Tips for writing mission and vision statements

These tips will help your organization write clear and useful mission and vision statements
vision
  1. Identify important stakeholders to be part of the process (co-founders, fellow executives).
  2. Start by listing keywords (ie: youth, jobs, peace, migration).
  3. Answer foundational organizational questions (ie: What is our purpose? How do we want to make a difference?)
  4. Sort your answers by importance. Refer back to your keywords to help prioritize.
  5. Combine your prioritized answers and keywords in a paragraph.
  6. Review to make sure your vision is realistic.
  7. Refine for clarity.

You’re done! Next step is the mission statement.

mission
  1. Define your story. How do you usually explain what your organization does to other people?
  2. Write down what your organization does well.
  3. Make the statement realistic and coherent.
  4. Keep the statement concise.
  5. Think long-term. You can include what you plan to do in the future, which should align with your vision statement.
  6. Keep an open mind about possibilities. You don’t want to be locked into a mission statement that is so specific that you can’t be flexible when new opportunities and challenges arise.
  7. Discuss, review, refine.

You’re done!

If you are feeling uncertain about the difference between a mission and vision statement, check out What’s the difference between mission and vision statements.

volunteers
youth