8.0.3.2.3: A Non-Profit: The Garvan Institute

Version 1.2 December 2016                          (Previous Version)

A small example of ‘convergence’ in values is the Garvan Institute.  This is a medical research institution based in Sydney Australia.  In a fund raising pamphlet it declares its values to be:

Excellence, Justice, Dignity, Compassion and Unity. 

There is no explanation of these values in the pamphlet – and they can't be found on the Institute’s web site.  But we can compare them to the core values of our reasonable global way:

Excellence:         Implied in our core values of Truth and Diversity.  Excellence is very much an action based value, just as our core values reflect our core choices.

Justice:                1. Implied in our core value of Responsibility.  We assign responsibility where intervention may be potentially effective in changing behaviour.  The legal system creates law that defines inappropriate behaviour and applies penalties when the law is breached: this is justice.

                            2. Implied also in our core value of Equality.  It is unfair – unjust – for people to be treated inequitably, to have unequal access to basic rights.

Dignity:               Implied by our core values of Equality and Love (Compassion) and Diversity .

Compassion:       Identical to our core value of Love.

Unity:                  Allowing for diversity generates a kind of unity.  Unity is consistent with Equality and Love (or Compassion).

So the Garvan Institute’s values are restatements of our core values of Truth, Diversity, Love (or Compassion), Responsibility and Equality.

The Garvan Institute’s values do not include beauty: it's into medical research, not art.

The Garvan Institute surely do value Reality, Life and Hope, the remaining of our core values, but don't say so.  Perhaps these values are all too obvious for a medical research group.  Their whole purpose is to promote life and make it more fulfilling, to give people hope of medical cures.  Their core function is founded on the justified hope that it will improve our medical treatment.

Many not-for-profit organisations have undergone a similar ‘strategic planning’ exercise to determine their so called vision, mission and values, and most will be compatible with this Way.