Creating Your 10-Year Moonshot

When it comes to strategic planning, we are big believers in the principle of a two page strategic plan. Page one answers the question, where are we going? Page two answers the question, how do we get there? And right now we're going to look at one of the biggest components of page one, which is your moonshot. But a little history first.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

What I want us to focus on right now is the fact that many people would have perceived this statement as absolutely ludicrous and here's why. The technology did not even exist at this time in which President Kennedy said this statement. And we didn't even know the math of how we were going to effectively get the spaceship to the moon, on the moon and back safely to Earth. What's important for us to recognize about this 10 year moonshot statement is the fact that it is what we would call a smart goal. S specific, M measurable, a ambitious, R realistic, and T time bound. This statement is specific in that we can tell exactly what success looks like because of the way it stated. He painted it done. He didn't say we're going to go somewhere in outer space or maybe we'll get close to the moon. Not only did he say we'd land a man on the moon, but he clarified that success meant returning that spaceship with everyone in it safely to Earth. The statement is measurable in that we know the exact moment in time in which the mission is either achieved or or not achieved. We've already talked about how ambitious this statement was and this next piece is so critical and that it was also realistic. If President Kennedy would have said we're gonna land a man on Mars, return him safely to Earth, that would have been impossible at the time. We could probably make a goal like that now. If he would have said, we're gonna put someone on the sun and bring him back safely to Earth, I'm pretty sure that's impossible. And maybe someone will prove me wrong one day, that would be kind of cool. The final piece is that this statement was time bound. He said, before the decade is out, it will be achieved. And that is exactly what happened. We accomplished this mission as a country in 1969. When it comes to strategic planning in the nonprofit sector, one of the more common practices I've seen is setting aspirational goals for the future. And I believe that's not only unproductive, but in some cases it's actually harmful. Maybe you've heard something to this effect where a nonprofit might say, we envision a world whereby no child is hungry anywhere on the planet by the year 2030. Here's the problem with that statement. If that organization doesn't actually have a realistic plan to achieve that extremely ambitious statement, then they're telling their staff members that they're going to ask them to do things that they're not actually going to hold them accountable to, and they're telling their donors they're just going to blow smoke up there, you know, you know what, just to try to make them feel good and ask for money. And so when you're setting your moonshot, it's essential that it's extremely ambitious and realistic. Something that ten years from now, once you achieve it, you're going to look back and not only say, wow, we did it. You're going to say, I know exactly how we did it. And I remember the plan we made and the steps that we put in place. And so as we end this section, it's important for everyone to understand, not only in our two page strategic plan are we going to create that 10 year moonshot, but we're going to break it down to what does it look like three years from now to be on track, just as the United States worked backwards from that goal to create the technology that would eventually create the essential technology, or to learn the incremental math, to arrive at the definitive math to achieve the mission. And then we're going to look at as an organization, what does it look like a year from now and even 90 days from now. And eventually every team member throughout the entire organization will have three to seven quarterly priorities every quarter that directly tie into the strategic plan. So may your 10 year moonshot be smart so that your organization can go to the next level and all the other levels after that.