Attainable or Sustainable: How far does your mission reach?


By Jennifer E. Goldman, President of Resonance, LLC     

When it comes to creating, or amending, an organizational mission, it’s important to consider not only what you intend for the organization to accomplish, but for how long. Is your mission sustainable, or merely attainable? While both descriptions seem positive, in reality only one will keep your organization in service indefinitely.

Attainable Missions   An attainable mission is one that can, at least in theory, be fulfilled. Once that mission is accomplished, then the organization will cease to have a purpose. For example, if your mission is to build a dog park in every county in Virginia, once you’ve done this, the organization no longer has a purpose. Unfortunately, some organizations in this situation will either carry on after their usefulness has concluded or they may purposefully become less effective so as to never complete their mission. For organizations wishing to have an attainable mission, the founding board should put a strict termination plan into effect, as well as goals tied to a timetable to ensure that future boards and staff are held accountable to the plan. It may even be best to keep an organization like this as an all-volunteer nonprofit. If you think about it, why would paid staff members want to work themselves out of a job? It would be in their own best interest to never fulfill the organizational mission so that they maintain their livelihood. And that’s understandable, though unfortunate.

Sustainable Missions A sustainable mission is one that is a worthy cause, but one that will never completely be accomplished. While this may sound like a defeatist outlook, in reality if you want your organization to be needed forever, then you need to consider making your mission on-going. For example, to provide musical education to your county’s youth is something you can do really well year after year and never be done. You’re pretty much guaranteed that the adults in your community will continue to make young people; so your organization will continue to educate them musically. Sustainable missions will mean that, as long as your organization is healthy and addresses its mission properly, it will be needed indefinitely.

Another consideration is relevancy. Your mission may be relevant now, but will it be in 10 years? In 25 years? In 100 years? None of us has a crystal ball, but when you are in the process of creating an organization’s mission, think about how you can form that mission in a way that will give it relevance for as long as possible. For example, if your mission is to keep profanity off of television, that may be a short-sighted goal. With technology being as swift as it is, what will happen to your organization when television no longer exists? Whereas if you make it your mission to teach children better methods of expression, you’re in business forever.

One of the best ways I’ve found to reach the BIG mission is a practice I like to call the Five Levels of Why. Ask yourself what it is you wish to accomplish, then ask yourself why. Each time you come up with an answer ask why again. Until you’ve arrived at the fifth level down. THAT’s the deeper, larger why and is likely to give you a better idea of a mission that is so great you’ll be busy for decades working on making the world a better place in the area of your organizational goals.

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