Our Future

As a nonprofit organization, A Greener World (AGW) is constantly looking for opportunities to deliver our mission. However, not all opportunities are worth pursuing. And as new opportunities to expand our work have emerged, we recognized the need to refine our vision into an aspirational statement that would provide clear direction, alignment, and consistency across all our programs and partnerships.

Refining our vision

In August of 2024, the AGW Board and senior staff began working together to develop a vision statement. From the beginning, we have relied on our mission statement to guide us (which, if you’re new to our work, can be found on our website in the ‘About’ section). A vision serves as a kind of ‘check’ on the impulse to seize every opportunity and provides a framework to assess when an opportunity may bring you closer to your goals —or distract you from them.

We’re normally a fairly nuts-and-bolts crew. While we get deep in the literary weeds about standards and policies, refining a vision statement is not in our normal wheelhouse. We were therefore extremely grateful to have the expertise and generous time of Warren King, a friend of AGW and new board member, who has professional expertise in this area. Warren guided us through a deliberate, meaningful, inclusive, and efficient process that incorporated input from a broad range of stakeholders—and ultimately resulted in a vision in which we can all be proudly invested.

Our path forward

With that, we are excited to share our new vision statement: “We envision a world where farming benefits people, animals, and the environment through integrity and transparency.”

The components of our vision are interrelated. We recognize that:

• Valuing animal welfare can have a profoundly positive impact on agriculture
• Agriculture must benefit people to ensure lasting positive impacts
• A healthy environment is foundational for any benefit—whether for animals or humans
• Transparency and integrity are values that are central to our core, and vital to our mission.

A collaborative approach

We believe that our new vision offers our organization a ‘true north’ that will guide our programs, partners, and people. We are grateful to our senior staff for their commitment to this process, our Advisory Board for their counsel, and our executive director, Emily Moose, for her leadership and resolve to develop a new vision for our organization.

We also thank you for your role in helping to realize this vision through your continued support and partnership with AGW, as we work to encourage sustainable farming practices that are realistic and achievable for farmers—both now and in the future.

This article was written by A Greener World’s Board of Directors

Originally published in the Spring 2025 issue of AGW’s Sustainable Farming magazine.