Methods for Defining Your Organization's Purpose
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Methods for Defining Your Organization's Purpose

Get out of your head and embrace your heart with these 3 activities
words:
Shannon Vossler
Sam Schulman
Lindsey Turner
visuals:
Beth Holzer
read time:
5 minutes
published:
October
2024

For organizations and brands, discovering purpose always starts with a question: “Why do you exist, beyond profit?”

A good purpose statement articulates a passion to boldly make an impact. It can differentiate you from competitors, grounding your work in deeper meaning. It can serve as a beacon to draw like-minded individuals to your company—as consumers or employees. And it can align and motivate leaders, guiding strategic choices.

To do all that, a good purpose has to make you FEEL something.

But too often in crafting a purpose statement, marketing and business jargon sneaks in, adding extra bloat. Or conversely, the language gets watered down to the point where it doesn’t mean anything anymore. The emotional gets sacrificed for the intellectual.

If you feel yourself or your team starting to slip into the weeds—or floating too high above the clouds—here are three ways to re-inspire and re-calibrate your thinking around purpose.

A series of small, scattered red and white circular dots placed on a white background. The dots are arranged in a seemingly random pattern, with varying shades of red and white, suggesting an abstract design or data visualization.

1. Get out of your own head: Collect love letters.

If you’re feeling lost at where to even begin, start with some on-the-ground research. Approach employees, end users, stakeholders—whoever interacts with your brand or company—and ask them to write a love letter to your organization, talking about what they’re most proud of, or what they appreciate most.

How we’ve used it: Last year, we were working with the team at Dartmouth Library to develop its strategy, starting with a clear articulation of its purpose. As part of a series of co-design workshops with faculty, staff, and students, we asked participants to write a letter to their library: What did they treasure most? How did it make them feel? While the stories we gathered covered a broad range—encompassing everything from intellectual exploration to belonging—they revealed the deep connections people had with their library, an attachment that was central to both its purpose and strategy.

A series of small, scattered red and white circular dots placed on a white background. The dots are arranged in a seemingly random pattern, with varying shades of red and white, suggesting an abstract design or data visualization.

2. Push past “what” and “how” to uncover your “why.”

If you’re feeling like your purpose is stuck in details and logistics, try the classic Golden Circle from Simon Sinek. Draw three concentric circles: the biggest should be WHAT you do; the next, HOW you do it; and the center WHY you do it. Brainstorm your answers to each and put them in the appropriate sphere. Focus on what landed in your center circle—your whys start to articulate your purpose.

How we’ve used it: The Boston Society for Architecture reached out to us to help the organization shift from being program-driven to being impact-driven. In a series of collaborative workshops, we had stakeholders list all the practical and emotional benefits for member architects, partners, community leaders, and students. Together, the team mapped these examples on the Golden Circle, setting aside functional positioning statements to focus on elevating the why—the emotional purpose that the organization could rally around.

A series of small, scattered red and white circular dots placed on a white background. The dots are arranged in a seemingly random pattern, with varying shades of red and white, suggesting an abstract design or data visualization.

3. Fast forward to the future to ground purpose in greater context.

If you’re struggling to make your purpose feel more aspirational and evergreen, consider taking an imaginative journey five, 10, or 15 years into the future. Spend a few minutes generating as many future signals as possible: What are things you observe in your industry, your customers, or your organization today that might indicate bigger trends over time? How might you evolve your purpose to stay relevant amid these changes?

How we’ve used it: In the earliest days of the pandemic, we were working with a large consumer electronics company to design a bold new strategy for the organization. To kick off the work, we spent a couple of hours with the core team generating signals. Even though we had no idea what the impacts of the pandemic would ultimately be, we were looking to uncover and better understand trends that were already starting to emerge in the world around us. These explorations into themes like hybrid work, climate resilience, equity (and more!) helped us paint a picture of the future that gave us a context for defining a purpose that could fit the company for years to come.

Articulating a bold and inspirational purpose is hard. It requires creativity, empathy, and constant iteration. And in the swirl of “are we there yet?” it can be easy to sacrifice the emotion, chopping the “feeling” in favor of generic language that—if said with enough oomph—sounds smart enough. But it’s not worth it.

Finding the right “why” can help give your purpose the power it needs to inspire leaders and employees to work in service of something greater. And when you bring it to life, a great purpose can signal your company’s core ethos to consumers, acting like a beacon to those who seek what you have to offer.

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Shannon Vossler
Writing Design Lead
Shannon brings products, strategy, and imaginative futures to life through the power of storytelling. With a background in television and video production, her passion and expertise lie in crafting narratives that educate as well as inspire, simultaneously provoking empathy and action for consumers, colleagues, and clients alike.
Sam Schulman
Senior Strategy Design Director
Sam works at the intersection of design and strategy to unlock new opportunities for her clients. Energetic and driven, she excels at navigating complex challenges and determining the role design can play in solving them.
Lindsey Turner
Executive Design Director
Lindsey works with clients and teams to unlock creativity and bring to market human-centric brands, products, services, and digital experiences. Her passion lies at the intersection of brand and business—how purpose-led strategy and compelling storytelling can lead to positive change in organizations and in the world.
Beth Holzer
Marketing Visual Design Lead
Beth brings ideas to life with visual design, using craft to add context and texture. She specializes in translating complex ideas into imagery that tells compelling stories.
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