1. The inherent potential of each person – appreciate the potential in everyone to transform themselves to be useful and valued members of the community.

2. Crime prevention focus – reaching out to work in situations where we contribute to crime prevention in Kenya and Eastern Africa.

3. Resources oriented – emphasizing potential resources and opportunities rather than problems in any given situation to enhance self-reliance and sustainability.

4. Rolling out capacity building – strengthen the abilities of people so that they gain self-esteem and also in turn strengthen others towards improved livelihoods.

5. Learning and influencing with others – this involves learning, networking and collaborating with likeminded organizations and non-state actors in the interest of complementarities and mutual learning; towards influencing change and enhancing service delivery.

6. Nature harmony – promoting natural resource management practices that are in harmony with nature.

7. Gender mainstreaming – advocating for gender mainstreaming in all our work.

8. Emerging issues – RODI monitors emerging issues and, as much as possible, responds to those in line with its work.

9. RODI resilience – working towards being a resilient organization that is able to increasingly become self-sustaining through identification and mobilization of local resources.