Does Your Program Need A Mission Statement?

Helpful Tips

Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash

Think you need a north star for your program?  Or maybe you want to ensure your program stays true to your original intent?  Craft a mission statement.

A mission statement is your vision for the future.  By creating one, you set the stage for what you intend to create.  

What are you attempting to accomplish?  

What do you want the program to stand for?  

Your mission statement will guide your work as questions are asked, new ideas come forth, and people question the program.  

Starting Out

When my colleagues and I had the idea to design a large school program, our first step was to craft a mission statement.  While we understood our idea may change over time, we felt it was important to build a foundation at the outset.  We wanted a statement of purpose on which to reflect when we faced roadblocks or naysayers.  

Samples of mission statements abound on the internet.  We selected the questions listed below to guide the creation of ours.  

What is the program?

What is its purpose?

What do we hope to achieve?

What will be our timeframe?

What will those involved actually do?

Why are you creating this program?

What is the long-term benefit? (demonstrates commitment)

Developing

You should also consider your organization’s mission statement while crafting yours to ensure they are in alignment.  We pasted our school mission statement at the top of the document and used it as a guide.  

Keep your statement short and sweet.  Long paragraphs of details and jargon are not going to help guide you in the long run.  A mission statement should be well articulated enough that you can come close to memorizing it and share in conversation.  

Design the statement for your entire community.  All stakeholders should be able to read and understand your purpose, not just a small group of designers.  We crafted ours so that the program’s intent is clear to parents, students, and faculty. 

Here is our completed statement.

Academy is McDonogh Middle School’s multi-week unique learning program.  Students explore authentic and complex questions that excite, inspire, and engage.  In direct alignment with McDonogh’s LifeReady philosophy, students develop competencies in problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and presentation.  Academy facilitates lifelong learning that is relevant and sustainable throughout students’ lives. 

As well, you’ll want your mission statement to be vague enough so that you can change your program and still be following the mission. Because our program was not fully designed, we did not want our statement to be too specific.  We did, however, need some details in order to set the foundation for the program and yet guide us into the future. 

For example, we planned to launch our first program in May, and we expected the length to be two full weeks.  We considered being very specific about these details in our statement to ensure the commitment. However, we had never done the program and realized it was unwise to limit ourselves.  

We were also facing a lot of pushback on the program itself.  Teachers were concerned our innovation was taking too much time from their “curriculum”, and we wanted to set in stone through the mission statement that the program is expected to be three full weeks.  Then, we could refer to our mission in future conversations.  

However, we realized placing limits in the mission statement was not the answer to try to put out the complaint fires.  What if down the road we envisioned our program occurring multiple times throughout the year?  Or what if we planned on it becoming a 5 week program?  Being too specific would limit our future potential of program growth.  

We settled on the phrase “multi-week” to ensure the program would be held for two weeks minimum. We eliminated any reference to when during the year the program was placed.

Feedback

Our committee approved the final version of the statement, and we requested outside input.  A retired colleague reviewed the statement.  Being an outsider and still familiar with the community, she was the perfect choice to offer feedback. She questioned us about our intentions, the words we used, and helped us to better articulate our ideas.  

Limit the number of voices involved crafting your mission statement.  As we found with many things, too many cooks in the kitchen can make decisions more difficult.  Battles over language and words can be frustrating, and you need to have only those most committed to your idea’s vision involved.  

We kept the creation of the statement to two designers, and we ran it by the committee for approval. Only those with a vested interest in the success of the program should offer their opinions.  Creation of mission statements is not the time to allow major critiques or devil’s advocates to challenge the concept.  

Finalizing

After the committee approval, the statement was sent to our administrators for final input.  We then shared with those participating in the program and formally adopted it with a vote.

Over the years, we have scaled and revised our program.  Throughout the process, we have referred to our original mission.  If an idea for transforming the program is not aligned with the original intent, we do not even consider the change.  

When new parents, faculty or administrators seek more information about the program, we share the mission statement. 

We have found crafting the statement was crucial for the program’s continued success.

If you’re interested in more practical tips, check out my book, From the Ground Up.