Where Have We Been?

Je suis desolee

Lo siento

Ik ben droevig

Sono spiacente

Perdoname

......Imi pare rau

It always bothered me that the Romanian translation of ‘sorry’ was not included at the start of this song (pat on the back for those of you who recognise it) much like I’m sure that the loyal and trusty readers of our blog are bothered that it’s been over three weeks since our last posting. We’re sorry. Very sorry. But hopefully by the end of this post, you’ll realise we’ve been really busy with the work of Bridging The Gap and striving to achieve our vision.

If you’re not a fan of us on Facebook (and you can become one here), then you probably don’t have a clue what our vision is. Maybe some of you don’t have a clue what a vision is. Well, don’t worry, we didn’t either. Starting up a new charity has brought us many challenges and a long list of tasks that we’ve had to tick off. Prioritising these tasks is key and at first, we thought that a vision (and mission) statement were not high on that list - *insert the Family Fortunes (Feud if you’re American) buzzer noise here to signify that this was a wrong decision* - big time! You can search all over the internet and find definitions of organisation vision and why it’s important but here’s the one we like –

“A vision statement is your ticket to success. A photograph in words of your company's future, it provides the inspiration for both your daily operations and your strategic decisions.

Without a vision statement, effective business planning would be impossible; it's the vision statement that provides the destination for the journey, and without a destination, how can you plan the route?”

-Source: smallbusinesscanada.com

So we’ve been thinking about exactly what we want to see at Bridging The Gap. Why are we doing what we do? At what point do we see the world where there is no longer a need for what do? Iata, here's what we came up with:

To create a Romania where the needs of charitable organisations making a positive impact on society are met by the communities around them

The most important part of creating the BTG vision statement was the concept of ‘the photograph’. We wanted a real vision that we can picture in our head and one that can allow our friends and supporters to share whenever we tell them about our vision. What images does our vision statement conjure up with you? Utopia? Happiness? Harmony? Peace? Care? Bridges? These are just a few of the suggestions we’ve heard since we started sharing our vision.

It’s with thanks to Academia Nicolae Dumitrescu, our training partners in Moldova, that we have focused so much on our vision and mission statements. Their practice of creating such statements right at the start of a project has helped BTG shape our strategic plan for the next 2 years. You can check out what they do and why they do it here. 

We apologise again for neglecting you – our trusty supporters – and promise to do better in the future. At the beginning of this blog, we said we would tell you about what we had been doing in the last 3 weeks yet we digressed and got talking about our vision. Was this intentional? Who knows, but if you’re a charity (or a company) without a vision, perhaps it’s time you and your team started working on one. Check out this page which gives some great examples of vision statements of large and small NGO’s throughout the world. Bridging The Gap is not on there yet...and we hope it won’t be for a long time. We’re a long way away from achieving it. 

And finally, for those who didn't know the song to which we referred at the beginning, get on your roller skates and enjoy the disco beats.