Tools for Planning

Nonprofits can draw from a broad array of tools to help them connect the qualitative aspirations of their mission and goals to the measurable actions that will lead them there. We’ve illustrated several numbers of Critical Issues in Noprofit Strategy, Planning and Organizational Development with some of these tools, but in Critical Issues #18 which will be out next week, we’ll look at a broader spectrum of them and frame them in a larger context.

Context
Meaningful strategic planning requires an array of tools, skills, experience, judgment and authority.

The responsibility for planning lies with the board. The board can delegate its authority for planning, but unless it is fully committed to the overseeing both the planning and implementation processes, it is unlikely that a strategic plan can be successful.

While strategic planning is not rocket science, it’s also not so simple that you can read the instructions and do it right the first time. You need the judgment to design a process that will work for a specific organization, giving consideration to organizational structure, culture, needs, situation and resources. You need the experience to be able to guide the organization through its best strategic thinking to develop a plan that is ambitious, achievable, measurable and renewable. And you need the skills to manage the process efficiently, draw on the wisdom of all stakeholders, inspire enthusiasm, and develop leadership capacity.

Some rare organizations have all of these resources in-house; others need some assistance in designing or fine-tuning a process even if they can manage it themselves. The cost of not getting every possible advantage out of the planning process (see Critical Issues #1: Why Plan?)—or worse (but not uncommon), having the process lose momentum and end up disappointing everyone—is too great to risk.

If you can do most of the planning work yourself, your organization may well strengthen its strategic focus and develop its leadership more effectively than by any other activity. But some limited advisory services from a consultant with the requisite judgment, experience and skills will likely make an enormous difference in the success of the enterprise.

Tools
Within this context, there are many different kinds of planning tools available, from the overall approach or framework, to process systems to individual instruments for specific purposes. When any one of these categories is slighted, the integrity and value of the planning process will likely be compromised. Critical Issues #18 will review frameworks, process systems, and individual instruments.

Capital Fiasco Postscript

Two years ago we noted the sad story of the American Folk Art Museum, a building rich with controversy (Capital Punishment, August 20, 2011). Now it’s about to be torn down—by the Museum of Modern Art, no less.

The museum building was highly praised by the architecture critic of the New York Times when it opened (Fireside Intimacy for Folk Art Museum), challenged by others as an example of the museum-building-as-work-of-art focused more on itself than on its ability to showcase the artwork intended to fill it (a depressingly long list). These are tensions inherent in the museum as a building type.

Some museums make do with a re-used factory building or an unassuming building as a simple container, but more often the cultural aspiration of the governing board encompasses the quality of the architectural environment as well as the art collections. Managing the tension in expectations for a musuem building requires an extraordinary amount of wisdom and knowledge on the part of the client, extensive preparation, and very careful selection and oversight of the architect. For more on that see CI #13: Before You Hire an Architect.

But the more fundamental issue in this story is the breach of fiduciary responsibility by the governing board of the American Folk Art Museum. As described in the New York Times, spending $32 million on a building that had to be sold ten years later and was scheduled for demolition two years after that suggests that not enough thought was invested in the fundamentals of stewardship at the outset.

We have seen nonprofit institutions that have been far too conservative in assuming modest risk and debt, thereby missing an opportunity to build a facility that would do great things for the furtherance of their mission. But we have not seen many go so spectacularly in the other direction.

Zeroing in on a Mission Statement

For the Mission Statement Makeover component of last fall’s Great Mission Statement competition, we invited a few of the entrants to explore a rewrite with us. Here is one of the discussions.

Existing Statement
Daddy’s Corner mission is to change the lives of low-income and disadvantaged youth by focusing on strengthening community and creating programs that encourage and aid the involvement of young fathers in their children’s lives.

Comment from Daddy’s Corner
This is actually our second attempt at our mission statement. We really feel like once we can get a mission statement that effectively describes our organizational purpose, it would really help us to build our organizational culture. We think this is so important as we are moving into our next phases of growth—we are still a relatively young nonprofit but have made tremendous gains in our short organizational history.

SyP
My initial question is what is your fundamental purpose?

• to involve young fathers in their children’s lives?
• to change the lives of low-income and disadvantaged youth ?
• to strengthen community?

Not that you can’t do all three, but one of them may be the real reason you’re doing the other two. Once the primary focus is established, the rest will be easier.

DC
Our primary focus is young fathers—empowering them to make good decisions and accept the adult responsibilities of being a parent. We use a responsible fatherhood model—which includes knowing WHEN it is the right time to become a parent (many of our young men are at risk of becoming a young father but have not as of yet(.

However, the issues around young fathers are so extensive that much of our work is done around strengthening fragile families. This is why it has been a challenge to narrow down a mission statement.

We use food and nutrition as the cornerstone to all our programming. It permeates living a healthy lifestyle and fits within all of our initiatives. Our tagline is “redefining life on the corner” because we want our young men to know that being outside doesn’t have to mean being on the corner. (**associate a ‘corner lifestyle’ with someone who is under-educated, under-employed, may be gang-affiliated, may have a record, may be involved in street activities, spends time hanging out outside with negative influences).

SyP
Clearly you have a complex situation and multiple objectives. The fundamental question is “Why are you doing this? “ The answer may get you to a level that underlies both promoting responsible fatherhood and strengthening fragile families, both of them pretty powerful ideas, but maybe there is an even more fundamental one.

Then responsible fatherhood and strengthening fragile families might end up either as part of the mission statement or part of a vision statement that we can look at once we pin down the mission statement a bit more.

I like the fact that your tagline can lend another dimension to whatever ends up being the mission statement.

DC
In response to your question, ultimately, we are doing this for the kids. We work with fragile families where cycles of poverty are inter-generational. The model we use is “Growing a Responsible Father.“ Becoming a responsible father doesn’t happen overnight. It starts with young boys having good relationships with their fathers that serve as strong, positive role models. So by working with young men that are at risk of fathering kids or young fathers, we are hoping to change the trajectory of the next generation (and so forth).

We feel that kids today are missing the basics—solid functional relationships with their biological fathers, character traits such as perseverance and integrity, and an understanding of a healthy lifestyle based on a healthy self-esteem. Our young men are battered by dysfunctional relationships, stereotyped by media, and ingrained with these cycles of poverty. Without intervention, there isn’t hope to make a lasting legacy of change.

SyP
That’s helpful.

In a mission statement, using as few words as possible and letting as much as possible be implied by them is always best. The problem, of course, is deciding which those words are.

Here are two initial options:
Our mission is to change the lives of low-income and disadvantaged youth by strengthening community and encouraging the involvement of young fathers in their children’s lives.
or
By encouraging responsible fatherhood we will change the lives of low-income and disadvantaged youth and strengthen our community.

To me, in both cases the words I removed are implied by the ones that are left, but they still seem too wordy.

Cutting back even further to the essentials:
Our mission is to strengthen our community by encouraging responsible fatherhood.
This implies the role of youth in the (metaphorical) space between fatherhood and community.
Or to pick up on another aspect of what you mentioned:
Our mission is to change our community by strengthening fragile families.

But leaving out mention of fathers and children may be going too far.

In any case, the mission statement is only the core. It is the memorable, compelling statement, but when you put it on your website or in print it can have more detail beneath. How about this:

Our mission is to change the lives of low-income and disadvantaged youth.
We do this by:

• encouraging the involvement of young fathers in their children’s lives
• building character traits such as perseverance and integrity in children through solid functional relationships with their biological fathers
• strengthening fragile familes
• empowering young men to make good decisions and accept the adult responsibilities before becoming fathers
• creating a healthier community

Our vision is to change the trajectory of the next generation

Stay tuned. There may be more to this discussion.

A Conversation about Mission Statements

In pulling together some material for a guest appearance with Dalya Massachi's Writing Wednesdays on March 20, I took a look at the finalists in the Great Mission Statement Competition for the past three years. These fine statements do not follow a single formula, but seem to fall into five categories:

Articulate Strategy
The approach I find most powerful is one that makes the mission statement a clear guide for framing the work of the organization. Any program or service can be measured against the mandate articulated in the statement:
FriendshipWorks:
Reduce social isolation, enhance the quality of life, and preserve the dignity of elders and adults with disabilities in the greater Boston area.
Centerpoint Institute for Life and Career Renewal:
offers lifelong tools to navigate uncertainty, build meaningful careers, and design courageous lives.

Frame Vision
Another option is rather than to offer a specific armature for action, to make a strong statement of purpose in more visionary terms:
Girls' LEAP Self-Defense:
Empowering girls and young women to value and champion their own safety and well-being.
Museum of Science and Industry:
Inspire and motivate our children to achieve their full potential in the fields of science, technology, medicine and engineering.
People for Parks: works for the day that all kids in Los Angeles are within walking distance of a safe park.

Tagline
By condensing the vision a little further, the mission statement can have the qualities of a tagline:
Literacy Advance of Houston:
Transforming lives and communities through the doorway of literacy.
EDGE Outreach:
Empowers ordinary people to provide safe, clean drinking water to the world.
HALO Trust:
Getting mines out of the ground, now.
While I would argue that a valuable tool is given up when the statement is as open-ended as those of EDGE and HALO, their pointed power is hard to resist.

Full Circle
The statement of the Mohonk Preserve is quite striking. While its mission is local, the means it uses is to inspire a larger, embracing set of values:
The mission of the Mohonk Preserve is to protect the Shawangunk Mountains by inspiring people to care for, enjoy, and explore the natural world.

Paint Description
A more common technique is to paint a vivid picture of what the organization is trying to achieve:
Cancer Connection:
is dedicated to encouraging and guiding people living with cancer and their loved ones along the cancer journey, from diagnosis through treatment and beyond.
Can Do Canines:
is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for people with disabilities by creating mutually beneficial partnerships with specially trained dogs.
The Humane Society of Flower Mound: is dedicated to promoting a respectful, responsible, and compassionate relationship between animals and people.
San Diego Coastkeeper:
aims to protect and restore fishable, swimmable and drinkable waters in San Diego County.

These statements are quite different from each other, and accomplish different things. One size doesn't fit all.

More Collaboration

Earlier this month I published Critical Issues #16, “All About Collaboration.” In the spirit of the topic, I asked three other consultants (Sophie Parker, Deborah Pruitt and Kate Pugh) to join me in contributing material. Next week I’ve asked them, along with Tom Wolff, to join me in a panel discussion-based webinar, “Collaboration: What Works and Why,” the first time we’ve tried that format with Nonprofit Webinars.

I’ll be soliciting advance questions from early registrants for the webinar, and of course, we’ll take questions during the webinar as well. If the approach is well received, we’ll look for other panel discussion topics.

As I noted in Critical Issues #16, it could be argued that collaboration is the quintessential characteristic of the nonprofit sector. So now I invite all of the readers of this blog and of Critical Issues, and all of the attendees of our webinars, to suggest other innovations we might try to enhance our contributions to education and professional development in the nonprofit sector. Please let me know what you think.

Mission Statement Winners 2012... and More

It’s time to wrap up the Third Annual Great Mission Statement Competition. 

The winner of the Great Mission Statement prize for 2012 is Literacy Advance of Houston with a mission of “Transforming lives and communities through the doorway of literacy.” As discussed in the previous post, this statement captures the essence of the organization in nine vivid and memorable words. Moreover, a level of mission-based engagement is indicated in the comments submitted to the posting of finalists. All of our finalists, and semifinalists, as well as many others, have excellent and effective statements, but the third annual prize goes to Literacy Advance of Houston.

We’ve also selected ten of the entries to the Mission Statement Makeover category to see if we can help them to reshape their mission statements to make them vivid, compelling and memorable. We’ll be sharing the before and after statements in a future post.

For others looking to improve their statements, here are some potentially useful resources:

• Critical Issues #7: On Mission
• Archived webinar: What’s a Mission Statement Worth?
• Great Mission Competition:
  • Third Annual Competition Finalists, 2012:

  • Finalists in the 2nd Annual Great Mission Statement Competition 

  • Finalists in the 1st Annual Great Mission Statement Competition

  • Mission Statement Makeover Discussion 2011: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• An ongoing discussion/debate with Marlene Oliviera on her blog about the proper nature and use of mission statements :
  • Mission statements as marketing: a mistake for non-profits? Part 1, Part 2
• An upcoming guest appearance on Dalya Massachi’s monthly conference call program, Writing Wednesdays

Third Annual Mission Statement Competition Finalists

There was a big jump in the number of entries this year, both in the Great Mission Statement category and in the Mission Statement Makeover category. It will take us some time to work our way through the Makeover entries, so stay tuned for that.

To select the semifinalists, I invited three colleagues with nonprofit writing and editing expertise to join me. They were:

• Claire Axelrad, Principal, Axelrad Social Benefit Consulting

• Scott Bechtler-Levin, Vice President for Collective Impact, Good Done Great

• Hillel Bromberg, Director of Grants Development and Administration, Families United in Educational Leadership

Early last week we sifted through a lot of mission statements from very diverse group of organizations that appear to be doing great work across the globe (see last Tuesday’s blog post), managed to pick six semi-finalists in the Great Statement category and presented them in our webinar What’s a Mission Statement Worth?

Help us to pick the winner

Please take a look at the finalists (below) and help us to select the best of the best. To weigh in, submit comments to this blog. You’re welcome to make a pitch for your organization’s mission statement, but no anonymous comments please. We will consider only attributed comments, and post only ones that make a case for why the statement meets either the criteria for excellence summarized below or your own.

During the webinar we described the role of a mission statement, noted its critical characteristics, and shared examples of different kinds of successful—and almost successful—ones.

Briefly summarized, a mission statement has external and internal functions.

• Externally, a mission statement is a branding and positioning tool that gets and holds the attention of the public, and underpins the case for giving.
• Internally, a mission statement should inspire stakeholders, provide clarity and focus for operations, fortify strategic thinking, structure planning, and point to metrics that will indicate successes.

Some mission statements are very close to taglines, primarily aimed at grabbing attention ; others are crafted more to differentiate one organization from others in the same field. Each nonprofit has its own set of issues, and somewhat different criteria for its mission statement. But in broad terms, a mission statement should articulate the essence of why your organization exists. It can encompass what you are, but should avoid explaining what you do and how. It should be accurate (specific, sufficiently broad, appropriately focused), accessible (concise, simply stated, jargon-free) and effective (differentiating, memorable, compelling).

For more detail on these points you can access the slides or a recording of the webinar and/or take a look at Critical Issues #7: On Mission.

We’ll announce the winner in mid-December.

The finalists:

Literacy Advance of Houston
Transforming lives and communities through the doorway of literacy.

This statement is succinct, compelling and memorable. The words are all well-chosen and vivid. It is very much a why statement, not a how. Scott said that he liked the word picture (’doorway of literacy’) and the focus on outcome. Claire thought the statement would make a great tagline. Hillel: “it’s evocative and inclusive, and implies the impact of literacy education. The wording offers a nice visual image.”

People for Parks, Los Angeles
People for Parks works for the day that all kids in Los Angeles are within walking distance of a safe park.

During the webinar I mentioned the overlap among mission statements, taglines and vision statements. Just as the previous statement could be a tagline, this statement could be a vision statement, but that does not make it any the less powerful as a mission statement. Claire: “Aspirational, simple, clear and direct. I can already picture the children being helped.” Scott “Their vision is compelling.”

San Diego Coastkeeper
San Diego Coastkeeper aims to protect and restore fishable, swimmable and drinkable waters in San Diego County.

The explanation submitted with this entry sums up my assessment: “In 17 words, San Diego Coastkeeper… provides the image of people actively fighting and protecting our waters for a better future…. Using descriptive words, it provides a picture of what we could have if we just work for it.”
Hillel: “The unusual usage of words grabs attention and makes their goals clear and memorable.” Scott: “I like that it humanizes the benefit of the work they do. Disclaimer: I live / work / surf / sail in San Diego County (but I have no direct relationship).”

Please comment below to help us select the winner.

The other semifinalists:

Can Do Canines
Can Do Canines is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for people with disabilities by creating mutually beneficial partnerships with specially trained dogs.
HALO Trust
Getting mines out of the ground, now.
Humane Society of Flower Mound
The Humane Society of Flower Mound is dedicated to promoting a respectful, responsible, and compassionate relationship between animals and people.