How to Write Strategic Planning Mission Statement: 3 Powerful Examples to Inspire You
A while ago, I was speaking to Jenny, the Executive Director of Youth Human Services (YHS)*, on the phone. I could hear the resignation in her voice. YHS organization was having an identity crisis.
She didn’t use those words, “identity crisis.” But as she described the situation and I learned more, I thought about how the organization was struggling to define themselves. YHS was founded over fifty years ago to serve children with unique needs. They started by creating a school that would support these children. At the time of their founding, no other organization in the area did this work. A number of years ago, before any current staff could remember, more services were added that could expanded YHS’s offerings.
As YHS evolved, staff found that their clients also needed mental health and casework support. They added this to their roster of services. They were excited to discover that they could get significant government funding to do this work and expand their service area.
But there was a problem. So much had changed, shifted, and expanded over the years that no one could find the thread that brought this organization’s work together! Even their name wasn’t accurate, since they were now serving families in addition to youth.
The first time I visited Youth Human Services, I noticed a faded poster describing the organization’s mission on the wall. I asked Jenny about the poster. “Well, that’s a little dated,” she replied. “Now, we do a lot more than that.”
From the outside, it looked like the organization was thriving. They were receiving millions of dollars in government funding annually and serving hundreds of families across multiple counties.
But some conversations and assessment with board and staff told a different story. The majority of board and staff members perceived that the organization lacked focus. Organizational leaders did not know where to put their energy. They were offering so many different kinds of services that they had recently lost some contracts, since other organizations with narrower offerings had a better handle on the needs of the population they were serving.
Youth Human Services was ready for strategic planning work and especially for a clearer mission statement.
How can a mission statement help?
Youth Human Services was doing great work. So why did the leadership need to update their mission statement?
The mission statement creates agreement on what organizational staff do – and, equally important, do not do. That mission statement leads to clear organizational goals and priorities. It’s a jump-off point for board and staff so they know where to put their time and attention.
A mission statement focuses on the present state of the organization, providing insight so everyone understands what they need to do each day to work towards their collective vision. A mission statement defines the focus of the work that organizational leaders do every day.
Clients find it helpful to review actual examples to see how different mission statements are built. Here are some examples from past or current clients:
Agricultural Institute of Marin’s mission is to educate, inspire, and connect communities, responsible farmers, and producers as part of a healthy, Earth-friendly, equitable local and regional food system.
What makes this effective: It creates a structure for board and staff to reflect on whether they are educating, inspiring, and connecting communities on a daily basis. It also situates this work in a larger food system.
Habitat for Humanity builds strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter.
What makes this effective: Habitat for Humanity’s daily work is creating shelter and affordable housing. This statement ties shelter to the larger positive, prosocial outcomes of strength, stability, and self-reliance.
Cal State East Bay welcomes and supports a diverse student body with academically rich, culturally relevant learning experiences which prepare students to apply their education to meaningful lifework, and to be socially responsible contributors to society. Through its educational programs and activities, the university strives to meet the educational needs and to contribute to the vitality of the East Bay, the state, the nation, and global communities.
What makes this effective: It acknowledges the diverse experiences and backgrounds that students bring and the multiple ways that Cal State East Bay faculty and staff support these students. It also connects Cal State East Bay’s work to the larger community, region, and world.
In terms of Youth Human Services’ strategic planning process, we started by collecting data on possible strategic directions from board, staff, funders, and partners. Then we met together to review this data and create organizational values and vision.
We then held a retreat with organizational leadership to draft a mission statement together. In advance of the retreat, participants were encouraged to think about the following questions: What do we do? Whom do we serve? How do we serve them?
At the retreat, participants brainstormed some main ideas that needed to be included in the mission statement. At the end, a small group agreed to wordsmith after the retreat to finalize the mission statement.
The last step (which will be detailed in Part 5) was creating strategic pillars to guide YHS’s work.
As expected, building a mission statement helped Jenny and her team to focus. They subsequently decided to discontinue one program that was not core to their work. When I last spoke with Jenny, YHS had received significant new funding for the part of the work that the board and staff was most excited about.
This is the fourth part of a five-part series on Strategic Planning:
Part 1: How much can we plan in moments of intense uncertainty?
Part 2: Why values matter more than ever
Part 3: How vision lights the way to a better future
Part 5: How to take the important last step of strategic planning