{"id":2991,"date":"2015-07-31T08:44:16","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T15:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nnlm.gov\/evaluation\/blog\/?p=2991"},"modified":"2019-09-24T10:13:30","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T17:13:30","slug":"how-to-write-a-mission-statement-without-losing-your-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/2015\/07\/31\/how-to-write-a-mission-statement-without-losing-your-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write a Mission Statement Without Losing Your Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mission statements are important. Organizations use them to declare to the world how their work matters. They are the North Star for employees, guiding their efforts toward supporting organizational priorities.\u00a0 And mission statements are important to evaluators, because evaluation methods are ultimately designed to assess an organization\u2019s <em>value.\u00a0 <\/em>Having those values explicitly stated is very helpful.<\/p>\n<p>Yet most of us would rather clean out the office refrigerator than participate in a mission-writing process. Now imagine involving <em>30 people<\/em> in the writing process. Make that the refrigerator <em>and <\/em>the microwave, right?<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why I am so enthusiastic about the Nonprofit Hub\u2019s document <em><a href=\"http:\/\/nonprofithub.org\/wp-content\/themes\/nonprofithub\/img\/landing-pages\/mission\/nonprofithub-missionstatement.pdf\">A Step-By-Step Exercise for Creating a Mission Statement<\/a><\/em>, which the authors promise\u00a0 is a tool \u201cfor those who want to skip the nitpicking, word choice arguments or needing to create the elusive \u2018perfect mission statement.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I won\u2019t go into details about how their process works, because the guide lays it out elegantly and concisely. You can read through the process in five minutes, it is so succinct. \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll just tell you what I like most:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The exercise reportedly takes 1-2 hours, even though you are engaging up to 30 stakeholders in the process.<\/li>\n<li>Stories comprise the foundation of the mission statement: people start by sharing stories about the organization\u2019s best work.<\/li>\n<li>The individuals do <em>group <\/em>qualitative analysis on the stories to begin to understand the organization\u2019s cause, activities, and impact.<\/li>\n<li>Small groups draft mission statements, with instruction to write short, simple sentences. In fact, 10- word sentences are held up as an ideal. The small groups share back with the large group, where big ideas are identified and discussed.<\/li>\n<li>The actual final wording is assigned to a small task force to create after the meeting, which prevents wordsmithing from dampening the momentum (and the mood).<\/li>\n<li>In the end, everyone understands and endorses the mission statement because they helped develop it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This exercise has potential that reaches beyond development of mission statements.\u00a0 It would be a great exercise for advisory groups to contribute their ideas about future activities. Their advice will be based on your organization\u2019s past successes.\u00a0 The stories generated are data that can be analyzed for organizational impact.\u00a0 If you are familiar with <a href=\"http:\/\/nnlm.gov\/evaluation\/blog\/2014\/10\/31\/the-oers-appreciative-inquiry-project-seeking-strength-based-change\/\">Appreciative Inquiry<\/a>, you\u2019ll recognize the AI influence in this exercise.<\/p>\n<p>The group qualitative analysis process, alone, could be adapted to other situations (see steps 1 and 2). \u00a0For example, a small project team could use the process to analyze stories from interviews, focus groups, or even written comments to open-ended survey questions.<\/p>\n<p>Even if mission statements are\u00a0not on your horizon, check out the Nonprofit Hub\u2019s document. There might be something you can adapt for future planning and evaluation projects.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/neo\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/07\/Nonprofit-hub.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2995 size-medium\" src=\"\/neo\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/07\/Nonprofit-hub-281x300.jpg\" alt=\"Cover sheet for the Nonprofit Hub's &quot;A Step-by-Step Exercise for Creating a Mission Statement&quot; exercise instructions\" width=\"281\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mission statements are important. Organizations use them to declare to the world how their work matters. They are the North Star for employees, guiding their efforts toward supporting organizational priorities.\u00a0 And mission statements are important to evaluators, because evaluation methods are ultimately designed to assess an organization\u2019s value.\u00a0 Having those values explicitly stated is very&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/2015\/07\/31\/how-to-write-a-mission-statement-without-losing-your-mind\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2959,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ICUo-Mf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6580,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991\/revisions\/6580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}