Guiding Principles
- Process is as important as product. Measurement and assessment processes should empower participants and contribute to the positive benefits we seek (i.e., not just measuring “justice and fairness,” but actually building them through the use of the tool).
- Reflection and articulation – both individual and collective – of what matters most to us and the impacts of our actions are essential parts of any change process.
- The practice of dialogue (including openness, listening for understanding, speaking honestly, and suspending judgment) contributes to understanding, learning and developing new ways of thinking and working together.
- Relationships are primary. Our tools and processes must help us see and better understand the relationships between the parts and the whole; the relationships among our activities/programs, our organizational mission and the larger vision we have for our culture and society; and the relationships between the health of the land and the health of the people.
- Individual, organizational and community change will be sustained more effectively when we inspire, model and make visible positive action, not prescribe or demand it.
- We respect and honor the capacities and assets of all people. Assessment processes can and should be people-focused, accessible and democratic.
- People learn and engage in different ways. Our tools and processes should promote the fullest and most diverse participation possible through offering different means or pathways for people to engage with us.