A mission statement should include information about the organization's purpose, business, values and beneficiaries. The purpose of the organization answers the question: "What are the opportunities or needs that we exist to address?" The business of the organization answers the question: "What are we doing to address those needs?" The values of the organization answers the question: "What principles or beliefs guide our work?" The beneficiaries answers the question: "For whom are we doing this?" From Janel M. Radtke, How to Write a Mission Statement.

The mission statement might also describe how the organization is uniquely situated to achieve its purpose. In other words, a mission statement should "elucidate both value to and uniqueness in the community. . . . It must demonstrate the difference an organization will make for those it serves, rather than merely describing what it does." From Tony Poderis, Don't Make Your Organization's Statement of Purpose a "Mission Impossible". Articulating the organization's uniqueness requires it to critically evaluate the environment in which it will operate. The Connecticut Nonprofit Information Network provides a useful list of initial questions that focus on the unmet need in the community the NGO will address, other organizations providing similar services in the area, resources of the founders, and the way in which the new NGO will address needs not already met by other organizations.

A vision statement, in contrast, describes what success for the organization will look like. This statement answers the question: What would be the state of things if the organization succeeds in all that it seeks to accomplish? Don Adams, in The Pillars of Planning: Mission, Values, Vision, explains that values "manifest in everything you do as a group, not only your public programs, but also how you operate. . . . Articulating values provides everyone with guiding lights, ways of choosing among competing priorities and guidelines about how people will work together." A value statement describes the principles or beliefs that guide the organization's members, and answers the question: What does the organization stand for, and how does it want to operate?

The organization's board of directors is normally responsible for developing the mission, vision and value statements, and should revise these statements annually or biennially. In revising the statements, the board should evaluate whether its program is still consistent with its mission and with the community's needs.

The Internet Nonprofit Center provides useful examples of mission statement and a description of the essential components of a statement—namely, purpose, activities, and values.