NCCO TASK FORCE on Mission, Vision & Principles

During the end of 2020, the Executive Board prepared and sent to our NCCO membership a member survey designed to get more information about how to move forward as an organization after the August 13th National Board summit with the Reverend Dr. Jamie Washington, titled Building Capacity for an Anti-Racist Organization. Those survey results were analyzed and reported back to the National Board at a meeting on January 14, 2021. Two takeaways from that meeting became apparent:

While NCCO has a purpose as defined in our Constitution, we do not currently have a declared mission statement, visioning statement, or guiding principles. A majority of the National Board strongly supported the articulation of statements of mission, vision, and guiding principles for NCCO.
Both the responses from the membership survey and the discussions of the National Board strongly confirmed the necessity for increased support and accountability for diversity, equity, inclusivity, and access initiatives throughout all of NCCO’s policies, programs, and governance.

With this in mind, the Executive Board approved the creation of this Task Force, its charge, and its membership.

The Charge

The Executive Board of NCCO calls for the formation of a Task Force to examine NCCO’s purpose and to broadly define and recommend statements on mission, vision, and guiding principles to the National Board for consideration. These statements should be written in such a way as to be integrated into the Constitution and/or Bylaws of our organization.

In particular, the Task Force is asked to articulate NCCO’s commitment to and accountability for diversity, equity, inclusivity, and access throughout all of our work to include but not be limited to policy, governance, programming, and structure. In addition, we ask that they integrate the principles of education, advocacy, and community into their recommendations, in light of responses from our membership at large to our recent survey.

We ask the Task Force to review our Bylaws and recommend changes to NCCO’s governance structure as they so determine, to include adjustments to the constitution of the Executive and/or National Boards and also the creation of new standing committees.

The Task Force is encouraged to conduct their inquiry by reaching out to any stakeholders as they deem necessary, and to report their recommendations to the Executive Board by mid-March, so that they might be considered by the full National Board at its next meeting in May 2021.

Approved by NCCO’s Executive Board, January 28, 2021

Task Force Membership

Elizabeth Swanson, chair, NCCO Vice President; University of Colorado-Boulder
Rollo Dilworth, Temple University
Jeffrey Douma, Yale University
Kellori Dower, Santa Ana College
Mariana Farah, University of Kansas
Katherine FitzGibbon, Lewis & Clark College
Michael McGaghie, Macalester College
Jace Saplan, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

Outcomes

The task force recommended changes to the National Board in April 2021, and the National Board voted to adopt those changes at their May 26, 2021 board meeting.

These changes included the adoption of our mission and vision statements, the creation of the Mission and Vision in Governance Task Force, the creation of the Director of Affinity Groups executive board position, and the adoption of language on non-discrimination and inclusivity for our Constitution.

The Task Force concluded its work on May 26, 2021.