Your mission statement is a short summary of your family’s purpose and the standards you commit to living up to. You’ll use it to guide your decision-making together — and it’s especially helpful when it comes to money.
Maybe you’re familiar with the “company mission statement” — that one big sentence that describes why they do what they do. It connects us all around one big, important thing, and it makes decision-making easier.
In other words, a mission statement can help give purpose and direction — which are keys to satisfaction with your life. So there’s no reason to confine them to the workplace. Sitting down with your family to create your own mission statement can help you deepen your connection, resolve differences of opinion, and make more meaningful decisions.
You’ll use your family mission statement in all sorts of ways, but it’s especially helpful when it comes to money. That’s because talking about money is never just talking about money, really. It brings up a lot of emotion. It can be seen (especially within families) as a competition. And then there are the money taboos that make us want to avoid talking about it at all — which can definitely cause problems.
Your mission statement is a short summary of your family’s purpose and the standards you commit to living up to — in all aspects of your life. You’ll use it to guide your decision-making together.
It should express your most deeply held shared values, the ones you expect to hold for a long time — possibly across generations. But as your family grows and evolves, your mission statement naturally will, too. You’ll want to revisit it regularly (maybe once a year) and whenever your family goes through a milestone change.
You can make one for yourself, as a couple, as a family, or as a multi-generational family … it’s your choice. You can do all of the above, if that makes sense for you.
It's hard to know what you value together without first knowing what you value individually. So first, spend some time thinking about what’s most meaningful to you.
A few questions to guide you:
Schedule a time and place to talk. Whether it’s just you and your partner, your household family, or your extended family, try to make it special. The point is to make it feel significant and to give you a chance to bond.
Values are highly personal, and if you’re going to have an honest conversation, everyone needs to feel listened to and respected. Agree on some ground rules and give everyone space to speak.
A few ideas for making people feel heard:
To understand where your values overlap, it can help think about the past and the future. Some questions to ask:
Once you have all your values shared, it’s time to pare them down again. As a family, pick your most important values. If you’re having trouble narrowing them down, go back to those past decisions. Which value did each decision reflect? Were you happy with the outcome?
A mission statement won’t help if you don’t use it, so it should be short and memorable, and feel like a compass to help you make decisions. It could be a family motto or a short list of sentences. It can be helpful, if it works for your family, to specifically state your mission around your money or what money means to you.
Some examples of very short family mission statements:
And some examples of longer statements:
Before you go, explore some opportunities to use your new mission statement. Are you setting family goals for the year? Any big decisions coming up? Also: Set a time later in the year to come back to your mission and see if there’s anything you want to adapt.
When thinking about your mission and your money, you probably jump to philanthropy. That’s a big one — in fact, we recently put together a guide to using your shared purpose to make a strategic giving plan. But it’s just the beginning. Your family’s spending and investing dollars are also powerful tools to drive real change.
Every day, we make dozens of decisions, and a lot of them are about money. Think about where you’re spending your money now. Is it aligned with your mission statement? Use your mission statement as a guide, and look into whether the companies you’re giving money to match up with your mission.
Every dollar you invest has an impact — whether positive or negative. And as your net worth as a family grows, your opportunity to make a bigger impact — whether positive or negative — grows as well. So to live by your mission statement, you need to know the impact your family’s investing dollars are making right now — and you need to feel confident that it’s the impact you want to be making.
Talk to your financial advisor about your family mission statement, and ask about the impact you’re making now and the impact you could be making. And if you’re not happy with your answer, think about moving your money to a company that takes your mission seriously.
Because your family’s mission statement is serious. It reflects your purpose. It’s your North Star, and it guides you to make more intentional decisions. It can be an incredibly meaningful thing for you to do with your family.
Founded in 2014 with a mission to get more money in the hands of women, Ellevest offers wealth management and financial planning services optimized for women.