaukee’s food projects.
Our mission is “to advance Milwaukee urban agriculture and support local food systems through resource and information exchange.”
Just a thought…

I like #3 because it takes off and right away tells about us and what we want to achieve; rather than explaining a network or system with individuals attached which works in a certain way with certain goals in mind. And again, I really want to thank Mary Lou, Tegan, Nicole and Nicole, and Young Kim for such excellent work and quick turnover. MKEURBAG is a dynamic group of people who have come together to raise awareness, understanding and effect change. You are all inspiring and I think Janet is right in learning from the SPIN workshop that Milwaukee is getting it together. It is time for Milwaukee to shine!

My vote is for Mission Statement 3. This statement requires fewer neurons firing to grasp the concept. For me, this is a good thing.

How about to incorporate Tegan’s comments :
“MUAN is a network of organizations and individuals whose mission is to collaborate to support urban agriculutre and promote awareness of the value and importance of a local food system”.
— or:
“---mission is collaborating to support urban ag…etc.” since I don’t know how it reads with 2 “to”s in a row like that.

So

Mission:
As a network of organizations and individuals, to support urban ag and promote awareness of the importance of a local food system by collaborative resource and information exchange.

Or just:
To support urban ag and promote awareness of the importance of a local food system by collaborative resource and information exchange.

??

MUANetwork is a collaboration of organizations and individuals whose mission is to support urban agriculture, exchange information and resources, and promote the importance of our local food system .

MUANetwork is a collaboration of organizations and individuals whose mission is to promote urban agriculture and local food systems, exchange information and resources, and effect food policy.

CAn we post this as MIssion #4?

I definitely prefer version 4. Versions 1 and 2 seem too vague. Version 3 is good, but the main verbs are “to support” and “promote”. Version 4 sounds more active and empowering with verbs like “promote, exchange and effect” —although effect with an ‘e’ is actually a noun I believe. “Affect food policy” might be more grammatically correct. — [whoops! fixed! -Tegan]

it’s affect “have an influence on”, unless you mean “to create” (effect), both words can be noun or verb, a good overview of the four common meanings is at
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/affect.html

personally, “mission is” sounds too much like corp. spin to me, i think it sounds more proactive to just say what is and does:

Organizations and individuals collaborate through MUANetwork to affect local policy in support of urban agriculture, and promote local food systems, by exchange of information and resources.
or
MUANetwork supports urban agriculture and local food systems through the collaboration of orgs and individuals to promote awareness of local policy and the exchange of information and resources.

better (shorter more active) yet:
MUANetwork supports urban agriculture and local food systems through collaboration of orgs and individuals promoting awareness of local policy and exchanging information and resources.

oops, i think this better captures the intent:

MUANetwork supports urban agriculture and local food systems through collaboration of organizations and individuals exchanging information and resources, promoting awareness, and affecting local policy.

MUAN is a network of individuals and organizations collaborating to exchange information, support urban agriculture, promote regional food security and influence local food policy and sustainabliltiy.

I chose number 5, because it seemed closest to what everyone wanted from comments above. If folks are adamant about changing or adding to it, Let me know. I think for our Home page to have 5 mission statements for this long, started to appear we were indecisive, and it seemed it would be better to have one up for the public and we can still change it. If I have completely overstepped the bounds..i apologize. It just didn’t seem to be a major priority at any of the last 3 meetings to make a decision.