It is important to be as clear as possible about what your goals are. The best goals are stated so that it will be obvious whether or not you have achieved them. That means that you will want to think in terms of quantifying the goal and establishing a timeframe within which to achieve it.

For example, a general goal of "increasing community support for our local mediation program" is almost impossible to measure. It would be better to spend some time thinking about why increased community support is important and specific ways in which it could be expressed that would help the program. What you really need may be more volunteer mediators, or funds to pay operating costs. Expressing your goal as "Add 20 new volunteer mediators in the next year" or "Increase community financial support by $5,000 within 10 months" is more tangible. Even if your primary objective is to raise awareness in the community, you can express this in tangible terms: "Recruit 200 community residents in the next year as subscribers to a newsletter about our program."

Take a moment and prepare a short, specific goal statement.