Mission & Vision
Our mission
Courage MKE fuels a collaborative movement to provide the resources LGBTQ+ youth need to thrive.
Our Values
​
​
Our core values are both aspirational and operational. We aim to hold ourselves and our team accountable in all aspects of their work, with our core values serving as the basis. Our core values guide our team structures, spaces, and rituals at all levels and we constantly assess, learn and grow together to live them out.
Acceptance
We strive to be an organization where people of all identities can thrive and reach their full potential. Individually and collectively, we continuously grow and develop our knowledge, skills, and mindsets to be culturally competent leaders. Institutionally, we strive for equity in our systems, policies, and practices.
Responsibility
We are community leaders; our goal is to raise awareness and positively impact disadvantaged LGBTQ+ youth in the state of Wisconsin. A home is a basic need and a basic right: by raising awareness and (eventually) providing LGBTQ+ youth with a place to call home, we provide them safety, love, and a future. As leaders in this work, we lead by example, we act with integrity and respect. We volunteer personal time and contribute to our communities—it’s our responsibility.
Heart
We make Courage MKE feel like a family for our Board of Directors, our Junior Board, volunteers, and future employees. This must be true because this is the culture we will strive to create for those we serve in the Courage House. At the very center of our work, we have heart and we wear it on our sleeve. This work is too important to have it any other way.
​
Team
We value and care for one another. We share openly, are vulnerable, and invest time to build meaningful relationships. Every teammate feels that they have a home on our team – they’re seen and valued for who they are and what they contribute every day. We rally together and have each other’s backs in moments of challenge.
Empowering Others
We make bold decisions in pursuit of excellence. We operate with a strong internal locus of control, a results-orientation, and adapt and innovate in service of our goals. We ask questions, voice concerns, and generate solutions. We strive to exceed expectations and put our best foot forward each and every day.
​
Learning
We seek to learn and grow constantly. We operate with a growth mindset by viewing trials, wins, and failures as opportunities for learning. We recognize that we learn best through collaboration. We think about our strategy through a multi-year lens – we develop and test hypotheses to generate insights so that we can scale successful innovation.