3. What Defines a Good Mission
Statement?
• Short
• About what and for whom (not how)
• Able to focus/guide the organization
• Shared and can be articulated by all stakeholders
• Can be achievable in a reasonable amount of time
• Measureable (with a single metric)
This module draws heavily on the work of Kevin Starr
at Mulago Foundation and his Design for Lasting
Impact Methodology
4. 4
• A Mission describes what you want to change for whom.
• A good Mission can be expressed in fewer than 10 words
• Uses a structure of: verb, target, outcome
For example:
“Improve respiratory health in East Africa."
What is a Mission Statement?
5. Making your Mission Measurable
• Mission leads to a single metric (a measureable number),
that "counts" a successful outcome that is directly
attributable to the strategies that your enterprise uses to
achieve its mission.
Example:
Mission: Improve respiratory health in East Africa
Metric: Reported cases of respiratory illness
Might sound generic, but that is actually a good thing. The idea isn’t to explain your whole business in one sentence. The purpose is to connect with people who care about your mission. That and hint at a metric that will count your progress.
Social, economic, or environmental. These don’t define everything your enterprise does or everything you care about. But, in just a few words, they highlight what you care most about and what differentiates you from others. That elegant simplicity is powerful both inside your organization and for communicating outside.