The Role of "Fictions" in the Redefinition of Mission

Abstract

Although much emphasis has been placed on a nonprofit organization's definition of mission and the extent to which it can be translated into specific performance criteria, the language that satisfies bureaucratic agencies is seldom the same as that which generates moral allegiance. The case of the National Trust for Historic Preservation reveals a nonprofit organization in the process of changing its mission from one based on architectural conservation toward one committed to rebuilding American communities. The author argues that this new mission takes the form of a 'fiction, " with fictions defined as "instruments of cultural imagination that lead to the re enchantment of the world. " The author provides three criteria by which this and similar organizational fictions can be evaluated. Whether such missions-as-fictions are exportable and how they relate to the broader organizational field are also considered.