“Drive down any street [in Windward Oahu] and read the neighbors’ names: Smith … Nobriga … Matsumoto … Ching … Park … Naone … Dela Cruz! Here are people—good neighbors—whose measure of each other is not ‘who’ you are [ethnically] but ‘what’ you are [as a person].”
– Harold K.L. Castle, 1952 1
Values bolster our mission, shape our culture, and reflect our collective judgment of what is important to our organization. Operationally, our values serve as a beacon to the community about who we are, enabling better focus and greater commitment to decisions made with shared conviction. While grantmaking strategies may change, the values that guide them will not. For our partners and beneficiaries, they clarify the Foundation’s identity, making explicit the way in which we have gone about our work since Harold K.L. Castle founded this organization in 1962.
We believe that all people in Hawaii have unique strengths, inherent self-worth, and deserve equal opportunity to reach their potential.
We believe that Hawaii’s diverse cultures, its physical splendor, and above all its people and their aloha spirit are unique and important assets in the world.
We celebrate and hold respect for the strength, wisdom, innovation, and perseverance of the culture of Native Hawaiians whose practices benefit all of us who live in Hawaii.
We will humbly act and speak up for what is good and right about Hawaii.
We will practice:
- Commitment to having clear impact for a stronger, more resilient Hawaii
- Integrity in all we do
- Respect for each person as we work to serve Windward Oahu and all of Hawaii
- Collaboration for greatest possible impact
- Transparency for full accountability
Furthermore, the Foundation commits to the following:
- Diversity: We will engage, understand, and draw on a variety of perspectives because this improves our ability to achieve our mission. Diversity is the representation of all our varied identities to address and solve pressing problems of Hawaii using all of our tools. To the extent possible with a small staff and unusual position requirements, we will employ, retain, and promote a diverse staff, leadership, and board of directors.
- Equity: We will ensure fair treatment, equality of opportunity, dignity, and fairness in access to resources and information for all. We believe this is only possible in an environment built on respect, reciprocity, and relationships—the three foundations of kuleana.
- Inclusion: We will work to build a culture of belonging inside and outside the organization by actively inviting the contribution and participation of all people. Aware of power differences, we will welcome and listen to those who are often unheard or ignored, while realizing that one person should not be assumed to represent an entire community.
Most
afternoons, Harold Castle used to get into his convertible and drive around Windward Oahu, talking with ranchers, farmers, dairy owners,
school principals, and others whose paths he crossed.
As the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation
works to achieve our mission through grantmaking, we commit to follow this tradition
by venturing
out, listening, and learning from a wide array of people.
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1 “An Outline of the Development, Operation and Policies of the Kaneohe Ranch Company, Ltd., and Harold K. Castle,” 1952, Kaneohe Ranch Co., quoted in Kailua: In the Wisps of the Malanai Breeze, Kailua Historical Society, 2009, p. 219.