@burrrata It’s good that it’s wide, general, short, and easy to understand. But it doesn’t say what we’re working towards. And if it’s too general, it risks saying not much at all. “For people, by people”, might be true about a lot of things that we humans do. If we could narrow our mission down a bit further and give us a purpose, I think it would help us understand what we’re working to achieve. That’s just my personal opinion.
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So going back to my post here, let’s see if we can get some proposals onto the Github issue?
@kargakis, @midipoet, @burrrata, @0xb100d @AdamSC1 (and all the others in the thread who want), how about you share your single one favourite candidate and I can move it over? And they will then be discussed in Tuesday’s meeting.
"To advance financial sovereignty, through a private, simple, and accessible medium of exchange.”
Choices:
- Advance made clear we are aiming to move forward the existing levels of financial sovereignty and forces us to think about this in measurable ways.
- I reduced self-sovereignty to sovereignty, as while there are nuanced differences, the context here should be enough to parse.
- I chose simple instead of lightweight, as lightweight talks more about the implementation rather than how straightforward it is to use. Advancing or improving your financial sovereignty or being private sound complicated and daunting to average consumers. We want them to know it is simple.
- I chose simple over minimal, as minimal could project that we are simply doing the minimum to protect their privacy or advance that sovereignty or that the system is not adequately robust.
- I chose accessible instead of open, as open could just cover open source and outside of that and a store being open mainstream consumers may not know what it means to be open and it is harder for us to define a goal around that. But, being accessible is a clear goal we want it to be easy to find, use and onboard from anywhere.
- I chose medium of exchange, as I still stand by the fact that we are not ‘money’ by the dictionary definition, and it seems poor for us to reduce the system simply down to its transactions. While medium of exchange is slightly more complicated I don’t think it is too complicated.
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I’m going to throw one more last minute on in here as well, as a second option. Not to replace my first, but just to challenge one to go in a very different direction:
“To give the world the power to make private, secure and independent financial transactions, without barriers.”
I don’t like it as much, but there is some merit to it, as it is technically a slightly broader statement.
I think this is a great idea, that may have been worth us doing early. I’ve pulled together some mission statements that do invoke or touch on more complicated concepts.
Especially a few from non-profits which one could argue are more driven by the philosophical concepts than companies and may be in a similar boat. Here are some I found:
Intel: “Utilize the power of Moore’s Law to bring smart, connected devices to every person on earth.”
I think, that outside of a tech audience, a reference to Moore’s Law is no more or less complicated and non-mainstream than a reference to “Medium of Exchange” for a finance product.
DuPont: “To create shareholder and societal value while reducing the environmental footprint along the value chains in which we operate”
I think one can argue that environmental footprints and value chains are also not broadly understood terms.
Greenpeace: "Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organisation, which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force the solutions which are essential to a green and peaceful future.
I have no idea what “creative confrontation” is supposed to mean.
Disney: “Disney “to be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services, consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products worldwide.”
Very long and convoluted I don’t think I could make clear product decisions based on it and I doubt an average consumer understands how a “portfolio of brands differentiate” their content.
Invisibile Children: “To bring a permanent end to LRA atrocities.”
A famous charity, I’m familiar with many of their initiatives and it is a short and to the point. But their mission is freeing child solders in Africa, “end LRA atrocities” is a specific industry reference.
Oxfam: “To create lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice.”
I think “social injustice” is easily more complicated of a term than medium of exchange.
Overall, I don’t think medium of exchange is overtly complicated, or restrictive. Especially since we can make sure that our mainstream advertising shows, teaches, and illustrates what a medium of exchange is. People will understand when they see payment wallets, merchants, transactions etc.
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How about “To advance economic freedom…” (or “financial freedom”) instead of sovereignty, as @kargakis noted.
These big words are very intimidating for non native English speakers.
See above ^
I think at this point we’re just suggesting final versions for voting on in the council meeting as well.
"To advance economic freedom, through a privacy-focused, simple, and fair medium of exchange.”
An alternative choice that includes Grin in the sentence:
“Grin is all about advancing economic freedom through a focus on privacy, simplicity, and fairness.”
No, I just asked if I could get a couple of proposals for the ticket. 
Happy for the ideas, edits, mixing, to continue in the meanwhile.
How about this one:
Grin fights for the freedom of your money, through privacy-focused, simple, and fair transactions.
Edit: kargakis and Adam gave me some ideas, so tweaking it a bit.
I like this one a lot - fair is a nice addition. I’d propose the:
"To advance economic sovereignty, through a privacy-focused, simple, and fair medium of exchange.”
As I am still personally against the word freedom, but am ok with the economic part.
I think the idea of it being sovereign and fair pulls out the aspects we wanted from “freedom” without all the other nuanced possible meanings and interpretations. I also like the shift from “private” to “privacy-focused” so that people know it isn’t a matter of exclusivity.
Updated the Github issue. If you feel issue layout, copy, format etc on there needs tweaking, comment in ticket and I will fix.
To propose new additions, please comment here instead. This way (I hope) we can keep the discussion fairly organised!
Grin records the private transfer of value in a lightweight and neutral manner.
i actually really like this.
To afford economic, social and political change through a private, open, and trustless monetary medium.
Some variants:
"To advance economic sovereignty, through a privacy-focused, simple, and fair medium of exchange.”
"Through a privacy-focused, simple, and fair medium of exchange, Grin aims to ensure that your finances are your business.”
“Grin aims to advance the standard of financial privacy, through a simple, accessible and untraceable medium of exchange.”
“Grin is on a mission to protect your financial rights, by building a medium of exchange that is simple, fair, and protects your privacy.”
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i don’t think the word ‘simple’ is appropriate. on a number of levels.
Thanks for the feedback 
I agree that it might be a bit too general, but I’d rather start there and get more specific than just throw darts into the dark and see what sticks. How about this?
Grin: mimblewimble for everyone.
Grin aims to be an open community that makes sharing and exchanging value easy. While the tools to do this will vary over time, the goal is always the same: to give people a way to easily, securely, and privately send transactions to each other without interference from anyone else. Grin is built for people, by people, and is committed to developing tools that are simple and easy to use by anyone anywhere.
All my friends who I’ve told about Grin and mimblewimble like saying mimblewimble. It’s fun and cool and makes them want to know more about it, and the Harry Potter reference makes it feel more approachable and less weird. With that in mind, why not just add it to the tagline? Also, added a few additional notes about what we’re doing more specifically with private, secure, usable in the paragraph version.
I continue to oppose Americanisms, as the american state has a strong monopoly on defining their meaning and seeing as the world police could be ever so slightly interested in maintaining the dollar reserve currency status, a strong cultural foundation separate from it should be a goal.
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“Grin is an implementation of mimblewimble. Where other coins make compromises for speed, endless expansion or legality; the goal of grin is privacy first, let the consequences follow.”
I like the phrase “protect your economic sovereignty.” Why? Because it means that economic sovereignty is something you can have, but also, something you can lose and you have to defend.
"Grin helps you” connotes that Grin is a helpful tool but in the end, it’s up to you to achieve it.
My take: “Grin helps you protect your economic sovereignty with privacy and fairness, empowering you with a dead simple medium of exchange.”
It starts describing Grin through its most important attributes (private and fair) and ends with a definition, highlighting its design philosophy (simplicity), passing the “action ball” to the most important part of Grin (you).
Added.
Added; I edited it to make it a mission, i.e. “to record…”
Added. I edited it to make it a mission, i.e. “to help…”
@monkyyy can you help me rewrite this more into a mission, and then I can add it?
Others can we remove some from the list? Can we drill down further into some favourites ahead of Tuesday?
@AdamSC1 on that note if you give me your top 3 (in total) I can include them. 