Who you are, why you exist, and what you achieve

Every association has a reason for being – even a brand new one that's still finding its footing. Working on your association's purpose is about two closely connected things: putting your reason to exist into words in the first place, and then actually making sure that you are able to follow through on it, and what that looks like in practice. In other words, making sure your initiatives and projects reflect what you find common ground around as an association, and vice versa.

The foundation everything else stands on

It's easy to assume everyone in the group already agrees on why you're doing this, without ever having said it out loud. That assumption tends to hold – right up until it doesn't, and disagreements about direction surface when you least expect them. A clear, shared sense of purpose makes almost everything else easier to get right: who you reach out to, what you say yes and no to, how you explain yourselves when someone asks, why you do the things you do, and why you do them the particular way you do them. But writing it down is only half the job – it only holds real value if you keep coming back to it and checking whether you're still living up to it. Furthermore, formulating objectives and long-term goals is also a great way to make guiding stars that can lead you, and future members, onwards.

From founding day to years down the line

If you're founding a brand new association, this is usually the natural place to start – agreeing, as a founding group, on what you're actually setting out to do, and for whom, before anything else gets built on top of it. If your association has been around for a while, the work looks a little different: it's as much about checking whether you're still delivering on what you originally set out to do, as it is about revisiting and sharpening something that may have grown a bit vague over time – especially around a change of members or before a new recruitment push.

What working on your purpose looks like in practice

In practice, working on your purpose covers things like formulating your mission (why you exist right now) and vision (where you're headed), putting words to your shared values and culture – the unspoken "this is just how we do things here" – and figuring out what makes you stand out from similar associations. Together, these usually feed into a core narrative: the short, clear version of who you are that you can use again and again. Just as important is the other half of "the purpose work": checking in every so often on whether you're actually living up to what you say you're about – not necessarily through detailed tracking or reporting, but by honestly asking yourselves whether your activities still reflect what you originally set out to do. This both gives you a sense of whether what you're building is working, and gives you plenty of reasons to celebrate when you can see, in black and white, that you're delivering on your own cause.

Keeping your purpose alive over time takes a little effort

Student associations tend to see a lot of turnover, so the original "why" can quietly fade once the founders have moved on. It's also easy for activities to slowly take the place of purpose – "we throw parties" isn't the same as why you throw them. Both tend to happen slowly and quietly, so you're more likely to notice once quite a bit has already drifted – which is exactly why formulating your purpose and following up on it go hand in hand: one without the other rarely holds for long.

What a clear purpose can lead to

Once you have a strong, shared sense of who you are, a set of clear goals to aim for, and a habit of checking that you're actually living up to it – a lot of the work that follows gets easier:

• It's simpler to communicate clearly about your association to the outside world, because you already know the story you're telling, you can potentially demonstrate what you've already managed to change positively, and you are all on the same page, working in the same direction.

• You'll have a better sense of who you actually want to attract as members and volunteers, rather than just whoever happens to show up.

• It also becomes easier to spot the right partners and funders to approach – the ones whose priorities genuinely line up with yours, rather than the first sponsor or grant that comes along.

• It gives you something solid to build your future initiatives and activities around, so your activities reflect what you've actually said matters to you, rather than just repeating whatever was done the year before.

Purpose of our organisation

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