---
name: mission-vision-writing
description: |
  Produces mission and vision statements using strategic communications
  formulas, with a present-focused mission statement and a future-focused
  vision statement tailored to the organization's purpose and aspirations.
  Use when the user asks to write or refine a mission statement, create a
  vision statement, define organizational purpose, or articulate company
  direction for stakeholders.
  Do NOT use for brand positioning statement (use brand-positioning), value
  proposition for customers (use value-proposition), or full business plan
  (use business-plan).
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  author: foundry-skills
  version: "1.0.0"
  tags: "strategy planning branding writing"
  category: "business-strategy"
  subcategory: "strategy-planning"
  depends: ""
  disclaimer: "none"
  difficulty: "intermediate"
---
# Mission Vision Writing

## When to Use

Use this skill when any of the following triggers are present:

- User explicitly asks to write, draft, create, or refine a mission statement, vision statement, or both
- User asks to define or articulate organizational purpose, reason for existence, or founding intent
- User needs statements for a new company, nonprofit, team, department, initiative, or product line
- User says their current mission or vision "no longer fits" after growth, a pivot, merger, or strategic shift
- User is preparing materials that require a stated organizational direction -- investor decks, strategic plans, board presentations, employee onboarding documents, website About pages, or grant applications
- User wants to align leadership, board, or staff around a shared written statement of purpose and direction
- User is refreshing brand foundations and needs the strategic anchor statements before downstream brand work begins

**Do NOT use this skill when:**
- User needs a customer-facing positioning statement -- use `brand-positioning` instead (positioning is externally directed market differentiation; mission/vision are internally anchored purpose statements)
- User needs a value proposition for marketing copy or sales materials -- use `value-proposition` instead
- User needs a full business plan or strategic plan -- use `business-plan`; mission/vision may be components but a full plan requires financial modeling, market analysis, and execution roadmaps
- User needs a company culture document, values list, or employee code of conduct -- use `culture-document` in HR skills; mission/vision inform culture but are distinct outputs
- User needs a brand tagline or slogan -- taglines are externally facing, memorable summaries designed for advertising, not governance documents; use `brand-tagline`
- User needs an elevator pitch for sales or fundraising -- these draw on mission/vision but serve a different structural purpose; use `elevator-pitch`
- User needs an OKR or goal-setting framework tied to strategy execution -- use `okr-framework`; mission/vision are inputs to OKRs, not substitutes

---

## Process

### Step 1: Diagnose What Already Exists and What Is Actually Needed

Before writing a single word, determine the current state and the real deliverable.

- Ask: does the organization already have mission and vision statements? If yes, request the current versions verbatim -- do not guess or reconstruct
- Identify the presenting problem: are the existing statements vague, outdated, internally contested, or simply absent?
- Distinguish whether the user needs both statements or only one -- many organizations have one but not the other; never assume both are needed without confirmation
- Clarify the intended audience and primary use case -- internal team alignment, board governance, public website, grant application, investor deck, or employee handbook -- because the register, length, and specificity differ meaningfully by audience
- Identify the organization type: for-profit company, nonprofit/NGO, B-corporation, government agency, internal department/team, joint venture, or early-stage startup -- each type has distinct conventions for what belongs in mission vs. vision
- Confirm the vision time horizon explicitly -- ask the user: 5 years, 10 years, or longer? If they say "long-term," push for a number; vague horizons produce vague visions
- Note any explicit constraints: word count limits for a specific document, required formatting for a grant application, or a founder's must-include language

### Step 2: Gather the Eight Required Inputs

Do not draft statements without all eight inputs. If the user's message is missing inputs, ask for them explicitly and specifically -- do not make assumptions about fundamental facts.

- **Organization name and legal form** -- full name, acronym if used, and whether it is a company, nonprofit, division, team, or initiative
- **Core activity** -- what the organization does in plain language: what product or service it creates, what problem it solves, what need it fills. Push for a specific description, not a category label (not "technology" -- "automated invoicing software for freelance designers")
- **Primary beneficiary** -- who the organization directly serves: paying customers, end users, beneficiaries, community, patients, students. Distinguish between the buyer and the user if they differ
- **Distinctive method or approach** -- what is meaningfully different about how this organization does its work compared to alternatives? This is not marketing language; it is a factual distinction (e.g., "peer-to-peer lending model," "community health workers instead of clinics," "AI-assisted legal document review")
- **Founding motivation or core conviction** -- why this organization was created or why it continues to exist beyond profit. This is the emotional and ethical anchor. For startups, ask the founder's origin story. For established organizations, ask what belief the leadership team holds that competitors do not share
- **Impact aspiration** -- what change in the world, industry, or community would represent ultimate success? This feeds the vision statement. Push past financial outcomes ("reach $100M ARR") to the underlying impact ("every small business owner understands their cash flow without needing an accountant")
- **Vision horizon** -- the specific number of years out the vision should project (typically 5, 10, or 20 years; nonprofit and social enterprise visions often use longer horizons or define a generational scope)
- **Constraints and context** -- word count limits, existing brand voice or style guide constraints, sacred language the founder insists must be included, and any language or concepts that must be excluded

### Step 3: Apply the Structural Formulas with Precision

The mission and vision formulas are analytical scaffolding -- they ensure all required components are present before language is polished.

**Mission Formula:**
`[Organization] + [action verb(s)] + [specific what] + [for whom] + [by/through distinctive how]`

- The action verb is the most important word in the mission -- it should be active, transitive, and specific. Strong mission verbs: builds, connects, trains, delivers, produces, enables, protects, transforms, restores, funds, investigates, designs. Weak mission verbs: provides, offers, utilizes, leverages, works to, strives to, is committed to
- The "specific what" must be concrete enough that a stranger could describe the organization's product or service after reading it once
- "For whom" must name the actual beneficiary, not the category (not "organizations" -- "independent restaurant owners" or "first-generation college students")
- The "distinctive how" is optional if the organization's core activity is already inherently distinctive, but required if competitors do the same thing -- it is the mechanistic differentiator, not a values claim
- Test: read the draft mission aloud. Could any direct competitor use this exact sentence? If yes, the "specific what," "for whom," or "distinctive how" is not specific enough

**Vision Formula:**
`[Within/By X years], [the world/industry/community/audience] + [transformed state] + [because of what this organization makes possible]`

- The time anchor ("within 10 years," "by 2035") is required unless the vision is intentionally open-ended for a deeply values-driven organization (common in faith-based nonprofits and social movements) -- in that case, note this explicitly
- The transformed state must describe an external condition, not an organizational achievement. "We will be the leading platform" is an organizational milestone, not a vision. "Every small logistics company has real-time visibility into its supply chain" is a vision
- The "because of" is often implicit but must be logically traceable -- the vision should only be achievable if the organization succeeds at its mission
- Visions that describe the organization as the winner ("market leader," "#1 platform") fail the vision test -- they are internal goals, not pictures of a better world

**Mission-Vision Coherence Test:**
The mission and vision must form a logical narrative chain: "We do X for Y (mission) -- and if we do it well enough for long enough, the world will look like Z (vision)." If the vision could be true without the mission succeeding, they are disconnected.

### Step 4: Write Three Variants at Different Lengths and Registers

Always produce three variants of each statement. The variants are not merely shorter or longer versions -- they serve different strategic purposes and audiences.

**Variant A -- Concise (15 words or fewer for mission; 20 words or fewer for vision)**
- Intended for: email signatures, social media bios, slide headers, printed collateral, brand style guides
- Register: declarative, crisp, no subordinate clauses
- Technique: strip every word that could be removed without losing meaning; remove articles where rhythm permits
- Common failure: Variant A becomes a slogan rather than a statement -- it loses specificity in the compression. Test: does it still contain the beneficiary and the core activity?

**Variant B -- Descriptive (20-35 words)**
- Intended for: website About page, investor one-pager, press boilerplate, LinkedIn company description, strategic plan header
- Register: professional, readable, no jargon; complete sentences
- Technique: restore the beneficiary specificity and the distinctive how that was stripped in Variant A; this is usually the "recommended" variant for external audiences
- Common failure: Variant B sounds like a Variant A with filler added -- make sure it adds genuine informational value, not just connective tissue

**Variant C -- Narrative (40-60 words for mission; 50-75 words for vision)**
- Intended for: employee handbooks, strategic plans, board governance documents, grant applications, long-form investor materials, onboarding presentations
- Register: more human, may include a brief problem statement or context sentence before the core statement, can use "we" and first-person voice more freely
- Technique: open with the problem or opportunity the organization exists to address, then deliver the mission/vision as the organizational response
- Common failure: Variant C sprawls into a paragraph of marketing copy that dilutes the statement's function as a governance anchor

### Step 5: Apply the Buzzword and Vagueness Audit

Run every draft through a specific word-level review before presenting it to the user.

**Automatically flag and replace these words unless they are indispensable and qualified:**
- Innovation / Innovative -- replace with the specific mechanism of novelty
- Solutions -- always generic; replace with the specific product or service category
- World-class / Best-in-class / Leading -- these are performance claims, not purpose statements
- Empower -- has become meaningless through overuse; replace with the specific capability being transferred
- Transform / Transformative -- reserve only for cases where the organization's model is structurally disruptive, not aspirationally hopeful
- Leverage / Utilize -- replace with use, apply, or deploy
- Seamless / Frictionless -- marketing language, not purpose language
- Holistic / Integrated -- vague without qualification
- Cutting-edge / State-of-the-art -- temporal claims that age immediately
- Synergy -- never appropriate in mission or vision contexts
- Stakeholders -- acceptable in governance contexts but vague for public-facing statements; name the actual people

**Apply the Stranger Test:** Read both statements to an imaginary person who has never heard of this organization and has no knowledge of its industry. Can they answer these three questions from the statements alone?
1. What does this organization make or do?
2. Who does it serve?
3. Why does it matter?

If any answer is "I can't tell," the statement is too vague.

**Apply the Competitor Test:** Could a direct competitor use either statement verbatim without it being factually wrong? If yes, the statement lacks specificity and must be revised.

### Step 6: Validate Against the Full Quality Rubric

Evaluate each candidate statement against eight specific criteria before presenting to the user. Do not skip this step -- present the rubric results transparently so the user can see the quality reasoning.

**Eight Validation Criteria:**
1. **Tense discipline** -- Mission is present tense throughout; vision is future tense or explicitly time-anchored
2. **Beneficiary clarity** -- The specific person, organization, or community being served is named or clearly implied
3. **Activity specificity** -- The core product, service, or mechanism is identifiable, not categorical
4. **Competitive uniqueness** -- No direct competitor could use the statement without amendment
5. **Buzzword-free** -- No flagged generic language from the audit list (Step 5)
6. **Layperson comprehension** -- Passes the Stranger Test (three questions answered without industry context)
7. **Scale appropriateness** -- Vision is ambitious enough to be inspiring but anchored to a plausible 10-year trajectory given the organization's current position
8. **Narrative coherence** -- Mission and vision form a logical causal chain: mission success leads to vision realized

### Step 7: Provide Contextual Deployment Guidance

Mission and vision statements are not used identically in every context. Provide specific placement guidance for each common use case.

**Website About/Company page:** Use Variant B for both. Display them as a paired set, vision first (the "why it matters" hook), then mission (the "what we actually do" grounding). Avoid displaying them under the labels "Mission" and "Vision" on consumer-facing pages -- many audiences find the terminology off-putting; consider headings like "Our Purpose" and "What We Do"

**Investor deck:** Vision Variant C on slide 2 or 3 as part of the problem/opportunity narrative. Mission Variant B on the same slide or the following slide as the organizational response. Together they answer "why does this company exist and what world does it want to create?"

**Employee handbook and onboarding:** Mission Variant C and Vision Variant C as the opening pages. Pair with company values immediately after. This is the appropriate place for the most human and narrative-rich versions

**Strategic plan and board governance documents:** Mission Variant B and Vision Variant B as the header of the document. They function as the anchor against which goals, OKRs, and initiatives are evaluated for strategic fit

**Grant applications:** Most foundations require both. Use the exact word counts specified in the application. If no count is specified, Variant B for each is typically appropriate. Some grant applications ask for "mission" only and mean the combined purpose -- read instructions carefully

**Email signature and social media bio:** Mission Variant A only. Do not use vision in character-limited contexts

**Press releases and media boilerplate:** Mission Variant B as the standard "About [Organization]" boilerplate paragraph opener. Vision is rarely used in press releases unless the release is about a major strategic announcement

### Step 8: Offer Iteration and Alternative Framings

After presenting the initial output, offer explicit next steps.

- If any variant scores a failure on the validation rubric, explain why and present a corrected version alongside the original
- Offer to explore alternative organizational frames if the initial context suggests the organization has multiple interpretable purposes (e.g., a platform that serves both buyers and sellers, a nonprofit that operates both a service and a policy advocacy function)
- Ask if the recommended variants match the founder's or leadership team's instinct -- mission and vision statements require internal buy-in, and the "best" statement by technical criteria may not be the one the team will rally around; offer to adjust tone, voice, and emphasis based on feedback
- If the user rejects all variants, diagnose the rejection: is the problem the language (cosmetic), the framing (structural), or the underlying inputs provided (foundational)? Address the root cause, not just the surface symptom

---

## Output Format

```
## Mission and Vision: [Organization Name]

**Organization Type:** [For-profit / Nonprofit / B-Corp / Department / Initiative / Startup]
**Core Activity:** [1-sentence plain-language description of what the org does]
**Primary Beneficiary:** [Who is served -- specific, not categorical]
**Vision Horizon:** [X years / By [year]]
**Primary Use Case:** [Website / Investor deck / Employee handbook / Grant application / All-purpose]
**Key Differentiator:** [The mechanistic or methodological distinction from alternatives]

---

### Mission Statement
*What this organization does, for whom, and distinctively how -- present tense*

**Variant A -- Concise (≤15 words):**
[Mission statement]

**Variant B -- Descriptive (20-35 words):**
[Mission statement]

**Variant C -- Narrative (40-60 words):**
[Mission statement with brief problem/context framing]

**✓ Recommended for [primary use case]:** Variant [A/B/C]
*Rationale:* [2-sentence explanation of why this variant fits the audience and context]

---

### Vision Statement
*The transformed future state the organization is working toward -- future tense, time-anchored*

**Variant A -- Concise (≤20 words):**
[Vision statement]

**Variant B -- Descriptive (20-35 words):**
[Vision statement]

**Variant C -- Narrative (50-75 words):**
[Vision statement with context, named gap, and transformed state]

**✓ Recommended for [primary use case]:** Variant [A/B/C]
*Rationale:* [2-sentence explanation]

---

### Quality Validation Rubric

| Criterion | Mission | Vision | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tense discipline (present / future) | Pass / Fail | Pass / Fail | [note if any verb is ambiguous] |
| Beneficiary clarity (specific person/org named) | Pass / Fail | Pass / Fail | [who is named] |
| Activity specificity (product/service identifiable) | Pass / Fail | Pass / Fail | [what is identifiable] |
| Competitive uniqueness (competitor test passed) | Pass / Fail | Pass / Fail | [differentiator named] |
| Buzzword-free (no flagged generic language) | Pass / Fail | Pass / Fail | [flag any remaining concerns] |
| Layperson comprehension (stranger test passed) | Pass / Fail | Pass / Fail | |
| Scale appropriateness (vision anchored to plausible horizon) | Pass / Fail | N/A | |
| Narrative coherence (mission → vision causal chain) | Combined | Combined | [describe the logical chain] |

---

### Mission-Vision Narrative Chain
*The logical connection between what the organization does (mission) and the world it is building toward (vision):*

"[Organization] [mission in plain language], and if it succeeds over the next [X] years, [vision outcome in plain language]."

---

### Deployment Guidance

| Context | Use | Placement Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Website About/Company page | Mission [B/C] + Vision [B/C] | Vision first, then mission; avoid labels "Mission/Vision" for consumer audiences |
| Investor deck | Mission [B] slide [X], Vision [C] slide [X] | Vision in problem frame; mission as organizational response |
| Employee handbook | Mission [C] + Vision [C] | Opening pages; pair immediately with company values |
| Strategic plan / Board docs | Mission [B] + Vision [B] | Document header; anchor for strategic fit evaluation |
| Grant application | Mission [B] (exact word count per instructions) | Check application word limit; adjust to Variant A if ≤15 words required |
| Press boilerplate | Mission [B] | Standard "About [Org]" paragraph opener |
| Email signature / Social bio | Mission [A] | Character-limited contexts only |

---

### Revision Notes
*[Any statements that failed validation criteria, with explanation of what was corrected and why.
Any alternative framings considered and why they were set aside.
Any inputs that remain ambiguous and could affect the statements if clarified.]*
```

---

## Rules

1. **Never draft statements before collecting all eight required inputs from Step 2.** If the user's message is missing the core activity, beneficiary, or differentiator, ask for the missing information before writing. A mission statement drafted from incomplete inputs will fail the Competitor Test by default -- it will be too generic to pass.

2. **The mission MUST be present tense; the vision MUST be future tense or explicitly time-anchored.** This is not a stylistic preference -- it is the structural definition of each statement. "To inspire" is an infinitive, not present tense; rewrite as "We inspire" or "[Organization] inspires." A vision without a time anchor ("a world where...") is acceptable only for social movements and faith-based organizations where the horizon is generational; commercial and most nonprofit visions require a year or year range.

3. **Always produce all three length variants (Concise, Descriptive, Narrative) with a specific deployment recommendation.** Never present a single statement and declare it done. Different contexts require different lengths, and the user does not always know in advance which context will matter most. The recommendation must include two sentences of rationale -- not just the label.

4. **Mission statements must pass the Competitor Test before being presented to the user.** Read the draft mission. Substitute a direct competitor's name. If the statement remains factually accurate, it is too generic. Revise until the statement contains at least one specific element -- a named beneficiary type, a named mechanism, or a named problem -- that competitors do not share. Document this in the validation rubric.

5. **Vision statements must describe a changed external condition, not an internal organizational achievement.** "Becoming the market leader" is a business goal, not a vision. "Every independent restaurant owner has the financial tools and knowledge to run a sustainable business" is a vision. If the draft vision could be achieved without any change in the world outside the organization, it fails the vision test and must be rewritten.

6. **Never use the following words without specific qualification:** innovative, innovative approach, solutions, world-class, best-in-class, leading, empowering/empower, leverage, cutting-edge, seamless, transformative (unless the model is structurally disruptive), holistic, synergy, stakeholders (when a more specific term exists), next-generation, state-of-the-art. Flag any of these in the user's provided language and replace with specific alternatives.

7. **The mission and vision must form a traceable narrative chain.** If the logical sentence "We do X, and if we succeed, the world will look like Y" does not work with the drafted statements, they are disconnected. This is the most common failure in paired mission/vision work -- each statement may be good independently but they describe different organizations. Reconstruct the chain explicitly in the output under "Mission-Vision Narrative Chain."

8. **Apply the Stranger Test to every variant before presenting it.** An imaginary person with no industry knowledge must be able to answer: (1) what does this organization make or do, (2) who does it serve, and (3) why does it matter? If any answer is unclear, the statement is not ready. This test prevents insider language and category labels from masquerading as purpose statements.

9. **If the user provides or requests language the founder "must include," honor it as a constraint but note if it creates quality problems.** Some founders have sacred phrases. Do not overrule them -- but if the required language introduces vagueness, redundancy, or buzzwords, flag it explicitly in Revision Notes and propose a compliant version that minimizes the quality cost. The user's ownership of their statements always takes precedence over technical perfection.

10. **For organizations undergoing a mission/vision refresh (not creation), always request the current statements verbatim before drafting.** The refresh process requires understanding what language has internal equity, what elements resonate with staff, and what specifically is not working. Drafting new statements without reading the existing ones risks discarding valuable language or internal meaning that is not visible in the brief. Identify which elements to preserve and which to replace, and document this reasoning in Revision Notes.

11. **For nonprofit and social enterprise organizations, apply the impact-language standard.** The mission should name the social outcome or the beneficiary's transformed condition, not organizational activities. "We provide job training" is activity language. "We build employment pathways for formerly incarcerated adults re-entering the workforce" is impact language. The distinction matters for grant applications, donor communications, and sector credibility.

12. **Never recommend a mission or vision statement that the organization's actual operations cannot support.** If the input context reveals the organization currently serves a narrow market but the draft vision claims universal scope within 5 years, flag the gap. Aspirational stretch is appropriate in vision statements -- but an unachievable vision undermines credibility with boards, investors, and long-tenured employees who know the operational reality.

---

## Edge Cases

### Nonprofit, NGO, or Social Enterprise
Mission and vision conventions differ meaningfully from commercial organizations. The mission focuses on the social outcome or population being served, not the service delivery mechanism. The vision describes the changed social condition -- the world where the problem the organization exists to solve has been substantially addressed. Avoid revenue language ("reaching $X in funding," "serving X clients") in the vision -- these are operational metrics, not impact visions. Use beneficiary-centered language: "Every child in [region] has access to a licensed mental health counselor within 14 days of referral" rather than "We will be the leading provider of youth mental health services." For grant applications, check whether the funder requires a specific format -- some foundations define "mission" to mean the combined purpose statement and "vision" to mean the theory of change, which differs from standard usage.

### Internal Team or Department (Not a Standalone Organization)
A marketing team, engineering department, or cross-functional initiative can have mission and vision statements, but they must be scoped to the unit's function within the larger organization. The mission describes the team's specific contribution to the parent organization's mission -- not a miniature version of the whole company's mission. The vision describes what the team aspires to build or become, constrained by its actual organizational authority. Common failure: the team's vision accidentally restates the enterprise vision, which renders the team's statement meaningless. Test: would this team's vision still make sense if the enterprise mission changed direction? If yes, it is too generic and must be tethered to the team's specific function.

### Pre-Launch Startup (No Revenue, No Product Live)
Draft the mission in present tense even if the product is not yet live -- "We build..." is correct even at concept stage, because the mission describes the intended activity, not the current operational state. The vision is actually more important at this stage than at any other -- it is the primary tool for attracting co-founders, early employees, and seed investors, all of whom are being asked to commit before there is evidence of execution. Push the founder hard on the impact aspiration: what is the 10-year outcome they are willing to organize their life around? Avoid statements that are contingent on the current product design -- early startups pivot; the mission and vision should be durable enough to survive at least one significant product pivot while remaining true to the underlying purpose. Flag any mission language that is tied to a specific feature set rather than the underlying problem being solved.

### Large Enterprise Refreshing Existing Statements After a Merger, Acquisition, or Pivot
Request both organizations' pre-merger statements before drafting. Identify where the statements agree (these are areas of genuine cultural and strategic alignment) and where they conflict (these are areas of integration risk that the new statements must resolve or explicitly address). The refresh process involves three decisions: (1) which elements of the existing statements have earned internal equity and must be preserved, (2) which elements accurately describe the new combined entity's scope and must be updated, and (3) what new elements describe the combined entity's capabilities or ambitions that neither predecessor statement captured. Produce a "before/after" comparison in Revision Notes. Expect that the process will surface disagreements between leadership factions -- the statements are governance documents, and their language reflects power and priority decisions. Do not try to paper over genuine strategic disagreements with language -- flag them for leadership resolution.

### Mission-Only or Vision-Only Request
If the user requests only one statement, produce all three variants of the requested statement at full quality. In the output, add a note explaining that mission and vision work as a complementary pair -- mission anchors what the organization does today; vision describes why that work matters over time. Offer to draft the complementary statement, and note specifically what additional input would be needed. Do not produce a partial vision and label it a mission because the user said "just give me one thing" -- produce the correct type of statement they requested, explain the distinction, and offer the complement.

### Organization With Multiple Distinct Audiences or Beneficiaries (Two-Sided Markets, Multi-Stakeholder Models)
Some organizations serve genuinely distinct beneficiary groups -- a job marketplace serves both employers and job seekers; a community health system serves both patients and referring physicians; a B2B platform serves both enterprise buyers and the small vendors on the platform. In these cases, do not force a single beneficiary into the mission statement if it creates a misleading picture. Options: (1) name both beneficiaries with a connecting mechanism ("connecting [Group A] with [Group B]"), (2) identify the primary beneficiary whose outcome defines organizational success and foreground them, or (3) draft separate mission statements for internal governance use (full two-sided framing) and external communications (primary beneficiary framing). Present all three options with the trade-offs for each.

### Mission/Vision for a Faith-Based, Values-Driven, or Movement Organization
These organizations often resist the commercial mission-vision format for reasons that are legitimate, not naive. The founding motivation is often theological, ethical, or ideological in ways that conventional business language obscures or distorts. Apply two adjustments: (1) the time horizon for the vision may be explicitly open-ended or generational rather than 10-year -- note this as a deliberate structural choice, not a failure to specify, and (2) the distinctive "how" in the mission may be the values framework or community model itself (e.g., "rooted in [tradition]," "through the leadership of the communities we serve"), which is legitimately differentiating for this sector even though it would be vague in a commercial context. Do not pressure-fit these organizations into the commercial formula at the cost of authenticity -- the statements will be rejected by the community they are meant to anchor.

### Statements Required in a Language Other Than English
If the user needs mission/vision in another language, draft first in English to verify accuracy and intent, then translate or request translation. Do not translate directly from a formula into another language -- mission/vision formulas have different syntactic norms by language and culture. In many European, Latin American, and Asian organizational cultures, mission and vision statements are more formal, more values-laden, and use different rhetorical structures than the active-verb American commercial format. Flag these cultural differences and adjust accordingly. If the user needs the statement in both languages simultaneously (e.g., a binational NGO), ensure the two versions are conceptually equivalent, not word-for-word literal translations, which often produce awkward governance language.

---

## Example

**Input:**
"We're an 18-month-old startup. We build AI-powered legal document review software specifically for in-house legal teams at mid-market companies -- companies with 200 to 2,000 employees. Most of these teams are 1 to 5 lawyers handling everything from vendor contracts to employment agreements. Our software flags risk clauses, suggests standard redlines, and keeps a version history that maps every change to a specific reviewer. Right now we have 85 customers and $2.4M ARR. We need mission and vision statements for our Series A pitch deck and eventually our website. Vision should be 10 years."

---

**Output:**

## Mission and Vision: [Company] -- AI Legal Document Review

**Organization Type:** For-profit startup (Series A stage)
**Core Activity:** AI-powered legal document review software -- risk clause flagging, redline suggestions, and reviewer-mapped version history
**Primary Beneficiary:** In-house legal teams (1-5 lawyers) at mid-market companies (200-2,000 employees)
**Vision Horizon:** 10 years
**Primary Use Case:** Series A investor pitch deck; future website About page
**Key Differentiator:** Purpose-built for resource-constrained in-house legal teams, not law firms or enterprise; reviewer-mapped version history creates accountability layer general tools lack

---

### Mission Statement
*What this organization does, for whom, and distinctively how -- present tense*

**Variant A -- Concise (14 words):**
We give small in-house legal teams AI tools that make every contract review defensible.

**Variant B -- Descriptive (32 words):**
We build AI-powered legal document review software for in-house teams at mid-market companies -- flagging risk clauses, suggesting standard redlines, and tracking every change to the reviewer who made it.

**Variant C -- Narrative (55 words):**
A legal team of three cannot review two hundred contracts a year with the thoroughness a business demands -- and general-purpose tools were not built for them. We build AI-powered document review software that flags risk clauses, suggests redlines from market-standard playbooks, and maps every version change to the reviewer accountable for it, so small in-house teams can work at enterprise scale.

**✓ Recommended for Series A pitch deck and website:** Variant B
*Rationale:* Variant B names the specific beneficiary (in-house teams at mid-market companies), the three core functions, and the accountability differentiator -- all within a readable single sentence. Investors scanning a pitch deck need to understand the product and customer in one pass; Variant B achieves this without the setup paragraph that Variant C requires.

---

### Vision Statement
*The transformed future state the organization is working toward -- future tense, time-anchored*

**Variant A -- Concise (19 words):**
Within 10 years, every in-house legal team -- regardless of size -- will review contracts with the rigor of a Big Law firm.

**Variant B -- Descriptive (34 words):**
Within 10 years, the resource gap between a one-lawyer in-house team and a full-service legal department will no longer determine how well a mid-market company protects itself in its contracts.

**Variant C -- Narrative (65 words):**
Today, the quality of a company's contract review depends almost entirely on how many lawyers it can afford to hire. A two-person legal team at a $50M manufacturer and a twenty-person team at a $500M enterprise do not operate in the same world. Within 10 years, AI-assisted review will have closed that gap -- and the size of the in-house team will no longer predict the quality of the legal protection it can provide.

**✓ Recommended for Series A pitch deck:** Variant C
*Rationale:* Series A investors are being asked to fund a 10-year category-building thesis. Variant C frames the market problem narratively -- a gap that exists today, a specific inequality it creates, and a concrete outcome the company is working toward. This structure is effective for the problem/opportunity slide in a pitch deck. Use Variant B on the website, where the narrative context is established elsewhere on the page.

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### Quality Validation Rubric

| Criterion | Mission | Vision | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tense discipline (present / future) | Pass | Pass | Mission: "We build" -- present. Vision: "will have closed" -- future perfect with time anchor |
| Beneficiary clarity (specific person/org named) | Pass | Pass | Mission: "in-house teams at mid-market companies." Vision: "one-lawyer in-house team" / "mid-market company" |
| Activity specificity (product/service identifiable) | Pass | Pass | Mission: AI document review, clause flagging, redlines, version history. Vision: "AI-assisted review" |
| Competitive uniqueness (competitor test passed) | Pass | Pass | "reviewer who made it" and "mid-market in-house teams" distinguish from general-purpose contract tools |
| Buzzword-free (no flagged generic language) | Pass | Pass | No flagged terms in recommended variants |
| Layperson comprehension (stranger test passed) | Pass | Pass | Stranger can answer: software that reviews legal contracts for small legal teams at mid-sized companies |
| Scale appropriateness (vision anchored to plausible horizon) | N/A | Pass | Vision describes category-level shift in a 10-year horizon, consistent with $2.4M ARR base and AI market trajectory |
| Narrative coherence (mission → vision causal chain) | Combined | Combined | Chain is direct: if the software succeeds, team size stops predicting review quality -- exactly what the vision describes |

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### Mission-Vision Narrative Chain

"[Company] builds AI-powered legal document review software so that small in-house legal teams at mid-market companies can flag risks, apply standard redlines, and maintain defensible version histories -- and if it succeeds over the next 10 years, the resource gap between a one-lawyer team and a twenty-lawyer department will no longer determine how well a company protects itself in its contracts."

The chain is clean: mission success (better reviews for small teams) is the mechanism by which the vision outcome (gap elimination) becomes possible.

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### Deployment Guidance

| Context | Use | Placement Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Series A pitch deck | Mission B (slide 4), Vision C (slide 3) | Vision on the problem/opportunity slide as the "world we're building toward"; mission immediately following as organizational response |
| Website About/Company page | Mission B + Vision B | Vision first under "Why We Exist"; mission under "What We Do"; avoid the labels "Mission" and "Vision" for consumer audiences |
| Employee handbook | Mission C + Vision C | Opening two pages; pair with company values on page three |
| Strategic plan / Board docs | Mission B + Vision B | Document header; anchor for product roadmap and market expansion decisions |
| Press boilerplate | Mission B | Standard "About" paragraph opener for all press releases |
| LinkedIn company description | Mission B | First sentence of company description; complete within 156-character preview limit |
| Email signature | Mission A | 14 words fits standard signature character constraints |

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### Revision Notes

**Language preserved from input:** The user's description of "1 to 5 lawyers handling everything" surfaced the core beneficiary insight -- resource constraint is the defining context, not just company size. This is retained in Variant C's framing.

**Alternative framing considered and set aside:** An initial draft framed the mission around "contract risk" broadly rather than the in-house team specifically. This was rejected because it fails the Competitor Test -- every legal AI vendor claims to address contract risk. The differentiator is the specific customer (small in-house teams) and the accountability mechanism (reviewer-mapped version history), not the category.

**Input gap to note:** The organization's name was not provided -- replace "[Company]" throughout with the actual name before use. The name will affect Variant A's rhythm in the mission statement and may require minor adjustment.

**Potential refinement after leadership review:** Variant C of the vision uses a specific revenue comparison ($50M manufacturer, $500M enterprise) derived from the user's stated customer range. If the ICP evolves or if these figures feel too narrow, the specific numbers can be replaced with the relative framing ("growing manufacturer" / "mature enterprise") without changing the statement's meaning.
