In a world where we are bombarded with charities and NFPs all seeking financial support, it is important that your NFP does all it can to stand out from the crowd to attract the funding you need.

How to make sure you stand out…

Ensure your organisation has a mission statement and that it is short, concise, and packs a punch so that the reader isn’t left in any doubt about what you do and why you need their support.

Consider these two mission statements:

“Our mission at DDD is to provide medical staff and facilities to eradicate XYZ Disease in third world countries”

Or

“At DDD NFP we aim to satisfy the World Health Organisation guidelines by procuring suitably qualified staff to facilitate the provision of up-to-date medical intervention throughout third world countries to not only improve the health of the people in those countries by also eradicate XYZ Disease”

Option 1 states exactly who they are, what they do and what they aim to achieve. While Option 2 does the same it is also completely full of jargon that can confuse the reader and ensure they will lose interest by the second line. With the aim being to convince people to provide funding, it is essential that you keep their interest and get to the point as quickly as possible.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when writing your mission statement:

1. Don’t use jargon. You need to keep the statement easy to read for everyone who reads it. Technical language, political speak and academic language will only confuse the reader.

2. Don’t forget to include who you are, why you do what you do and what you aim to achieve so the reader can easily assess if they can help you.

3. Aim to invoke emotion rather than boredom from the reader.

4. Be clear and concise.

Have you come across examples of bad mission statements? If so, we would love you to share them with us. Equally, if you have a mission statement that rivals Nike’s “Just Do It” then we would also love to hear from you.