It’s all about the mission, and the mission statement is important in articulating that goal. But a nonprofit must go beyond just the mission statement.
Cass Wheeler, former CEO of the American Heart Association, urges organizations to set their sights on the “bold goal,” one that energizes the mission statement and takes it to another level, one that offers something that can’t just be taken for granted.
- It is not enough to just have a bold goal, however. An organization must have broad organizational buy-in and commitment. Wheeler maintains that a bold goal offers the following benefits:
- It will drive development of the strategic and tactical plans to greater specificity to reach interim benchmarks.
- It will drive the organization along the continuum of what it measures.
- It will force nonprofit thinkers out of their comfort zones and encourage creativity.
- Managers will automatically have more discipline in their decision-making processes.
- It will give additional reasons to streamline the bureaucracy and purge unnecessary programs and activities to get the greatest amount of resources allocated to the bold goal.
- It will reframe and give additional meaning to volunteers, staff and donors.
- It will generate a sense of urgency about what the organization is trying to accomplish and by when.
