Values

Criterion’s work has, from the beginning, been driven by three core values: grace, hospitality and the power of invitation. These touchstones shape our business decisions and have shaped our methodology. We are, and have always been, value-driven players in a value-driven marketplace.

Grace allows us to meet people where they are and to view everyone as someone with value. Our screen is wide and inclusive. Grace means we welcome everyone, including people who walk through doors in many ways, from different places, and view the world through varying filters.

In our work, meeting people where they are is also about a different approach to consulting, where we seek to meet our clients at their most hopeful, affirming their assets, and building on their strengths, rather than to meet with our clients aiming to point out all the problems that they have and sell them our services based on that.

We welcome the stranger, knowing that the stranger will change us. Hospitality in the ancient meaning just given protects a place for everyone to engage. We think about hospitable places, and ways that we can welcome a diversity of voices and outlooks into our work.  While the hospitality industry might make you think this value is about making us look good when you visit, we value deeply the opportunity to be changed by you, to have our outlook changed through conversation, openness, and honesty. Hospitality lets people know they have been invited, and that they are valued.

We invite people into relationships, for that is the only way we know how to conduct our business. We believe that the act of invitation begins relationship. Invitation powers Criterion Ventures.

While we often plan and excecute events, they are only one way to interact.  Through inviting we engage, whether you can attend the event or not.

Criterion welcomes you into real conversation. And we ask you, in turn, to invite the stranger in to change you. Trust grace to surprise you.

“Criterion has been an ally to me personally, and several institutions in which I am a leader. In each case Criterion has introduced us to new partners and helped us reach out into wider worlds. Most importantly, Criterion shares my core values: welcoming the stranger, making room at the table for new voices and gifts, always remembering the poor and most vulnerable."
Stephen P. Bouman, Former Bishop, Metropolitan New York Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, current director of ELCA Congregational Minsitries