Our strategies to achieve results are guided by our vision and our mission:
Sustained conversations, based in mutual respect for diversity, to bring about shared understanding and achieve consensus.
Example: Waipiʻo Community Circle protocols, established at the first gathering, provided a safe facilitated, inclusive environment that allowed participants to come together to make decisions benefitting the entire Valley rather than any one individual or interest.
Deep, meaningful relationships result in continued community action.
Example: One Hawaiʻi Island Leadership Series – Ulumau class project gave a face and voice to homelessness, inspiring a class member to become a strong advocate for a homeless shelter, and to create an annual backpack/school supply drive for distribution to homeless children.
Small programs, built over time, create lasting community benefit.
Example: Tutu’s House participants share stories of how much better they feel after attending a program; how grateful they are for such a welcoming resource in the community; the profound impact of a yoga class while simultaneously helping a family member in the final stages of a terminal illness and hundreds more stories.
Openness to opportunities as they present themselves allows us to act quickly as a community need arises.
Example: When the newly established Kīpuka o Ke Ola behavioral health and primary care program needed a fiscal sponsor, Friends of the Future was able to fulfill that need until the program was able to transition into Five Mountains Hawaiʻi, a Waimea-based nonprofit organization.
Naʻau-based decision-making is appropriate.
Example: Friends of the Future’s Board and staff members’ collective knowledge, business and life experiences, skills, values and successes, sustained by their commitment to our vision and mission, are powerful predictors of program success. All Friends of the Future past and present programs are evidence of naʻau-based decision-making effectiveness.
