81. Creating a Family Mission Statement

Welcome back to Spend Donate Invest! This is a podcast exploring the topic of whether we can reflect our activism, our beliefs, our societal values in what we’re doing with our money on a daily basis.

I’m your host, I go by GG that is short for Genet Gimja and I’m happy to be here with you today!  Today I’m going to be talking about how to create a family mission statement. And in line with the topic of this show, this family statement will be specifically about your family’s money philosophy. If your family already has a family mission statement, you might want to add an additional portion that addresses money. My sense is that we can benefit children by speaking about money starting at a young age. And in fact, I think we often do, without realizing it, we tend to reveal our unspoken beliefs about money to children.

But the idea with this exercise is to get some clarity on what you believe about money and what money philosophy you want to consciously convey. You might have specific values about generosity or seeing others as equals regardless of their economic status, we will get into what those values might be, the idea is that it can be helpful to spend some time thinking through what you want the family ethos to be.

So the first step in creating this family money mission statement is going to be gathering your family. I want to suggest that you give everyone a heads up, let them know that you’re going to be doing this exercise as a family. Everyone might not understand why you all are going to be doing it, and that’s ok. They don’t have to love the idea, they just need to be prepared and ideally they will have spent a moment or two thinking about it at least subconsciously before you gather as a family.

And then I suggest picking a time when you know that your family is going to be in a good mood, for example, maybe you spend the first or second day of vacation doing this exercise. Everyone is relaxed, you’ve been bonding, you’re anticipating great times, you’re somewhere special. Out of your normal routine and able to have a bigger picture mentality a little bit.

So you’re together, everyone understands what you’re about to do. I think it is nice to assign roles. If you have bigger kids, that are able to do internet research, you can ask them to bring examples of family mission statements that they find online. If you have smaller kids I think you can assign some of them to beautify the final document where you capture the mission statement you all come up with. One kid can be in charge of watching the timer to make sure you stay on task. If you are a family of adults, you can seriously divide and conquer the work here. One person can bring examples of family mission statements. The other person can be in charge of hiring someone to conduct the session or the adult family member who has the right facilitator skill set can conduct it. And another person can be in charge of creating the final product in terms of a framed document to put on the wall or whatever works best for your family.

There are so many different money values that you might decide on for your family. For example, I’ve heard people say that their priorities include:

• Having a positive impact on our community
• Showing up for the planet
• Building multigenerational wealth
• Leaving a legacy
• Helping others
• Giving according to a certain faith
• Giving according to a certain culture
• Being there for neighbors and community

So these are values that are specific but still allow enough flexibility and space to be applicable to all of the different things that come up for your family.

And once you come up with a family mission statement that is tailored to your family, one that is specific and flexible, it is time to create a visual tool to remind the family of your mission statement. It can be tshirts for the whole family. It might be a poster that you hang somewhere in your home. It can be a framed document that sits on the dining room table. You want it to be something that you see often enough that you can refer to it without having to go and look to see what you came up with.

And then I think you want to revisit it every once in a while. Maybe once a year to make sure it still makes sense for your family. Or when the family changes- when people reach new life stages or if the family configuration changes.

The focus of this show is about aligning your societal values and your money, so the examples I shared today related to that, but you might also include a broader set of family values. For example some values about how you treat each other.

Don’t overthink this. Just try to come up with a sentence or two about what you want your family to be about. Is it that you want your family to be about adventure? Achievement? Love and Support? You get to decide!

So let’s recap:

Step 1 was to give your family members a preview that you’re going to be doing this family exercise.

Step 2 is to gather as a family on the big day, hopefully it is while everyone is in a great mood, like on a vacation.

Step 3 is to assign roles, try to get everyone involved so they are more engaged.

Step 4 is to write up a simple, specific, clear family mission statement. Set a timer.

Step 5 is to put it up somewhere and to update it from time to time whenever your family changes.

I will include some links to examples of family mission statements that I found, they don't’ relate to money specifically, but I think they are still helpful.

Please let me know if you have a family money mission statement or you are inspired to try creating one after you hear this. Or if there’s another topic you’d like to hear covered here on the show, please send an email to spend donate invest at gmail dot com. You can check out the website which has lots and lots of episodes the web address is spend donate invest dot world. If you’re feeling the vibe here on the show, please send an episode to someone who you think might enjoy it too. That’s the best way you can support the show.

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Let’s talk again soon!

Links from today's episode:
https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/02/want-to-give-your-family-value-and-purpose-write-a-mission-statement/273491/

https://hbr.org/2020/08/whats-your-familys-mission-statement