Nonprofit Learning Lab
25 SMART Goals to Advance Your Organization
Updated: Jun 9
SMART goals allow us to have clearly defined objectives. These help us stay motivated when things get busy and overwhelming. SMART goals can be used in a variety of areas: your personal goals, your professional goals, your organization’s goals, or for setting goals toward a specific larger project.
If you aren’t sure what SMART goals are or would like a more in-depth explanation, check out our blog post, A Quick Guide to Smart Goals
Below is an in-depth example of what you should be thinking about when writing your SMART Goals:
Goal: Improving communication within our organization
SMART Goal: Organize 1-hour weekly team meetings to discuss and delegate important projects and tasks. Taking time to discuss and delegate will improve communication within the team and help the team stay on target with their work.
S: The goal specifically aims to improve communication within our organization.
M: We will track how many members on average attend and how long meetings last (may be able to shorten if meetings are productive).
A: A one-hour weekly meeting is an easily achievable goal.
R: The relevancy is that by improving team communication, we can improve productivity and uncertainty about tasks.
T: The goal lasts for 3 months. Then evaluate how the weekly meetings have or have not benefited the team.
Check out these 25 examples of other SMART Goals below!
5 Personal SMART Goals
Read 1 book a month
Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day
Meditate for 10 minutes after waking up
Improve my finances by transferring 8% of every paycheck to a savings account
Plan at least two types of social outings a month
20 Business and Organizational SMART Goals
Increase website traffic to our home page by 10% in the next 30 days
Increase email sign-ups by 5% month over month
Increase LinkedIn followers by 20% in Q2
Gain 4 new clients this quarter by scheduling at least 3 customer meetings per week
Host 6 educational seminars this quarter with 10+ attendees
Write and publish two blog articles every week
Close $25,000 in sales by the end of the quarter
Update the FAQ page on the website by the end of the month to reduce overall customer contact volume by 10%
Create a marketing plan for Instagram for the month of January by mid-December that includes a minimum of 12 posts.
Improve social media and marketing knowledge by completing Hootsuite certification by the end of the month.
Over the next eight weeks, I will improve the working environment for my employees by collecting anonymous feedback biweekly.
Secure $5K in sponsorship commitments for our March event by the end of January
Review my calendar and reduce the number of meetings on my calendar by 25% to provide more time for annual strategic planning by the end of next month
Improve customer service by collecting customer feedback via my website and social media (Instagram and Facebook) over Q1 then work to make improvements by the end of Q2
Create, launch, and place 3 ads on the business Facebook page by the end of September to increase the number of likes by 15%
To decrease mistakes and improve productivity, host a weekly training session for staff to review how to do standard, all-team tasks for the month of October.
I will meet with each employee individually for 30 minutes each quarter to discuss new projects, any issues, and any other general needs or thoughts to improve employee satisfaction.
Enroll each team member in an online course, geared to their role by April.
Apply for at least 3 government grants by the end of the quarter to increase funding for my nonprofit organization and reach our goal of having government funding account for at least 25% of overall funding.
Host one volunteer recruiting event per month to increase the number of volunteers for our nonprofit organization by 50% over the next year.
Check out these downloadable guidebooks and activity sheets to help you brainstorm on a variety of topics!
If you are interested in learning more about goal-setting and planning, check out these upcoming workshops:
Program Planning & Scaling: How to Build, Scale & Manage Programs to Reach Your Goals
Learn more and register here!
Successful Project Management: From Idea to Launch to Sustainability
Learn more and register here!