The Dangers of Mission Creep: A Lesson From Jack Skellington

Many vertical industries, such as education, social services, animal welfare, arts and culture, and healthcare, comprise the independent sector. For the most part, nonprofits within the sector specialize in unique areas of mission delivery.

In the same way that Jack Skellington, The Pumpkin King, has historically focused the efforts of his team on their collective area of expertise — pulling off a ghoulish, scary, sometimes disgusting, community-wide immersive Halloween experience in Halloween Town — most nonprofits focus on quality expert program delivery in a specific mission area. They gather the right people who have experience, credentials and expertise to deliver the best possible services that match the needs in their communities.

In “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” growing bored with the predictability of his town’s Halloween offerings, Skellington set off on a self-reflective journey that culminated in his desire to co-opt the work, efforts and style of Christmas Town. Instead of enhancing or updating what he already did, he decided to expand into an unrelated area. The results were an unmitigated disaster.

Similarly, nonprofits sometimes decide to venture into areas that are either tangential or completely unrelated to their core missions (a senior center opening an animal shelter onsite simply because it has the space to do so, as an example). It may be immediately obvious or take a few years of data to prove it, but this type of mission creep often ends with lackluster or even calamitous results, neither of which are good for keeping the trust and confidence of supporters and the community at large.

Why Mission Creep Happens

Skellington’s foray into mission creep started with a personal existential crisis and a healthy dose of boredom with the status quo. In the nonprofit sector, there are a number of reasons that organizations might embark on extraneous programmatic work. A nonprofit may:

• Be a young organization that has not successfully defined the scope of its work and where its focus should be.
• Be a more established organization that has been delivering successfully on a specific mission for years and feels it is such a well-oiled machine that it can and should branch out to deliver even more services.
• Truly believe a related area of service could enhance its own but insist on creating that whole new area from the ground up instead of partnering with a group already successfully doing it.
• Be a bit like Skellington where the nonprofit’s team lets its ego direct it to want more and more “real estate” in the nonprofit sector, and the nonprofit tries to accomplish that by branching out into other programmatic areas.
• Engage in the destructive action of chasing the money by securing funding in a different area not within its established area of expertise, but new, shiny and hard to resist (dare I say like Christmas Town’s tinsel and bows?)

It isn’t that nonprofits should do the exact same thing over and over again until the end of time. But their choices should be well thought out, strategic and based on solid data, as well as having the community’s needs at heart. Being aware of what can start the mission-creep ball rolling is a good way to help ensure it never does.

How Mission Creep Weasels Its Way In

I covered a few reasons why mission creep might happen, now let’s consider three ways in which it might occur.

1. Expanding Services

Executives and boards of directors may have truly well-intentioned ideas about expanding to deliver in areas complementary to their current mission’s programs but may not have conducted an environmental scan to determine if someone else, possibly another nonprofit, is already offering this complementary service. Just because you technically can do a thing does not mean you should. It is OK to refer to or partner with others who offer related services.

2. Taking Others’ Advice Without Careful Consideration

Not listening to the input of others is a habit that can derail us in most areas of life. Skellington continually ignored Sally Finklestein’s warnings that his version of Christmas would go up in metaphorical flames. He chose instead to just give direction to his vast network of sycophantic supporters who would carry out his wishes without question. In nonprofits, we must ensure that our executives, boards, and staff solicit information and feedback, and really listen to what it says before making decisions.

3. Feeling Pressures to Expand Offerings

There may also be a modicum of fear factored into the inclination to spread our nonprofits too thin. Executives and boards may worry that if they don’t keep expanding, the community will cease to believe the organization offers enough value. That may lead them to branch out into areas that are in direct competition with other nonprofits — a result that is rarely good for anyone.

There’s Already an Organization Doing That

In some cases, the areas of mission delivery organizations are considering expanding into are already successfully supplied elsewhere, either in the nonprofit or private sector. Some organizations may know this but believe they can deliver it better.

As an example, Skellington has to conduct all sorts of experiments to get to a place where he thinks he understands Christmas and all it entails. He has to pull things apart, examine them under microscopes, and try to identify their components. But why go to such an effort for reproduction, when there is clearly someone in a big red suit who has already successfully cornered the Christmas market? Maybe the answer for Skellington is to simply ask “Sandy Claws” to share some elements of Christmas Town’s bling for Skellington to give Halloween Town a bit of a makeover.

However you look at it, nonprofits provide necessary services; they display art, help animals, and educate communities. They also offer fundamental and emergency services. It isn’t easy work. So why make it harder by spreading the organization too thin trying to be everything to everyone?

Partnerships and referral programs may be a way to go. Or, there may be other options. Or, the new program being considered may not really be needed at all. It boils down to knowing what you are good at and doing it, soliciting and accepting input, and not just expanding for the sake of expansion. Whether you are Halloween or Christmas — or something else completely — just be great at being you.

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.