Creating a mission statement is a useful way to ensure that everyone in your organization has a consistent understanding of the reason why your organization exists. It is particularly useful for new organizations to lay out to help make sure they stay true to their mission was they grow.

In many ways, the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America is a great example of a values statement:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

In just 52 words, that one sentence captures the shared goals – Justice, Tranquility, Defense, Welfare, Liberty – that bound the colonies together into a desire to join into one country. As the United States grew rapidly over the next 200-plus years, this simple statement of the purpose of the Constitution helped future generations stay true to the purpose of the Founding Fathers.

It took just 52 words to create a mission statement that has held together 50 states for over 200 years. Your organization’s mission statement doesn’t have to be long to be long-lived and effective.

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