Strategic Plan

1. Assess and improve our mechanisms of retaining, documenting and conveying institutional knowledge

a. Find a mechanism for staff to consistently document, review and update job duties and descriptions

b. Re-assess current methods of exit documents, etc for student executives

c. Standardize protocol for electronic information and communication (to avoid confusion between the website, wiki, GoogleDocs, etc)

d. Increase house- and central-level resources for institutional memory (electronic forum/wiki space, video libraries, bookkeeping tools...)

e. Develop stronger ties between current members and BSC alumni

f. Encourage communication among BSC members of different houses

g. Strengthen ties with other cooperatives and NASCO

h. Pursue positive press and beneficial neighbor relations

2. Increase accessibility of our co-ops to prospective members

a. Increase disabled access (incorporate into HAPs, BAPs, HLBAPs procedures)

b. Increase standards for habitability to ensure that we take good care of our property.

c. Provide each house with the capacity to maintain a hospitable environment for academics

d. Assess the possibility of increasing membership

i. Internally- increasing house capacity, increasing membership over summer

ii. Externally- continue to assess possibilities of Rochdale III and Barrington

e. Re-assess how houses are marketed to the outside world (ie the descriptions on the BSC website, expand recruitment strategies)

f. Outreach to a diverse array of student organizations

g. Identify and implement useful tools to train membership/managers about facilitation, safer space, conflict resolution, discrimination, and how to identify hostile environments

h. Increase the ability of the BSC to understand the needs and composition of its members, perhaps through collecting demographic information of our members.

3. Improve long term operational sustainability of the organization

a. Develop a coordinated improvement plan for each house

b. Create policies and strategies to effectively continue seismic retrofitting

c. Support capital campaign to fund the $5 million gap

d. Build up cash reserves without sacrificing the affordability of the co-ops

e. Complete staff reorganization and update job descriptions

f. Fulfill our 5-year IT Overhaul Plan, and examine strategies for improving house-level IT

g. Develop and rehearse a disaster plan

h. Streamline student staff sustainability efforts, and continue to support new environmentally-friendly projects as they are identified

4. Expand the role of member education in the BSC

a. Support the implementation of the Member Education Development Plan from MSMECom.

b. Develop an orientation for prospective members before they sign a contract

c. Support house-level orientations in addition to the central level orientation

d. Continue to pursue and adapt the Cloyne 2010 Program Plan as a flagship for cooperative education that provides resources to all of our co-ops.

e. Increase member involvement in meetings and events, as a commitment from our members.

5. Strengthen the communication and cooperation between disparate internal groups to increase cohesion of the organization

a. Develop an easy to use mechanism for member feedback to CO

b. Clarify the responsibilities of different positions for communicating and decisions

c. Encourage house-level decision-making whenever possible

d. Further empower decision-making in BSC bodies other than Board