How to Write a Mission Statement for a Nonprofit

A mission statement clarifies your organization's reason for existing. A mission statement, along with incorporation as a nonprofit, are entry criteria to be eligible for grants. Here are some tips for writing a mission statement and getting it accepted by your organization.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Internet access

1. Go to Web sites of organizations similar to yours, and paste their mission statements into word processing software.
2. Meet with your organization, or a subset of it, to develop a consensus regarding what you want to accomplish, and how. Have the document with other organizations' mission statements available as examples.
3. Draft a mission statement, either during this meeting or afterward.
4. Take the draft mission statement back to the group for revision.
5. Make a formal decision, enter the approved mission statement in the minutes, and publish it. If your organization has a Web site, publish it there.

Tips & Warnings

• Mission statements are typically only a sentence or two in length. They are typically focused enough to clearly communicate the organization's goals but broad enough to provide room to maneuver.
• In the nonprofit world, an organization's mission statement is an entry criterion for grants -- the organization must have a mission statement, and the mission statement must match the donor organization's mission.