Scholars typically define organizations as goal-seeking entities. Goals are also foundational components of theories of organizational excellence and change, strategic management and performance management. Surprisingly, however, important aspects of organizational goals have received little attention. A comprehensive literature review has revealed that there is actually very little on where organizational goals come from. Instead, dominant theories on goal-setting, goal-networks, and management by objectives are typically focused at a more micro-level and start by assuming that organizational goals have already been established. Organizational-level theories include the idea that goals often are imposed, emerge from negotiations, result from emergent strategies, or are part of conscious attempts at organizational strategizing, design and change. What has been missing is a comprehensive framework that incorporates existing work in the form of testable propositions related to organizational goal formation and implementation in public and nonprofit organizations. In this paper, the authors offer one approach to such a framework. Based on an extensive literature review across multiple disciplines, the authors first present a framework that includes the following interconnected categories: institutional determinants and influences; policy domain; policy issue; contingencies; goal formation approach; goal content; goal implementation approach; organizational performance, accountability, and learning; and a series of feedback loops. The authors then offer a set of propositions regarding goal formation and implementation in public and nonprofit organizations tied to the elements of the framework. Finally, the authors conclude the paper by setting out a research agenda aimed at advancing understanding of organizational goals, where they come from, and what their effects are on public and nonprofit organizations.