Mission, Vision, and Goals

All Youth Sports programs should have very similar goals to bring the best out of your participants. These should be outlined in your policies and procedures along with your Mission Statement. These should be outlined in your policies and procedures and summarized in your Mission Statement and Vision. From there come up with a set of internal objectives that will ensure you reach your goals while delivering on your mission and vision. Engrain these things in your parents, staff, volunteers, and participants to ensure they know what your program is all about and understand what is expected when they participate. This will create the positive culture you want at every level of your program. Here are some guidelines in developing your Mission, Vision, and Goals.

Mission: A mission statement is a brief statement that outlines an organization’s purpose, goals, and values. It serves as a guide for decision-making and helps to keep the organization on track. Mission statements describe what you do and who you are in the present. They summarize your organizations purpose and primary focus. Mission statements express your business’s core values. They are the foundation or compass for company culture.

Vision: A vision statement is a brief statement on where your organization inspires to be in the future. Vision statements describe what you want to do or where you want to be. Vision statements integrate those core values but are a game plan or action-oriented roadmap for reaching your goals.

Both your Mission and Vision statement work together to form a framework for your organization. The overarching mission of youth sports is to provide a safe, inclusive, and encouraging environment where young athletes can develop their skills, learn essential life values, and foster a lifelong love for physical activity. Key aspects of this mission include:

• Promoting Physical Health: Encouraging an active lifestyle to improve fitness, coordination, and overall well-being.
  
  
• Instilling Core Values: Teaching discipline, responsibility, and teamwork to help young athletes grow as individuals.
  
  
• Providing Equal Opportunities: Ensuring all participants, regardless of ability level, have a chance to learn and enjoy sports.
  
  
• Encouraging Lifelong Participation: Fostering a passion for sports that continues into adulthood.

Goals: A goal is something you want to achieve. It’s the desired result that your organization plans and commits to achieving. When making goals they should be SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound. You can have both long term and short term goals within your programs.

Objectives: An objective is a specific task and measurable action that can be accomplished to achieve your goals.

A goal is an achievable outcome that is generally broad and longer term while an objective is shorter term and defines measurable actions to achieve an overall goal. While different, the two terms are often used in unison. Both are essential to planning and executing the goals of the organization.

Once your organization has created their mission and vision statements, you should focus on your goals and how to achieve them. Many youth sports programs should have similar goals while providing a youth program for your community. Goals can come in many forms and be both internal for how you run your program as well as outcomes your program provides for participants and overall community. When it comes to creating goals for the on-site operation of your program and organization, there are several things you should consider.

1. Safety and Supervision: Safety and Supervision is going to be one of the most important things you need to focus on when you are running games and practices. If you cannot provide your program in a safe environment it should not happen. There are several things that you can do to make sure your program is safe like conducting background screens, having risk management plans, having proper training and supervision, and ensuring you have proper equipment. All this goes a long way to make sure you avoid serious incidents.
   
   
2. Skill Development: Enhancing fundamental athletic skills such as coordination, agility, and sport-specific techniques to help players progress in their chosen activities. Your recreation league should act as a feeder league to the higher level travel competition, clubs, high school, and eventually college. The better your young athletes are developed in your recreation program, the better those teams and athletes will perform when they get those higher levels. Partner with your local high school or club teams to assist in training your coaches and do some of the things they do at the high school or college level to start teaching your kids. If that is too much for your program, at the very least make sure your coaches are well trained in house and have the resources needed to develop their players.
   
   
3. Promoting Fun and Enjoyment: Ensuring that sports remain a positive and enjoyable experience, helping to prevent burnout and encourage continued participation. Your recreation program is in place for the kids to have fun. Not to get a college scholarship and not to win championships. It’s supposed to be to just go out to play, learn, and have fun. Make sure this is a top priority, and if you notice kids not having fun, find out why because it may cause them to quit sports forever. Remember, it’s all about the kids!
   
   
4. Teamwork and Leadership: Fostering a cooperative environment where athletes learn to work together, support each other, and take on leadership roles within their teams. Learning to work together as a team will have lasting effects on these kids in many aspects of their lives. Promote it throughout your program.
   
   
5. Positive Culture: Too often are kids scolded or yelled it when they make a mistake. Keep it positive! Constructive criticism is OK. A rule of thumb to tell your coaches and parents is if you have to be negative make sure it comes along with two positives. This is a way to notify the child of the mistake but keep their morale high by telling them what they did well. If you hear too much negativity shut it down immediately because it will spread like a virus throughout your program.
   
   
6. Sportsmanship and Character Building: All participants, parents, and coaches should be taught sportsmanship from the moment they step on the field for the first time. They need to learn how to be humble after a win, how to act when a call doesn’t go their way and to take a loss. Treat all players with respect, cheer for both teams, follow the rules of the game, and shake hands after games are all things that should be engrained in your youth athletes, parents, and coaches.
   
   
7. Fostering a Competitive but Supportive and Fair Atmosphere: Encouraging healthy competition while maintaining a focus on personal growth and sportsmanship over winning at all costs. The focus of the program should not be win at all costs, but kids need to learn how to compete and understand about winning and losing. Not always coming up on top is OK and kids will learn much more from losing than winning.
   
   
8. Don’t Focus on Game Results or Overemphasize Winning: Many of your coaches and parents will focus on the result of the game as the end all say all to their experience in your program. If you are focused on this as well it will make it even more hyper focused. It’s OK to post results, have standings, have playoffs, and crown a league champion, but make sure parents and coaches understand that this is the last thing you and they should be focused on. We use these things to teach competition, not because we care who wins or loses.
   
   
9. Structure and Organization: Your program should be highly organized and structured for your staff, volunteers, parents, and participants. An emphasis on planning, communication, and scheduling will be the foundation you need to ensure a very structured and organized program for those you serve.
   
   
10. Communication: Excellent communication should be a goal at every level of your organization both internally with staff and volunteers, externally with parents, and with your young athletes. Do everything you can to make sure you communicate every aspect of your program at all levels and it will instantly elevate yourself and your program.
    
    
11. Staff and Volunteer Development: Many times we focus on operations, games, and catering to our parents and participants, and don’t put the time and effort needed to provide ongoing training and education to truly develop our staff and volunteers. Your staff and your volunteers are your most valuable asset so have training and development goals that will result in better recruitment, retention and overall program.
    
    
12. Engaging Families and Communities: Creating a network of support through parental involvement, community engagement, and volunteer efforts to enhance the overall experience for young athletes will have positive impacts on your participants as well as your community as a whole.
    
    
13. Enhancing Physical, Mental and Emotional Well-being: Building confidence, reducing stress, staying active and developing resilience through structured sports participation can have lasting impacts on the health of the youth that participates in your programs.
    
    
14. Inclusion: Providing a safe space to play where anyone can play and everyone feels welcome.
    
    
15. Program Growth and Advocacy: All of our sports programs should have a goal of growth to serve as many families as possible. You as an administrator and your coaches should be advocates for growing and expanding these programs within your community. Achieving all the goals above will undoubtedly result in your program growing significantly over time.
    
    

Each youth sports program will all have their own set of individual and organizational goals that will cater to the success of their programs as well as plans, objectives, and benchmarks on how to reach those goals. Program goals and expectations are an essential part of running your program at a high level, growing your program as well as meeting and exceeding industry standards. The mission and goals of youth sports serve as a foundation for developing well-rounded athletes who excel both on and off the field. By prioritizing skill development, character building, and a love for the game, youth sports programs can positively impact young athletes’ futures and inspire lifelong engagement in sports and physical activity.