Mission statements were all the rage back in the day. Your organization just had to have one in order to be taken seriously or to get funded. But they had no real relevance to the actual work of the organization, and they were quickly left behind. So much so that they've fallen out of favor, and rightly so, people now say, don't worry about what your mission statement is, just do it.
Mission statements have definitely fallen out of favor in the for-profit world, and are being left behind in the non-profit world as well. But I think they are still relevant, and it's worth the time you invest in them. There's really nothing else that can inspire supporters or differentiate your offering as easily.
To help differentiate my consulting firm, our mission statement morphed from "The purpose of our company is to provide our clients and customers world-class bla bla bla..." to "We help you get the results you promised your investors."
The key to a mission statement that is inspiring or memorable, is to stay away from what you do, and make it about your results, or what you achieve. Here are some guidelines:
* It should be emotional.
* If it can have an unexpected element, all the better.
Think about "why you?" and "what is the world lacking if you don't exist?"
At Big Brothers Big Sisters, we were stuck with "Our mission is to help children reach their potential through professionally supported, one-to-one relationships with mentors that have a measurable impact on youth." (It's so non-memorable I still have to look it up).
With the help of the folks at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, we came up with "Young people need a friend they can count on, learn from, and look up to. He gets it when his Big Brother shows him how to throw a baseball and be nice to girls. She gets it when her Big Sister helps her become the first person in her family to go to college. Big Brothers Big Sisters creates and nurtures relationships that are precious, safe, and have the power to transform lives."
When my friend John Melia, who founded the Wounded Warrior Project, was working on a mission statement for his agency that helps returning veterans, I came up with "We gave so much of ourselves, we left a part behind. Wounded Warrior Project helps us get it back."
If either of those statements make you feel like supporting their work, here are links:
Big Brothers Big Sisters
Wounded Warrior Project
If you've got some great examples, I'd love it if you would share them here.
