Project Harmony's core values include a belief in strengthening communities and in a grassroots approach to solving community problems. Since 1989, Project Harmony has been implementing leadership programs for youth from the NIS and, most recently, from the war-torn area of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The building of coalitions within communities has extended to women's leadership programs, juvenile drug prevention programs and domestic violence prevention programs. These programs truly illustrate Project Harmony's mission statement in empowering individuals of all ages to help build healthier communities.

Since 1996, Project Harmony has been actively engaged in technology development and training programs for professionals, educators and students. These programs provide hands-on training, not only in the technical aspects of using e-mail and the Internet, but also in the application of online technologies for professional and community development. These content-based programs focus on the use of telecommunications tools to empower citizens through open channels of communication and information access. Project Harmony encourages the use of these new tools to establish or maintain professional partnerships with specialists and colleagues outside of one's city, region or country. In particular, for alumni of international exchange and training programs, this technology can enable the long-term growth of relationships established with colleagues abroad.

Project Harmony's educational initiatives provide unique opportunities to individuals and institutions interested in widening the lens of learning. Project Harmony's programs bring together students and educators from opposite sides of the world to share common experiences and explore cultural diversity. As a result of taking part in these programs, students and educators alike have witnessed foreign cultures from within, spending time in the classroom and in the community - and making contributions by sharing their ideas and opinions or by lending a helping hand to people in need. In the process, participants have come to better understand themselves and the places they come from. Since its earliest days of running school chorus exchanges between Vermont and Karelia in the mid-1980s, Project Harmony has shown its commitment to education-focused initiatives. Throughout the 1990s, our student and educator programs grew rapidly, largely as a result of increased federal funding for international educational exchange. Despite recent reductions in funding for such programs, Project Harmony remains dedicated to maintaining an open dialogue among educators and students of the US and NIS through exchange activity.

Professional programs involve hands-on, results-oriented professional training activities, providing participants with specific skills necessary to expand professional knowledge and expertise. These exchange-based programs foster a mutual sharing of perspectives and experiences in a multicultural setting. Most programs center around a host family experience that exposes participants not only to the professional work setting, but to the socio-cultural environment of their colleagues as well. Project Harmony supports professional programs that offer long-term possibilities for collaboration and foster sustainable professional relationships among American and international participants.