Before an organization identifies its mission and values, its formal and informal requirements must be clear.
Formal requirements are likely to be laws and by-laws.
Internally there are by-laws and employees' manuals that regulate the organization, for example, how the board of directors should pass any new program, and how board meetings should be conducted. By-laws are the constitution of the organization. Employees' manuals stipulate the staff's rights, duties, and working hours, etc. Externally there are laws and regulations as stipulated by superior authorities or the government itself. In transitional societies the relationship between the government and the NGO sector is often vague, because there are still no official by-laws that regulate and govern such a relationship.