Forming the Mission
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam once said, “To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal.” This quote resonated me as I was on the mission and RFP team. On this team, our job was to realize what the Inspire Up would stand for. We wanted to gain the insights of all the class, but put a clear path to that. For example, we saw the need to focus on education for marginalized communities within the DC Metro area. This idea was a priority because we spoke with experts in the field and they saw a potential dwindling of money for marginalized populations. That paired with a large portion of our class being extremely passionate about education gave us an intersection to work our mission around.
It was important that this “single-minded devotion” was felt throughout the whole class. A strong mission was of the utmost importance because each group had to work around and for it. For example, the evaluation team has to stick to this criteria while reading RFPs and the communication team has to explain the purpose and mission to any inquiring possible applicant. Through rounds of revision and tireless meetings within the smaller group, a mission was created which heavily influenced our RFP.
The mission was also incorporated into the evaluation criteria. When creating a rubric to evaluate the potential applicants, this was an issue that the missions team felt very strongly about. We wanted to make sure that there was no mission creep from the organizations and that those that may not fit the mission did not pass the first round, as that is the whole point of having a RFP and foundation in general. That is why we created evaluation rounds, as well as weighted criteria. Through this process, I gained insight into the creation and implementation to a mission, something both applicable in a future career, as well as my personal life.
