Mission drifting into a brick wall

Funder "So what does your organization do?"
Executive Director "Well we teach kids to cook, while using the food from a local farm, which uses seed from a coalition of restaurants, which get their power from a series of windmills, which were assembled by the kids we taught to cook, and then those kids use their windmill building and cooking skills to set up new windmill building cooking schools throughout the pacific north west and then they . . ."

Today I was thinking about the importance of strategic focus. When I look around at organizations, it seems like half of the time nonprofits are so desperate to pry dollars out of the hands of foundations and donors that they are willing to try to stretch their mission to cover everything under the sun. I mean, I can totally understand the logic behind that (go to where the fish are) but the problem is that they end up trying to be everything to everyone, and end up being nothing to everyone. Think about it, if you've got 5 seconds to pitch your nonprofit to some fancy pants grant manager or cause marketing director, you've got to have a crisp clear message about what your nonprofit does, why it does it, and why they care about that thing that you do. No one cares about (or believes) that one nonprofit is solving each and every problem in the world, but they can believe that your putting all of your energy into doing one thing very well. Further more, nothing is going to make you look worse that saying that you really care about X to one funder and that you care about Y to another funder and then for the funders to find out that you've been bullshitting them both just to get your hands in their wallets.

I believe that real power comes from doing one thing really well. Most of the famous stars and masters of industry aren't jack of all trades, they just have the ability to do one things way better than anyone else. That should be the goal of nonprofits (and forprofits for that matter). Rather than attempting to make your mission touch as many points as possible, you can really gain traction by being able to say "we do this one thing better than anyone else and if you want this one thing to happen, you gotta fund us." By doing that you can be unique, you can concentrate your efforts and you can stay true to your funders and, most importantly you can stay true to your mission (and fend out mission drift). When you look at the most successful nonprofits out there like the american red cross or Harlem children's Zone or Big Brothers Big Sisters, you'll see orgs with clear missions and a dedication to achieving that mission at all costs. If you're going to have a nonprofit that survives, you're going to have to have the courage to say that you do one thing really well and then convince others of your ability and the importance of your mission. Donors don't expect you to save the entire world by yourself, they just expect you to stay true to your mission.