JACKSON, Wyo. — The National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) has new mission and vision statements to better align with the Museum’s current trajectory and strategic goals. The new statements are as follows:
Mission Statement: Impart knowledge and generate wonder through art and education.
Vision Statement: Inspire connections with wildlife and nature.
The word “wonder” is a fundamental change to the original mission statement. According to the NMWA press release, wonder encapsulates awe or amazement as well as curiosity, and NMWA aims to manifest this duality through thought-provoking exhibitions, space for discourse and expanding horizons.
The word “connection” is a key component in the new vision statement, which has been revised for the first time since 2019. According to the NMWA Director of Marketing Madison Webb, the word “connections” came from a three-hour workshop with the Museum’s advancement team comprising the marketing, development, membership and programs and events departments.
“We started talking about why we came to work every day and why the Museum mattered,” Webb says. “Everyone mentioned ‘connections’—between visitors and nature, between nature and art, between visitors and art and also with the Jackson Hole community and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.”
As NMWA is nearing the end of its 35th anniversary year, a strategic planning meeting last fall between the NMWA staff and the Board of Trustees sparked the new, re-envisioned statements.
“Often overlooked, an institution’s mission and vision statements are at the core of an organization’s purpose–the how and the why, respectively,” says NMWA Director Steve Seamons. “So it was essential that the vision be big picture and all-encompassing, while the mission reflects how we achieve that vision.”
The NMWA has also recently welcomed a new associate curator of art to expand the legacy and accessibility of the Museum and Jackson Hole wildlife.
