Dear all,

Following on from my suggestion in Stockholm that we should have a mission statement, I have been working on one with a few members mainly from SEI and GIZ. In the original email I copied some information from Wikipedia to give us guidelines as to what a mission statement should be and look like, and an example.

I print this here:

A Mission Statement should:

· Define what the organisation is;
· Be limited to exclude some ventures;
· Be broad enough to allow for creative growth;
· Distinguish the company from all others;
· Serve as a framework to evaluate current activities;
· Be stated clearly so that it is understood by all.

Vern McGinis

Example:
Courtyard by Marriott - "To provide economy and quality minded travellers with a premier, moderate priced lodging facility which is consistently perceived as clean, comfortable, well-maintained, and attractive, staffed by friendly, attentive and efficient people"

It has had some evolving and went from these:
1.
SuSanA provides a visible user friendly information-sharing platform for existing and emerging sustainable sanitation systems, which can play a role in the provision of long-term solutions wherever they may be needed.
2.
SuSanA is a visible platform and community of practice to exchange knowledge on sustainable sanitation systems, in the provision of long-term integrated sanitation, water and hygiene solutions for the communities of the world.
3.
SuSanA unites practitioners, policy makers and academia around the vision of sustainable sanitation and provides a visible user friendly information-sharing (and networking) platform for the members with information on existing and emerging sustainable sanitation systems, which can play a role in the provision of long-term solutions wherever they may be needed.

to this, the latest version:

SuSanA is an informal network of organisations and individuals that share a common vision relating to sustainable sanitation solutions. It provides a platform for discussion and interaction, and contributes to international dialogue in order to encourage integrated sanitation, water and hygiene policies.

Bearing in mind the guidelines and example given above, we would welcome your input as to the latest version and any suggestions you may have. It needs to be sharp, snappy and informative.

Dear David,

In my view, one thing that distinguishes SuSanA from others and with a high added value is the open sharing of knowledge. It could be added in the sentence : it provides a platform for discussion, open sharing of knowledge etc...
Thank you for starting this discussion !

Best regards,

Cecile

Dear SuSanA community

We have received some feedback via email from some core group members on the mission statement which I am posting here.

Christoph Lüthi (Eawag/Sandec) responded with the following:



Conrad Thombansen (GIZ) put forward the following two versions


Please encourage everyone you know in the SuSanA community to read this thread and contribute to it. As consensus building requires many voices.

Kind regards
Trevor

Dear David

Just before you wind-up on this search of 'mission statement' I reckon you may consider SuSanA as a 'hub of information exchange,education and awareness creation' and probably add 'also dissemination of this information to stakeholders in the sanitation sector'.

Thanking you

S.Mwaniki

Dear SuSanA community

After some more discussion, the following refined SuSanA mission statement has been submitted via email by Conrad Thombansen (GIZ);

We look forward to receiving more input to this discussion about the mission statement of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA).

Rgds
Trevor

I don't think the word "uniting" is appropriate here. This is not the "United Nations for Sanitation." I would prefer use of words like sharing and interacting.

Before refining the mission statement, I would invite attention to the title "Sustainable Sanitation Alliance" and its abbreviation "SuSanA." They appear a bit odd. I think the readers should first suggest simple title. Abbreviation will follow easily.

The purpose of sanitation solutions is to provide benefits to the people. During my nearly 40 years’ of experience in water and sanitation, I always advocate that no real benefits from sanitation solutions can be obtained, unless hygiene aspects are also involved (and, water is embedded in hygiene). And, I have the first hand experience of the issue. The title, therefore, may have some reflection of hygiene; even though, say, sanitation takes 75% share and hygiene takes 25% share, in the sanitation network.

F H Mughal

my take on SuSanA's mission statement - feel free to borrow - re-work - etc ...

SuSanA is an open collaborative space where on the ground experiences are linked to a deep community made up of practitioners, policy makers, and academia working to promote sustainable sanitation innovations, research, and events.

or Maybe mission statements could be 2 sentences - ?

SuSanA is a platform dedicated to promoting sustainable sanitation innovations, research, and events. It links on the ground experiences with a deep rooted engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers, and academia.

Dear all, thank you to those who have contributed to this discussion. I apologise that I have not been able to get back to this subject sooner, but it has been a little busy!

When I started this process I spoke to several brand and marketing experts who suggested keeping things simple, avoid jargon and don't try to be all things to all people. Many of their ideas will be reflected in our website as it evolves over the next few months. We are a very jargon driven industry, although sometimes we don't realise this (I have tried to reduce the times I use the word 'interventions' as this is a word that is not in general usage, yet we use a lot). I like bits of what you all have written so I will do my best to come up with a collaborative next version. I am leaving for India in mid November and not back until mid-December, and at that point we may have had new suggestions that will enable further refinement.

I have gone over this several times and at the moment I think it is a bit clumsy. Let's get a broad consensus and then I can tidy up the next version.


SuSanA is an informal network dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions, while helping the development of best practice and integrated policy templates. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia.


Regards, David

Thank you David for taking this discussion further!

Here my comments:
1) There may be a way to turn it the way that the members and partners of SuSanA are actually "dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions
2) Optionally, aspects on what SuSanA is offering to its members and how it works could be included. Key words are: coordination platform, working platform, sounding board or It provides a platform for discussion and interaction...

All together we would get something like:

SuSanA is an informal network of individuals and organisations dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions. It provides a platform for discussion and interaction, helping the development of best practice and integrated policy templates. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia.

Regards,
Dorothee

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to developing the mission statement further. To me Dorothee's version reads quite elaborate now, and I can certainly find myself in this.

Dear all
Thank you all for this very interesting discussion arround the mission statement.
At SEI we sat down and looked at varios statements and we did not at this time have Dorothee statement at hand which is good statement however we want a statement where we would be able to recognize SuSanA.
We are very much in favor of the mission statement from Eawag-Sandec
“SuSanA is an information network of organizations and individuals that share a common vision of sustainable sanitation solutions.
SuSanA provides an open platform for discussion, collaboration and knowledge sharing and its working groups contributes to
international dialogues in order to encourage best practices and integrated policies in the sanitation , hygiene and water sector.”

We really beleive that the vision document is the glue that tie us together and unite us therefor it is very important to mention it. We also think that the word viable is implicit in the formulation of sustaianable sanitation so we would like to take it out from the mission statement.
All the best from the north....snow in Stockholm today
madeleine

The following is a reply received via email, which I am posting here with Belinda's consent.



I have received a number of replies via email, but will only post them once I have consent from the authors.

Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

Posting with consent from Christoph



Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

Thank you everyone for your work on the mission statement. I agree with the process Belinda suggested and the wording she, Christoph and Madeleine advocated. (Perhaps the term "model policies"" could replace "integrated policy templates"?)

Below is the version I circulated among PHLUSH members and am commenting on.

“SuSanA is an informal network dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions, while helping the development of best practice and integrated policy templates. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia.”

In my individual capacity as a SuSanA volunteer who helps with Working Group info tracking and editing, I think it's fine. The mission statement tells me what to look for and how to stay on task.

As for PHLUSH (Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human), we work in an environment as isolated as any other in the "developing world". We are all-volunteer group promoting 1) public toilet design and availability 2) ecological sanitation and 3) emergency toilets for the earthquake vulnerable Pacific Northwest. Our focus is on education, advocacy, and code change in North America. SuSanA is where we turn for much of the information that informs our actions.

We value exchanges with the SuSanA Secretariat and other members. Visit us online, join the discussion on at PortlandPHLUSH, follow us on Twitter, and sign up for newsletter. Consider submitting articles for our blog or visiting us in Portland, Oregon, USA. www.phlush.org

Posted with consent from Darren:


Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

Dear all,

Overall, I like it but the reference to "integrated policy templates" did strike me as needing rewording to something that put more emphasis on implementation.

Therefore, I would suggest something like :

SuSanA is an informal, INTERNATIONAL network WITH MEMBERS WHO ARE dedicated to researching and DEVELOPING viable and sustainable sanitation solutions. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia, with the aim to PROMOTE INNOVATION and best practiceS in POLICY, PROGRAMMING AND IMPLEMENTATION.

best regards,

Jonathan

Dr. Jonathan Parkinson
Programmes Manager

email : This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Telephone: + 44 20 300 48528
Mobile: + 44 770 220 2646

twitter.com/#!/jparkinson_IWA

International Water Association
Alliance House, 12 Caxton Street
London SW1H 0QS, UK

www.iwahq.org

Conference on Decentralised Wastewater Management in Asia – Meeting Urban Sanitation Challenges at Scale
Nagpur, November 20-23 November
iwadewats-nagpur.com

Company registered in England No. 3597005
Registered Charity (England) No. 1076690

I also agree with the content of the mission statement from a personal and from BOKU's view. I leave the final wording to native english speakers.
Guenter

Posted with consent from Saidi


Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

Posted with consent from Elke


Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

Posted with consent from Leif:


Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

Dear All

Since this Mission Statement debate began a few months ago, I always felt that there was something amiss and what should have been discussed was "Policy Guidelines for the SuSanA forum" which is a discussion of a larger scope and meaning than the Mission Statement.

What is meant here is that somebody somewhere failed to take note that we jumped the gun.What precedes any mission is a vision.And one can't go on a mission without a purpose or in other-words, objectives of the mission.

Does anyone else picture what I see? Do I have any support?

Best regards

S.Mwaniki

Dear Trevor,

Thanks a lot for guiding us through this process and for having contacted the core group members one by one and then putting everything together in the forum! Very painstaking work and very useful.

Looking over the thread, I like Jonathan's suggestion a lot - it is plain language and easy to understand without unnecessary jargon and pretentious wording. Belinda is right to point out that the English needs to be kept simple and "translatable". Sometimes, when you try to translate into French, Spanish or German you realise that you don't know what the English words really mean...

Let me just repeat Jonathan's suggestion here:
SuSanA is an informal, INTERNATIONAL network WITH MEMBERS WHO ARE dedicated to researching and DEVELOPING viable and sustainable sanitation solutions. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia, with the aim to PROMOTE INNOVATION and best practiceS in POLICY, PROGRAMMING AND IMPLEMENTATION.

Dear Steven Mwaniki,

You are right to ask where is SuSanA's vision before we talk about a mission?
Well, SuSanA does have a really important vision document for sustainable sanitation. This is the founding document of SuSanA - the one that all SuSanA partners have agreed to when they joined. So important that we translated it into several languages. Please see here:
www.susana.org/lang-en/sustainable-sanit.../267-vision-document

We also formulated a goal and objectives for SuSanA (could these be translated into a vision?), see here:
www.susana.org/lang-en/sustainable-sanit...ctives-of-the-susana

This is what is says there:
++++++++++++

+++++++++

So as you can see we have a clear vision for sustainable sanitation but not a clear vision for SuSanA! That's because SuSanA started out small and we were never that interested in "navel gazing", i.e. looking at ourselves as an organisation until now... But now that SuSanA is big and strong, some members have felt that we must have a mission as SuSanA (and maybe even become a real "organisation" one day?). I think we are close to a nice mission statement which will help us (see above). Do we also need a vision statement for SuSanA now? Not sure.

What do others think?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear all

I would like to draw your attention to the currently ongoing discussion on the future of SuSanA: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/10-by-...xt-5-years-of-susana

Particularly, there is a survey to collect your inputs to the SuSanA roadmap for the next five years.
The mission statement and the future roles of SuSanA, as well as the topics to focus on are also part of the survey.
I invite you all to take 5 minutes and grab this chance to give your feedback here: www.surveymonkey.com/s/SuSanA-strategy-development

Kind regards Dorothee

I agree with Jonathan and Elisabeth. In our vision statement from February 2008 it is defined:

"The overall goal of the SuSanA is to contribute to the achievement of the MDGs by promoting sanitation systems which are taking into consideration all aspects of sustainability."

and

"SuSanA is not a new organisation, but rather a loose network of organisations working along the same lines, and open to others who want to join and be active in the promotion of sustainable sanitation systems. The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance invites other international, regional and local organisations to join the network, contribute ideas, and to become active members in the thematic working groups. Feedback for the advancement of the joint road map is certainly appreciated, as it is work in progress that will be continuously updated, and will include all joint activities leading towards an increased implementation of sustainable sanitation systems."

Is this not enough to describe SuSanA's mission and roadmap for the next 5-years?

The thematic working groups need to be updated. Today, technology, policy, experience and knowledge is further developed than in 2007/2008. Policy makers (Governmental / State-owned organisations) are still underrepresented in SuSanA, same as the Southern American region.

I wish us further success and good luck, Heinz-Peter