QUICK A SSESSMENT OF

B ARRIOS U NIDOS : H YBRID

S TRATEGIC P LANNING
SESSION
Preliminary Strategic Planning for Barrios Unidos
Strategic Technology Plan

This assessment should help foster the development of a comprehensive and

meaningful strategic technology plan that is aligned with Barrios Unidos
current organizational realities, and overall main organizational strategic
mission and goals.

Rocío Corona and Ryan Gonzalez

Impact Driven Technology
impactdriventechnology.com
 Impact Driven Technology

PART 1: ORGANIZATIONAL
STRATEGIC PLANNING

I. ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES, VISION, AND MISSION

Values or Operating Principles

Our session showed that there are certain values and beliefs that are deeply
engrained in Barrios Unidos organization and that influence its
organizational operations. The following principles or organizational values
were recorded during the session and also confirmed by certain
organizational documents:
 Justice and Community Peace
 Cultural Identity and Tradition
 Respect
 Self sufficiency and Empowerment
 Spiritual Guidance

Barrio’s Unidos Mission

An observation made during the session and which was discussed by all
participates was the clarity of BU’s Mission and what it was exactly. Many
participates had several similar statements on what the mission statement
was, but agreed that this should be more clearly stated and accessible to
individuals who are trying to know more about BU; such as providing a clear
statement of BU’s mission on BU’s website. The following mission statement
was then confirmed:

Barrios Unidos Mission Statement:

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Our mission is to prevent and curtail violence among youth by providing them
with alternatives.

Using this mission statement along with attention to specific organizational

priorities and needs, the following Strategic Organizational Mission
Statement was developed:

Strategic Organizational Mission Statement:

To strengthen current partnerships and increase networks to enable us to
strengthen our outreach intervention and prevention programs which will
empower our communities.

This strategic mission statement examines the core issues or priorities

identified by BU participants in the session as being that of violence
intervention and prevention among youth and using partners and networks
as key strategies to meeting those priorities. This strategic mission sheds
light onto the strategic goals that should be identified, as well as key
strategies that are strengths/opportunities of the organization that can help
them meet those strategic goals.

II. THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN

External Environment
Many of the opportunities and threats are identified through an external
environmental scan, which looks at national situation and trends, local
situation and trends, along with opportunities the organization has had in
the past. The following opportunities and threats where identified during the
session:
Opportunities:
 Availability for training

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 Youth involvement
 Relationship with SCPD
 BU Production Storefront
Weaknesses:
 Communication, written and verbal
 Decisions delegated more widely to allow for more programming
 Publicity of BU and events

The Organization or Internal Environment

Many of the strengths and weaknesses of any organization are usually
identified by internal scan of the organization which looks at the scope of
activities, operations, management, and governance. The following strengths
and weaknesses where identified during the session:
Strengths:
 Increase in employee education capacity which allowed for more
donor support
 Dedicated staff
 Community crisis and resources center
 Spirit and Cultural traditions
 Walter Guzman Retreat Center
 Volunteer database development
Weaknesses:
 Loss Funding
 Overspending

Strategic Issues Identified by Environmental Scan

After conducting an environmental scan of BU’s both internal and external

environment, a list of strategic issues where identified using the following
criteria:

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 Congruence with mission

 Measurable results
 Demonstrated need
 Increases organization’s visibility
 Increases organization’s financial position and sustainability

And here were the following strategic issues identified overall by BU

participants:
 Communication, both internal and external
 Funding, Financial Sustainability
 Partnerships and Networking
 Capacity Development, mainly for staff but also include organizational
resources
 Current capacities and passion (a positive element that the
organization holds and can be used strategically to meet their mission)

III. GOALS IDENTIFIED FOR ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIC

PLAN

The following results of the above two parts led to identifying some priority
goals for an Organizational Strategic Plan. BU participants identified the
strategic issues as goals in themselves that BU can use to guide them in the
development of a strategic plan. Four Strategic Goals were identified:

1. Improve and strengthen BU’s current communication processes both

internally and externally to better meet all of their constituencies
needs and improve organizational administrative/operating
mechanisms. (Essentially this goal is two-fold both encompassing
internal communication and external communication.)

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2. Increase funding for BU in order to foster financial organizational

sustainability.
3. Nurture and strengthen current and potential partners and networks
to effectively and with greater impact meet BU’s constituencies’ needs
and organizational priorities.
4. Implement training and other forms of educational resources that can
foster capacity development for both staff and constituents, as well as
organizational infrastructure.

PART 2: STRATEGIC
TECHNOLOGY PLAN

I. STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY MISSION STATEMENT

The above strategic planning process is needed to develop a valuable and

more importantly meaningful strategic technology plan that will be adopted
and that can meet the current realities and needs of BU.

Unfortunately, the session did not allow us to fully immerse into this
technology plan goals/objectives/strategies, and more specifically on a
Strategic Technology Plan Mission Statement. Nevertheless, our research
shows that most Strategic Technology Plans are created to foster the
accomplishment of Organization Strategic Plan, essentially the bigger
picture of the organizational strategic mission. Hence, in many cases the
strategic technology plan mission statement looks as follows:

Foster and strengthen current organizational technology capacity to better

meet (Organization Name) organizational strategic plan mission and goals.

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We recommend that BU use the above mission statement as a reference point

for their own strategic technology plan mission statement.

II. STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Overall, we were able to develop potential strategic technology goals and

objectives that were aligned with the identified organizational strategic goals.
The identification of these technology goals and objectives are only a rough
sketch, more thought and collaboration must be implemented by staff to
develop them more meaningfully for the organization.
The technology goals and objectives where identified by using the above four
organizational strategic goals as a framework of guidance on how these goals
should look like.

Organizational Strategic Goal 1

Improve and strengthen BU’s current communication processes both
internally and externally to better meet all of their constituencies
needs and improve organizational administrative/operating
mechanisms.

Strategic Technology Goal:

Under this specific organizational strategic goal, specific tools where
identified that can improve internal and external communication:
 Email, e-newsletter, surveys, google calendar, updated website,
facebook (social media), list serve (internal and external and events),
contact list of phone numbers (updated), internal website, internal blog
(word press)
IDT recommends that this Strategic Technology Goal be documented as
follows:

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Adopt existing and easily accessible technologies that can meet

the demands for improving internal and external
communication with BU.
Examples of objectives that can be created, using the above information
gained in the session, can be as follows:
 Develop procedures and protocols for effective and efficient
usage of email communication for both staff and constituents
 Create a monthly e-newletter to show case and report to
community BU’s work and achievements.
 Implement the usage of google calenders as a way to foster
organizational collaboration and transparency of staff duties
and responsibilities.
Again, these are only examples and BU staff must as collective agree on
specific objectives that are priorities for each goal.

Organizational Strategic Goal: 2

Increase funding for BU in order to build financial organizational
sustainability.

Strategic Technology Goal:

Improve BU’s sustainability by adopting technologies that can foster
financial sustainability.

Strategic Technology objectives identified to meet goal:

1. Implement online fundraising portal onto website for donations
2. Marketing of events via social media platforms, and for BU
products
3. Website needs to be updated, in order to continuously engage
potential donors
4. Database for monitoring grants that are relevant to BU

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5. Customer database
6. Past funders database (File maker pro)

Organizational Strategic Goal: 3

Nurture and strengthen current and potential partners and
networks to effectively and with greater impact meet BU’s
constituencies’ needs and organizational priorities.

Strategic Technology Goal:

Use technologies to effectively nurture and strengthen relationships with
current and potential partners and networks.

Technology Objectives:
1. Recruitment of tech support from CSUMB
2. Engaging in new platforms of communications, such as a BU YouTube
channel
3. Do documentary DVD on BU to raise community/donor engagement
4. Use E-newsletter/email lists to stay connected with current members and
others (Mail Chimp and Constant Contact)

Organizational Strategic Goal 4:

Implement training and other forms of educational resources that
can foster capacity development for staff and constituents, as well as
organizational infrastructure.

Strategic Technology Goal (recommended):

Improve technology adoption and effective utilization of it through capacity
development and building processes for both BU staff and organizational
infrastructure.

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Strategic Technology Objectives:

1. Having access to a server
2. Having a tech person
3. Identifying multiple funding sources
4. More phones, computers, etc.
5. Updated software and hardware
6. Connection speed of internet
7. Upgrade multimedia program

CONCLUSION
IDT recommends that all BU staff as a collaborative look into the preliminary
identified Organizational Strategic Plan’s Mission, Goals, and Strategic
Technology Goals and Objectives. As an external consulting group, IDT
cannot fully develop a strategic technology plan without full consent and
approval of BU staff that the previous identified strategic planning
components are true to BU environmental context and are the most
important to BU’s current needs as seen by all BU staff, executives directors,
board, and most important stakeholders.

In order for IDT to assist in the development of a full Strategic Technology

Plan, which is the main scope of work and goal for this project by IDT, we
need the following to be completed by BU staff:

1. Consensus with BU staff, constituencies, board, and executive

directors that what has been identified as strategic issues and goals
are BU’s current priorities and needs.
2. Report back to IDT on fully developed Organizational Strategic Goals,
along with most important Strategic Technology Goals, Objectives, and
who with the organization can do which objectives. (Please report these
on the provided Strategic Planning Framework)
3. Timeline on when Strategic Technology Plan should be implemented,
along with deadlines for specific objectives.

These are the main things needed by IDT to be able to help in the creation of
a thorough Strategic Technology Plan. We hope that this session on strategic

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planning would help BU’s capacity in developing on their own strategic goals,
and objectives.

NEXT STEPS…
IDT will like to implement specific technology workshops, depending on what
are the priority needs of BU and its staff. We hope to use these technology
workshops as capacity development trainings and leverage them as in-kind
donations when co-writing the ZeroDivide Grant. Once IDT has received a
fully developed Strategic Technology Plan framework, IDT will assists in
strengthening it as needed to be used for the grant.

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