Last month, we introduced Grand Rapids Ballet’s five-year strategic plan and shared our refreshed mission, vision, and values for the first time. That announcement was really an overview — three strategic pillars, one big direction for the future. Now, we want to focus on the foundation underneath all of it, because a strategic plan is only as strong as the mission, vision, and values it stands on.
A Quick Refresher
As a reminder, here’s where we landed:
Our Mission — To be Michigan’s home for world-class ballet experiences that enrich, educate, and inspire.
Our Vision — To engage and uplift the human spirit through dance.
Our Values — Excellence, Innovation, and Gratitude.
These aren’t new taglines we picked because they sounded good. They’re the product of examining our history and engaging in months of reflection on who we are today, what sets us apart, and the impact we want to have in this community and beyond. And they’re the reason our strategic pillars — training the next generation, delivering artistic excellence, and strengthening our foundation — look the way they do.
Why This Work Matters
It’s fair to ask: why does an arts organization spend time wordsmithing a mission statement instead of just making great ballet? The honest answer is that great ballet doesn’t happen without an organization that knows exactly who it is and why it is making ballet in the first place.
Our mission is our “why.” It’s the reason Grand Rapids Ballet exists, and it’s the filter every major decision passes through. When we’re deciding which productions to stage, which communities to bring dance to, or which partnerships to pursue, the mission tells us whether an opportunity is actually ours to pursue — or whether it’s simply a distraction dressed up as an opportunity.
Our vision is “where” we want to be. It’s the future we’re working toward, described vividly enough that everyone — dancers, school families, staff, board members, donors, audiences — can picture the same destination. A shared vision is what lets dozens of people make independent decisions on any given day and still end up rowing – or dancing – in the same direction.
Our values are the “how.” They govern the way we pursue our mission and vision, especially when it would be easier to cut corners. Excellence, Innovation, and Gratitude aren’t just words on a wall; they’re the standard we hold ourselves to when a decision is hard or a shortcut is tempting.
Together, mission, vision, and values are what turn a strategic plan from a document into a compass. Strategy answers “what are we going to do?” But without a clear mission, vision, and values behind it, strategy has no way to answer the much harder question: “what are we going to say no to?” Every organization — nonprofit or otherwise — that has tried to be excellent at everything has ended up being excellent at nothing. Our mission, vision, and values are what give us the courage and clarity to focus.
This is especially true when we’re planning not just for next season, or the next five years, but for the next fifty years. Trends in the performing arts will shift. Funding landscapes will change. Audiences will evolve. What won’t change, if we’ve done this work well, is why we exist and what we stand for. That stability is what allows us to adapt our tactics confidently without losing our identity.
Looking Ahead
Over the coming year, we’ll be sharing more about each of our three strategic pillars — how we’re building Grand Rapids Ballet School into Michigan’s premier destination for ballet education, how we’re producing world-class work that establishes our company and our organization as a whole as a leading cultural force in our state, and how we’re strengthening the fundraising, governance, and infrastructure that will sustain this mission for generations to come.
But we wanted this refreshed mission, vision, and values to have a moment of their own first, because everything else we do — every pillar, every initiative, every performance — is built on this foundation.
