CLIENT: Proyecto Horizonte (Ushpa Ushpa)

DATES: February - May 2011

COMPANY
Proyecto Horizonte is a non-profit and non-governmental organization based in Mineros San Juan, Bolivia. It began its work in 2004 as a privately funded organization and since then has been supporting communities to implement programs in education, health and community development. The organization funds and manages a daycare, 600-student school, adult night school, community health center, and a variety of economic development and cultural projects.

CHALLENGE
As Mineros San Juan became officially recognized by the city of Cochabamba, it was clear Proyecto Horizonte needed to restructure to take advantage of government-run educational and health programs while expanding other community initiatives that could provide more support and development for the community. I partnered with Proyecto Horizonte leadership and staff to understand the current processes, identify redundant programs, and to pinpoint opportunities for expansion of a more innovative and holistic structure. Ultimately, Proyecto Horizonte was interested in streamlining their model so that it could serve as a blueprint for other organizations around the globe.

APPROACH
I spent three months understanding the details of often undocumented and ad-hoc processes for almost every department of the organization. I started with in-depth interviews of all full time staff members in each department: health care, school, culture and sports, administration and communication, microfinance, and the women’s microenterprise program. Included in these interviews were deep dives into written assets and computer systems when available. I then spent time observing beneficiaries interact with the services of each department to understand the value created and the effectiveness of delivery.  

From this research, I recorded historical development of programs, articulated department objectives, and documented step-by-step procedures for key processes. All of this was distilled down to extract big picture learnings that I used to create a final recommendations deck that would allow the organization to concentrate on programs that were impactful, yet relatively easily replicable.

RESULTS
The final deliverable was a set of recommendations of programs and projects to parlay into state-ownership versus those that should be replicated by the organization and in fact spread to other communities via targeted partnerships with various community-based organizations.

LESSONS LEARNT
Employing the idea of standing in the room was instrumental to this project. Obvious foreigners contracted to create projects for organizations must be even more careful to listen and observe. Understanding cultural norms and standards can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful project, so being in the space and knowing when and how to speak are key.