Determining goals and objectives lead to developing a mission statement for your plan. The mission statement includes:

• Who will do the action?
• What must occur?
• When should the action occur?
• Where should the action occur?
• Why is the action required?

The mission statement does not include how the action should occur. The how is included in developing courses of action (COA).

After developing the mission statement, a best practice is to ensure that senior leadership has reviewed and endorses the statement and that the goals and objectives are aligned with the desired end state.

Click the image to review this sample mission statement and identify the parts based on the five questions above: “After a tornado, the recovery community of Washington County will conduct recovery planning and operations within the entire county in order to restore community infrastructure, housing, services, and economic activity.”

Click this link to access the breakdown of this sample mission statement.