Just as an organization's mission statement summarizes what the organization is, what it does, and what it wants to accomplish, a public relations department's mission statement should reflect what it is, what it does, and what it hopes to accomplish. However, neither a public relations department nor any other operating unit within an organization functions solely for its own ends. These units exist to help their parent organization achieve its goals, and their mission statements should reflect and support the organization's overall mission.

A mission statement can be as short as a slogan, or it can be fleshed out to several pages in length. The best public relations mission statements probably fall somewhere between these extremes. They're long enough to be somewhat specific about what the public relations department does but short enough that they'll actually be read and not just be left in a desk drawer.
 

First Prize Glass practices mutual satisfaction public relations.

The first example below is a typical "short and sweet" mission statement that could be used for First Prize Glass. It's a very short and largely generic statement that's almost a definition of public relations. It could be adapted to almost any organization simply by changing the name, as long as that organization and its public relations staff believed in and practiced third phase public relations that emphasizes mutual adaptation. It would, however, be wholly inappropriate for a public relations unit whose primary activity is publicity in the classic first phase mode.

The second possible mission statement is a bit more detailed and identifies some of the specific activities and supporting roles the public relations unit is expected to perform. However, it too provides a quick summary of how the public relations staff thinks about public relations and what it's supposed to be.

The third example starts with a concise general statement similar to the first one but adds several themes and long-term goals as bullet-points. It is an unusually long departmental mission statement and would not be acceptable in all organizations. But, it could be acceptable at First Prize Glass in light of the level of detail included in First Prize's overall mission statement.

Note that each of the bullet-points in the public relations department's mission statement directly corresponds to a similar bullet-point in the company's overall mission statement.

Once an appropriate public relations mission statement has been developed, planning can move ahead into the audience and goal identification phase of the strategic planning process. If you've already read about this, you can click on the yellow link below to move into this stage of the hypothetical planning exercise for First Prize Glass.