What a Difference a Mission Makes

Address to Certificate Recipients

Patricia Deyton

Patricia Deyton teaches two courses in the Certificate in Management Program, Managing the Nonprofit Organization and Gender, Leadership, and Management. She also taught in the former Radcliffe Seminars program, where she was recognized as a distinguished faculty member.

Deyton has more than 30 years’ experience in the nonprofit sector, most recently as faculty director of the Center for Gender in Organizations in the Simmons School of Management and as senior advisor to the Council of Women World Leaders. Previously, she was CEO of the American Red Cross of Massachusetts. She is also a management consultant on strategy, an advocate of civic engagement and gender issues, and a scholar of various aspects of nonprofit organizations. She currently serves on the board of seven organizations. Deyton holds two graduate degrees: a master’s in social work from Columbia University and a master’s of divinity from Yale University.

As the season of graduations came upon us, I started following bits and pieces of other commencement speakers to glean some inspiration for speaking with you today. There was Nancy Pelosi speaking about the role of the US Congress and our democracy; there was Bill Russell speaking about the full-court press that leads to the championship—graduation.

I am honored to speak to you as a member of the faculty of the Extension School, but unless you’ve taken one of my courses, unlike Nancy Pelosi and Bill Russell, my name is not exactly a household one. Fortunately, I had the good counsel of Dean Comeau, who encouraged me to speak about something with which I am very familiar and about which I care passionately.

I know and passionately care about the difference mission-based organizations make in our world and the management that makes them effective. And I know and passionately care about the importance of each individual creating her or his own mission in the world—no matter how small or large your world may be. I suspect that each of you, like me, wants to make a difference in this world; I know this is true for those of you I know. Those of you who are graduating today have learned a lot of things, and I believe that taking a look at what makes mission-based organizations so effective will give you some food-for-thought regarding your personal mission and how you can take it to the next stage of your lives—whether that be a new job, a promotion, a career change, further education, community service—or to your professional and personal relationships.

This is why missions are important: a mission tells you where you intend to go. You want to know when you get there, and you want a compass that lets you be sure you are going in the right direction.

When I refer to a mission-based organization, I mean an organization that lives in the nonprofit sector. Yes, for-profit organizations also have missions, but the mission statement of a nonprofit organization is its one and only reason for being. In the for-profit sector, the mission is never uncoupled from the return on investment for the owners—whether public or private. This doesn’t mean that the for-profit sector is less than the nonprofit sector, but it is different.

In a mission-based organization, the mission defines the entire intention of the organization and its role in the world. It motivates people to volunteer, donors to give money, staff to work hard, and board members to serve. It tells the world that this organization has made an important social contract with society, and it claims that the social contract, based on strong ethical values, will be upheld.

A nonprofit organization lives its mission.

In the United States alone, there are more than 1.5 million mission-based organizations, and there is not one life among us that is not connected to or touched by one or more mission-based organizations. More likely, we are all connected to or touched by many.

Most missions are ones with which we would be proud to be associated. You may be trying to think of a mission-based organization to which you are connected, so let me read you part of this mission statement as an example: “Harvard University aspires to provide education and scholarship of the highest quality—to advance the frontiers of knowledge and to prepare individuals for life, work, and leadership.”

This is taken from the statement of values of the Extension School, and today as you graduate you become a living part of the successful accomplishment of that mission. What a difference this mission makes! To those of you graduating, the mission of this great educational institution will have enriched and changed your lives forever.

Let’s look at the impact of another mission statement in our world. Before 1962 (yes, a while back, but you’ll see why this is an important date), the mission of the March of Dimes was to provide care to victims of polio and to find a vaccine against it.

With a singular strength of purpose, that mission was accomplished, and 50 years ago the capacity to banish polio from our world became a reality. The need for that mission no longer exists.

Today, the accomplishment of that mission inspires those who seek to find the vaccine against HIV. This too will be accomplished by organizations and individuals whose missions are singularly focused on that goal.

The missions I’ve mentioned are strong and powerful forces for good in the world; however, I want you to envision the mission of an organization as a tower that reaches into the sky. What really matters is what is underneath that tower, the values—let’s call them pillars—and the ethical bedrock into which they connect. Without that, missions are sometimes not what they appear to be. As a result, there are some missions about which we cannot be proud.

The Family Research Council—a name that sounds harmless—is a nonprofit, mission-based organization. Its mission is to be a think tank that lobbies on behalf of its goals (so far, so good), but its goals are against reproductive freedom; against sex education; against equal rights for gays, lesbians, and their families; and against funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Commission for Public Broadcasting; to name a few. What values or pillars are holding up these goals and this mission, and how are they connected to the deep bedrock of ethics?

Another horrible example comes from a paper just completed by one of my students in Gender, Leadership, and Management, where she examined the life and motivations of a variety of leaders—the good, the bad, and the truly evil. Pol Pot, who led the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, was driven by an idea of a utopian society based on communist principles where class no longer existed. We all know of the utter extreme to which he went to accomplish his mission of creating a class-free society in Cambodia.

What were the values or pillars that held up the mission of the Khmer Rouge, and did they have any connection to the deep bedrock of ethics?

Mission-based organizations need to be clear not only about their missions and values, but also about the ethical bedrock upon which their values rest. Striving for excellence is a fine value to apply to achieving your mission, but what if it is striving for an excellent way of violating basic human rights and freedoms? Commitment is a fine value to apply to your mission, but it is not enough just to be committed if the means to the end is a commitment to destroying 25 percent of the lives in your country.

So this leads us to look at what I mean by the ethical bedrock and how the values of mission-based organizations and individuals must be deeply connected to it. Since Aristotle, we have been addressing what constitutes the deep ethical bedrock. In greatly simplified terms, I take this to mean that which is objectively good for others as well as for ourselves and holds in all places and in all times. Conversely, as it is stated in the Hippocratic Oath: above all, do no harm.

When mission-based organizations connect their values to this ethical bedrock, they are validated, and in spite of inevitable imperfections, they are the forces in the world for good.

At this point, let’s look briefly at an important way in which the management of mission-based organizations makes a difference. Many of you are graduating today with a Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management, and some of you in other areas such as the applied sciences, health, museum studies, publishing and communications, technologies in education, or environmental studies. I’m sure that you know that each and every area you have studied is needed and applied in mission-based organizations.

I may have seemed to imply that because of their relationships to values and moral causes the work of mission-based organizations “just happens.” Well, it doesn’t.

It requires the same level of planning, implementation, evaluation, and human and capital resources as any for-profit organization. It requires the skills and expertise all of you have gained through your education here at the Extension School. Mission-based organizations are effective because of people like you.

Let me give you a powerful example of an important aspect of the management of mission-based organizations.

No mission-based organization is an island. They do not stand alone. On December 26, 2004, the earth moved beneath the South Pacific, causing devastating and widespread earthquakes and tsunamis throughout a huge region. Instantly, literally thousands of mission-based organizations, not just in the United States but around the world, sprang to action. Why? Because that is their job. And how? Because they were ready. They live not just in the world of the mission but in the real world of applying good management to achieve their missions.

It is a challenge to even imagine the work that needed to be carried out to respond to the December 26 disaster. Immediate needs for search and rescue, safety, shelter, food, clothing, medical care, burying the dead, communications, transportation, and clean water had to be met.

Longer-term needs included providing housing, replacing the infrastructures of the villages and towns that were destroyed, rebuilding educational systems, immunizing against infectious diseases, reunifying families, planning adoptions, providing ongoing medical care and resources for mental illness and depression, rebuilding the economic structures, and more.

Each and every one of these areas was and is being addressed by mission-based organizations within a vast and complex network of management that values cooperation, coordination, and collaboration. Missions make a difference, but to do that, mission-based organizations do not and cannot stand alone. They work with and rely on each other to achieve their goals, and only through this can they be the force for good in the world that they have promised to be to a world which deserves no less.

This leads me to the third point, which is to ask you, as you engage in the world, what is your mission? What are your values, and into what ethical bedrock have you connected? As most mission-based organizations are clear on this, so should we be. And, as they don’t stand alone to accomplish their goals, neither should we. Whether we’ve consciously developed it or not, each of us has a mission and a set of values from which we act in the world. As we grow and evolve, those which are the most important and most relevant may change from time to time.

At this crossroads in your life, now is an excellent time for you to take stock of your personal mission and values, to be conscious of the pillars that you have chosen to be the support structures of your mission, and to be clear about the importance of the ethical bedrock into which those pillars are driven.

I would like to share with you a few of my pillars and note to you that these have changed over time depending on the stages and circumstances of my life.

• I want to have a generous spirit that gives not only of my material capacity but gives to others the support and encouragement they may need. I have often been the recipient of this spirit of generosity from others and know what a difference this can make.


• I want to be a person of courage who will not be a bystander in the face of injustice, regardless of personal risk.


• Above all, I ground my personal mission in being a hopeful person who seeks with others ways to address the inequities in our world and who believes that this is always possible.

These are some of my pillars; they guide me daily. What are yours? What better time than now for you to revisit, or visit for the first time, that which you truly value at this point in your life and, with the new opportunities ahead of you, to determine how you now want to live in this world.

William Sloane Coffin said to Jeb McGruder before Watergate, “If you don’t know what you stand for, you’ll fall for anything.” He did fall. We don’t have to.

This is a great time for you to become part of the force of good in the world.

This is a great time for you to determine what you stand for.

This is a great time for you to join with others who share your values.

This is a great time for you to claim the difference you want to make.

And now, right after you receive your certificates, why don’t you get started?

Congratulations again and thank you.