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CHAPTER 13: CREATING VISION AND STRATEGIC DIRECTION 391
Strong, inspiring visions have been associated with higher organizational per-
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formance. When people are encouraged by a picture of what the organization can
be in the future, they can help take it there. Recall from the previous chapter that vi-
sion is an important aspect of transformational leadership. Transformational leaders
typically articulate visions that present a highly optimistic view of the future and ex-
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press high confi dence that the better future can be realized. Leaders at the Greater
Chicago Food Depository have a vision of transforming the nonprofit agency from

an organization that just feeds the hungry to one that helps end hunger.

IN THE LEAD Michael P. Mulqueen and Kate Maehr, Greater Chicago Food Depository
It has been referred to as “culinary boot camp,” an intense 12-week program aimed
at teaching low-income, low-skilled workers the basics of cooking, along with life
skills such as punctuality, teamwork, commitment, and personal responsibility, with
the goal of landing each person a good job.
The Community Kitchens chef-training program was begun in 1998 by Michael
Mulqueen, who was then executive director of the Greater Chicago Food Deposi-
tory, based on a concept originated at a Washington, D.C. soup kitchen. Mulqueen,
a former Brigadier General in the U.S. Marine Corps, set the agency toward a vision
of solving the problem of hunger by moving people out of poverty, not just giving
hungry people a meal.
While in the training program, participants prepare about 1,500 meals a day that
are served in after-school programs around the city that give low-income children
an alternative to gangs and drugs. Executive Chef Instructor Lisa Gershenson, who
acts as a counselor and cheerleader as well as a teacher for Community Kitchens,
had grown bored and cynical in her previous job as owner of a company that catered
to the well-to-do. She calls the Community Kitchens job the “perfect antidote” to
her cynicism of being a chef.
Under Mulqueen’s leadership, the Greater Chicago Food Depository graduated
around 300 people from Community Kitchens, with almost all of them fi nding jobs
soon after leaving. Some 63 percent stayed in their positions for at least a year, a
high number in a typically high-turnover industry. “For those who succeed,” says
current executive director Kate Maehr, “this is the beginning of the end of the cycle
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of poverty.”

Poverty is a big problem, and its causes are many and complex. Yet one thing
is clear: As Mike Mulqueen points out, people can’t begin to move out of poverty
unless they can get good jobs. The vision of helping people change their lives has
energized employees at the Greater Chicago Food Depository in a way that sim-
ply providing food to low-income clients never did.
Vision is just as important for nonprofi t agencies like the Greater Chicago
Food Depository, the United Way and the Salvation Army as it is for businesses
such as Coca-Cola, Google, or General Electric. Indeed, some have argued that

nonprofits need vision even more than do businesses, since they operate without
the regular feedback provided by profi t and loss. 15
In Exhibit 13.3, vision is shown as a guiding star, drawing everyone along the
same path toward the future. Vision is based in the current reality but is concerned
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with a future that is substantially different from the status quo. Taking the group
or organization along this path requires leadership. Compare this to rational man-
agement (as described in Chapter 1), which leads to the status quo.