Distill Your Mission
Thursday January 2, 2020
Any accounting business or tax advice in this podcast is not intended as a thorough in depth analysis of specific issues, nor substitute for a formal opinion, nor is it sufficient to avoid tax related penalties. If you need any help with that, please reach out.
Have you ever felt like you did not know where your organization was going, like you were completely ungrounded, just like going through the motions, super overwhelmed and confused. It might be because you are not as clear about your mission as you could be. This is nonprofit, not these podcast, and I want to share a few tips for you on making your mission easier so that you can manage it and do better about making an impact.
Your mission is the who and what your organization is. It is who are you serving? What are you doing with those people? So you may be saying, hey, we serve kids in Denver, alleviate poverty, have a great time in high school, make it onto college, fulfill their best dreams, that's way too many words, way too many words. And that's why you would not feel grounded because you have all these things that are floating out in the air that when you're ready to make a decision, you're thinking through 50 million things. I recommend you to sit down to five words. Those are gonna be the five words that are just going to say, who do we help the kids? What do we help them to get a better future? That way when you have a decision to make, you know you need the point back to those two things.
Are they helping the kids? Yes or no? Is it going to help them get a better of future, yes or no. If you can't say yes to both those questions, you don't need to do it. This goes for hiring a staff member, purchasing an item, applying for a grant. If you can't say yes to both of those questions, it doesn't match our mission. So if you say on and we need a new computer, okay, that's valid. You know, we're going to do some, I need to come to your computer. Why do you need this new computer? Because the old one is broken. Why do we need the new computer? Because this new one will help us serve the kids faster. That old one is slow. It's slowing down the time we have to respond. We're all waiting for its reboot. You've got to really be able to point back to your why and then it'll make it easier.
Why do we need to use team member? Because we're not able to serve as many kids because we're tight. We're stretched on time. Why do I need to apply for the grant? Because we to pay for the staff member who's going to help us serve more students, help them realize their dreams. You've gotta be able to point back with every question to your what and your why. Because it'll save you so much time and energy and so your homework is to take however long your mission statement is. Distill it into two. I'm going to give you some grace. You have five words, but I'm aiming for three. So you're going to distill it to who, one or two words about who you're serving and the what, two to three words about the what, and then put that down someplace. Put them down several places. It'd be that on your computer, in your wall, in your office, even on your phone.
So please put reminders and then at your next team meeting, share that with the team. Share that with all your volunteers, share with your board members. Let them know this is who we serve, this is what we're doing for them. That way when they need to make a decision, they can think back to those two words, those five words as opposed to the 50 words that you have been putting out on your newsletter and putting out on your website. All those words is too much and no one was listening to it and it's not helping them make a decision. It might be good am I make you feel really great? But if it's not ultimately helping you make a decision, cut it out. So that's your homework. Be sure to share with us. Tag us on social media. We're a center. We are @cnrgadvisory on all social media handles, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And you can see us at, if you use them, the hashtag #nonprofitnuggetspodcast. Let us know what you need or what type of support will help you feel less overwhelmed and reduce your anxiety about money so that you can go ahead and make an impact.
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