Mission Statements

Tomorrow the Tutorpedia Foundation, our new nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, hosts its inaugural Board Meeting in downtown San Francisco. Among many things to be discussed, the Board will officially approve our mission statement.

Nancy Lublin, CEO of Do Something, wrote a great article in this month's Fast Company about how to write a mission statement. Here's an exerpt:

Here are four mission statements. Two are from real organizations. Two were created by Dilbert's Automatic Mission Statement Generator. Can you guess which ones are genuine?

1. It is our job to continually foster world-class infrastructures as well as to quickly create principle-centered sources to meet our customer's needs.

2. Our challenge is to assertively network economically sound methods of empowerment so that we may continually negotiate performance-based infrastructures.

3. To improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities.

4. Respect, integrity, communication, and excellence.

She goes on: "Mission statements are like corporate Hallmark cards. Often written in a bland cursive font and plastered conspicuously at headquarters, these aspiring epigrams are pretty words in Air Supply -- like rhythm." Why? Well, for one, mission statements are meant to inspire. But more than inspire, they should be a call to action. James Collins and Jerry Porras, in their 1994 book Built to Last, first proposed that a mission statement should be a "big hairy audacious goal" (BHAG). They say a BHAG is "clear and compelling and serves as a unifying focal point of effort, often creating immense team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal .... A BHAG should not be a sure bet ... but the organization must believe 'we can do it anyway.' "

Lublin concludes with some very specific advice:

Write a mission statement with a goal that's an action, not a sentiment; that is quantifiable, not nebulous. If you're trying to sell a product, how and how many? If you're trying to change lives, how and whose? Take your wonky mission statement and rip it to shreds. Then ponder your ambitions, and write and rewrite the thing until it reflects -- in real, printable words and figures -- the difference that you want to make.

So here's the Tutorpedia Foundation's initial mission statement: To provide tutoring and other education services to low-income students. But now I'm considering making this a real BHAG: To provide every K-12 student in California with a tutor. This will surely close the achievement gap, graduate more students from high school, and prepare more students for college and beyond. Who knows, maybe the Foundation eventually brings tutoring to all 50 states, and then to countries and cities whose students didn't even know what a tutor was. That's big, hairy, and audacious.

Oh, and by the way, the mission statements above? Nos. 1 and 2 are Dilbert's. No. 3 is the mission statement of the United Way, and no. 4 belonged to Enron.