Survey Says . . . THF Mission Statement
Every September the Board of Directors and Associates of The Haiku Foundation are sent a survey. Their responses help to guide our growth and direction. We’d like to broaden our input, and so we’ll be asking you to respond to a series of questions, one per week, over the next half-year. Your replies will be weighed in our assessment of our performance, and will not be shared with anyone other than the Foundation’s Board of Directors.
Today’s question: The Haiku Foundation Mission Statement
Our mission statement reads as follows:
The impetus behind The Haiku Foundation was the realization that English-language haiku had done a poor job of promoting itself in two important venues: in gathering, interpreting, honoring and making available its comprehensive history, and in reaching beyond a coterie audience to establish its importance as a literary vehicle in the present and future. As a result, THF has two primary missions:
1) to archive our first century of English-language haiku; and
2) to expand possibilities for our second.
All other haiku groups — from journals to societies to conferences — have been created to help the individual poet realize his or her creative dream, be it education, publication or social contact. The Haiku Foundation does not follow this model. THF instead is a series of projects organized not for poets per se, but for haiku itself. The realization of these projects will in due course help all haiku poets. Haiku has been very good to all the poets who have been fortunate to have found it. The Haiku Foundation is where poets go when they want to give back.
In 2015 several recommendations were suggested via the THF Annual Survey regarding the Mission Statement. In February 2016 the Board of Directors considered these recommendations, but decided to maintain the statement as written. We are, however, open to suggestions that would make the Foundation’s mission broader and more inclusive. Please consider sending us your suggestions to help us do so.
