If you do a Google search and use the text string ‘mission statements nonprofit grants’, you’ll find many links to articles about the necessity of mission statements for nonprofits.

That’s not what I’m searching for. I possibly cannot be the only person who believes there should be a mission statement for every grant a nonprofit applies for and administers once the funds have been awarded to the charity. Thank you, AI, I see your feedback, but it’s aggregating content from blogs teaching nonprofits how to craft that perfect mission statement.

Why does this even matter at all? Who cares? Here’s a simple test for you if you are a nonprofit Board member, an Executive Director, or a manager who oversees multiple grants. Depending on your role, ask anyone closely associated with the grant what the mission statement or simply the mission is for the grant. I promise, the responses will vary:

A blank stare for a few seconds before responding, as in “I’ve never heard that question before.”
A response similar to, “That’s an excellent question.” Expect to wait for the answer.
A few will provide a comprehensive answer, and they generally come from the Executive Director. But expect to hear something like, “We don’t have mission statements for our grants.”

More Than a Mindless Exercise

The last thing I want your organization to do is to sit around in a circle and dream up a mission statement that sounds good but is somewhat superficial for each grant.

Instead, let’s back up for a minute.

If I were to ask you right now, “How much money do you have left to spend on your top three grants in terms of monetary rewards?” I don’t expect a number rounded to the nearest dollar. Just get close. “Mark, they range from 45% to 85%.” That’s the type of response I expect to hear.

But that’s rarely the case. Most nonprofits do not have access to full-time financial talent who began their careers in large consulting and accounting firms. Many grant administrators are either volunteers or started their roles at the ground level, and sometimes bypassed prominent corporate roles to join nonprofits at the onset of their careers.

Additionally, the nonprofit typically lacks the software to easily track, manage, report, and analyze grant funds. When that’s the case, a lot of manual work is required to report just the basic numbers for what’s left to spend. “Give me four days, and I can let you know what’s left to spend after doing some cost allocations.” I’ve heard that way too much.

Concepts such as integration, data warehousing, and multidimensional analysis are foreign to overworked staff, who enter raw numbers into supplemental spreadsheets rife with accidental and unintended errors.

Now then, where were we? Mission statements and grants. My observation on why mission statements rarely pop up in grant conversations is that the ongoing issue is always pocketbook grant management. It’s tedious. It’s arduous. It’s time-consuming.

Assigning a meaningful mission statement is not a mindless exercise. It can be a meaningful exercise to remind everyone who’s managing the grant about the bigger picture of these funds. While our back-office administrators are painstakingly tracking numbers manually in spreadsheets, at least they can refer to a north star for the grant’s purpose. The work is hard after receiving the money. But perhaps the burden is lessened when everyone is constantly reminded of the outcome or outcomes of the grants.

Regarding Outcomes

I’m a mental model junky. One that remains sticky in my mind is the construct of inputs, outputs, and outcomes.

In the world of grants, where organizations find, secure, and manage grants, the inputs are the work put into the grant-writing process. For a first-time grant, that research could span weeks and months. For grant renewals, while the process is faster, the work still requires a project plan.

I view the output as the reward. I’m not an attorney, so if you want to argue that the production (the work we do) is what we do with the money, you’ll win. But for simplicity, let’s call the output’ money’ from the grantor.

The outcome or outcomes strike at the very heart of the grant process. The outcome answers the question, “If we get this money, we’ll be able to … and that means those we serve will be able to …”

In my thinking, outcome equals mission. Mission equals outcome or desired results. It’s not about the money or the tracking of the money we need to report. Those are certainly important. Instead, it’s all about those who will be impacted by the generous gifts we are receiving.

Perhaps my thinking is too elementary, self-evident, or overly simplified. If so, I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time. If not, use the mental model of inputs, outputs, and outcomes when thinking about your grants’ mission statements.

Should We Deemphasize Inputs During Grant Management?

I appreciate executive directors who seek business owners and CEOs to serve on their boards. Many executive directors will be the first to state that finance is not their bailiwick. While I agree with having business-minded members on a nonprofit board, here is a word of caution. Some business minds, not all, think in terms of cost, cost structure, the business model, and cost-per-x. Counterintuitively, this can be a bad thing.

Let’s assume there is a nonprofit in St. Louis working with at-risk young children in the inner city. Their mission is a roadmap for young kids that they will work with until they are ready for college. They fulfill their mission by having these kids play baseball nine months out of the year. They pair that activity with tutoring and extensive reading programs twelve months out of the year. Each kid is granted a scholarship to a nearby independent school.

Approximately 15 caseworkers are assigned to about 80 kids and their families. They receive a large grant of about $2.5 million annually from a major corporate sponsor.

Let’s pause for a minute. I can hear the business-centric mind asking, “What is the cost per child each year?” That’s not a wrong or a bad question. I’m business-centric too, but I’m more curious about outcomes. At the end of each grant year, how many kids are on track to make it to the next year or next level of the playbook? Is it 85%? Less? More?

Let’s say 65 of the 80 kids in the program over the past year. You can do the math ($2.5 million divided by 65). Is that good or bad? Let’s pair that number with next year’s results, but let’s aim for more than 65 kids.

Anyone asking about the cost per kid needs to ask a better question, and that’s where having a manufacturing expert and a health care administrator with a high LEAN acumen can be beneficial. They’ll ask a far better question. “How can we serve more kids with the limited resources at our disposal?”

I’m not stating we ignore costs. We don’t. We focus on the mission and figure out how to achieve it with scarce resources. Adhering to a continuous improvement mindset achieves two purposes: it keeps us focused on the mission while being stewardly of our resources.

Tipping My Hat to the Late Peter Drucker

W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, and Steve Blank are my favorite management thinkers of all time.

Regarding Drucker, he wrote a short book that every nonprofit employee should read: The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization.

The opening line in the first section starts with …

The ninety million volunteers who work for nonprofit institutions—America’s largest employer—exemplify the American commitment to responsible citizenship in the community. Indeed, nonprofit organizations are central to the quality of life in America and are its most distinguishing feature.
Drucker, Peter F.. The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization: An Inspiring Tool for Organizations and the People Who Lead Them (Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum Book 90) (p. 1). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

If you don’t have time to read the book, here are Drucker’s five vital questions for nonprofit leaders:

What is our mission?
Who is our customer?
What does the customer value?
What are our results?
What is our plan?

To pair this with grant mission statements, here are my slightly altered five questions:

What is this grant’s mission statement? What happens if we do not get the award? Does this grant align tightly with our nonprofit mission?
Who are the men, women, and/or children we (agape) love in our organization?
What do they value the most?
What are the outcomes of this gift?
What are the mini action plans for our inputs, outputs, and outcomes for this grant?

It’s Your Turn

Writing clarifies my thinking, and after 1,400+ words, I still believe each grant should have a mission statement.

Now it’s your turn. Please write a 500-word document explaining whether your organization needs a mission statement for its grants and why. If you have a differing opinion, I’d like to know why. Is it because your organization is already mission-centric? I’d like to know.