Missions
Every mission is built the same way.
How a mission works
A mission breaks into targets, and each target breaks into tasks. During the week people browse, or think of something of their own — and then the family plans it and commits to it in council.
Work & Home · a few weeks · Service Campaign
Give on Purpose
Targets
- Pick it, and check it out before you trust it
- Choose a cause you actually care about, and say out loud why it matters to you
- Find out where the money actually goes, who runs it, and whether they're trusted
- Decide how much of your own money to give — based on what you found, not on the name
- Give it, and be able to say who it helped
- Make the gift for real, from money you earned or saved, and keep the receipt
- Find out who your gift actually helps
- Tell the family the story in your own words — why this one, and what you hope it changes
- Earn a second gift, and give it unseen
- Do the work to earn a second gift, separate from the first
- Make that gift without announcing it — no post, no telling, no credit
- Say afterward what it felt like to give when nothing came back
Every target is about a half-day’s work.
Join the pilot program for FREE for access to the full missions catalog in the app.
Six mission categories
The catalog is a very large number of them, already worked out, so you’re never stuck having to come up with an idea.
Adventure
Earn the Big Trip
A season · Earn-It · All bands — name a flagship trip, then earn it over a season of real work.
Faith & Meaning
Five Houses of Worship
A few weeks · Expedition · Coach — visit five, arranged ahead, one good question at each.
Family
Big-Kid, Little-Kid Patrols
A season · Buddy Project · All bands — every older kid paired with a younger one.
Intellect
Put a Robot on the Job
A few weeks · Maker Project · Coach — automate one nagging repetitive family task.
Service
Adopt a Trail
Ongoing · Service Campaign · Equip — your family's mile, under a real agreement.
Work & Home
Feed the Family on a Budget
A weekend · Hackathon · Equip — a fixed budget, a set number of dinners, feed the family well.
Pick a mission.
…Then seize the day!
Every task rolls up to a target, and targets to a mission.
Six mission categories
Adventure Mission
First Family Campout
Targets
- Build your kit and skillsNextFamily
- Show you can pitch and strike the tent in daylightNext
- Everyone owns one camp job
- Pack the campbox from a checklist
- Backyard shakedownFamily
- Sleep a full night outside at home
- Fix what went wrong with the gear
- Pick and book the real spotFamily
- Choose a first-timer-friendly campground
- Reserve it and check the season and weather
- Kids can plan the camp games and the night hike
- Camp for realFamily
- Make camp before dark
- Cook dinner and breakfast outside
- Run the campfire night — stories, stars, s'mores
- Leave no trace
- Debrief and go againFamily
- Everyone names a best moment and one fix
- Book campout number two before the gear's put away
Turn family life into a shared adventure.
Adventure together.
Adventure Mission: Curate the most impressive clay-baby collection ever assembled at great grandmother's beach house.
Remember together.
Faith Missions: Honor where we come from — Sheppards dinners on Christmas Eve, and deliberate trip to reconnect with our China roots through the family we see less often.
Create family memories.
Family Missions: Epic homemade Halloween costumes, every single year.
Learn together.
Intellect Missions: An award-winning lego robotics team, a school acceptance, and supporting our aspiring artist through museum visits.
Make a difference together.
Service Mission: Sell dumplings to raise money for an elephant sanctuary. (We later discovered a different non-profit making a greater impact saving Cambodian lives from lingering landmines — and donated the money to them instead.)
Work together.
Work & Home Missions: Entrepreneurial missions led to a highly successful lemonade stand for Lincoln, a cake business Serene runs, and then a handyman apprenticeship for Lincoln.
How missions are organized
The same mission is filed four ways, so a family can find the one that fits the week they actually have.
Shape
A weekend expedition and a season-long pact ask different things of a family.
- Expedition
- Go somewhere, come back changed. A trip with an objective.
- Advancement
- A ladder of skill with a real standard to meet at the top.
- Seasonal Pact
- A promise the family keeps, repeated, for a whole season.
- Maker Project
- Build a real thing that didn't exist before.
- Service Campaign
- A sustained push aimed outside your own family.
- Earn-It
- Work for money, and learn what money does next.
- Hackathon
- One short all-hands sprint at a single thing.
- League
- Compete on a schedule, against people who are trying too.
- Mastermind
- A small group that meets to push each other along.
- Buddy Project
- Two kids working a project together.
Time
The catalog knows the difference between a drive and a year.
Who it’s for
- Either
- runs alone or alongside other families
- Single-family
- written for one household
- Shared
- written to run with other families
- Solo
- one kid, on their own
Agency stage
Where your kid is, by age, and what your job is there.
- Carry · 0–3
- They ride in your pack. Every input and rhythm is you.
- Guide · 4–7
- They walk behind you down whatever trail you pick — so pick many.
- Equip · 8–11
- They range ahead, within sight, off your exact path.
- Coach · 12–15
- They take point. You fall back in the column.
- Advise · 16–18
- They lead their own patrol. You're the outfitter — on call, not in command.
Where missions have taken us
Reading the catalog is free and always will be. If you’d rather run one with help —
Running a Patrol Family
Your family’s rhythm, at a glance.
One screen for how your family is really running — how each member is doing with key routines that you want to track, the family’s rhythm with daily tallies and weekly councils, and how your mission completion activity has been going.
Pinned routines are important ones for which you are specifically working, which is why they’re on the top row. People can only improve a few habits at a time.