How to Write a Great Mission Statement (Video)
Are you struggling to find the right words to convey your mission? This video will help you to craft a unique mission statement for your not-for-profit organization. How should you start? How might you organize your words to share your important work? This short video will get you underway to writing a super not-for-profit mission statement.
How to Write a Great Mission Statement Transcript
How can you write a great mission statement? I’m Karen Eber Davis, and here are the top hints.
First of all, don’t start with writing. Start by asking and answering some questions.
- What makes your nonprofit important?
- Why do you exist?
- What would happen if you didn’t exist?
- What are you trying to do?
- What will happen in the ideal world to someone who comes in and is served or to the land around if you’re serving the land?
So asking these kinds of questions, begin to gather words and information and thoughts about what it is you really do. What’s at the heart of what you’re doing?
When you have those, what you want to do next is begin to craft.
So here’s an example, “to end the devastating effects of multiple sclerosis.” that’s the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the word is hard to say, but you get the idea!
Then another one is the Salvation Army, “to make citizens of the rejected,” and finally, another one I like, from the Florida Arts Council: “More art for more people more of the time.”
So dissecting these, what you find is some kind of verb showing and talking about the end product. More art. More for. More. People ending devastating effects, turning someone into a citizen…
So those are what you’re trying to write. A very short statement with a verb and then some of the outcomes.
What’s happening? That’s how to write a great mission statement. There are other videos I’ve just done on this concept.
- There’s How to Write a Great Vision Statement, and
- What’s the Difference Between a Vision Statement and a Mission Statement?
There’s more on the links that come up next.
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