Goals and objectives in planning and management

¶ … American Civil Liberties Union is one of the oldest civil rights organizations in the nation. By the very virtue of its long held traditions it might be tempting for its general communications to eliminate basic information about its goals and objectives, yet, within its web presence is a demonstrative mission, that explains its goals and objectives. It wishes to uphold the constitutional Bill of Rights and extend these rights to historically disenfranchised peoples. Its goals are clearly set by outlining the basic rights of the constitution and its objectives are to go about doing this in a manner that reflects these rights upon every individual American, as well as all people that America comes into contact with. ("ACLU: About the ACLU" (http://www.aclu.org/about/index.html) According to its success story website the:

ACLU is the foremost defender of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ACLU has played a major role in nearly every critical civil liberties battle of the last century -- in courtrooms, in Congress and in the public arena. ("Success Stories" (http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AP_success_feedback_main)

The ACLUs objectives are demonstrated mostly through legal means, in a situation where an individual has had a right or rights infringed upon the ACLU makes attempts to step in, in a legal manner to reestablish the rights of the individual. (http://www.aclu.org/)the ACLU also frequently makes statements about the rights of individuals not protected by the U.S. constitution, utilizing the media in many cases to attempt to sway the powers infringing upon the rights of the individual to hold more closely to the constitutional rights of the individual. This is especially true today, when the ACLU has made frequent public statements about the U.S. treatment of foreigners incarcerated during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The ACLU frequently calls on memebers and proposed members to seek redress through writign letters to congressman and others about injustices that are occurring in the U.S. And abroad today, creating grass roots action committees and supporting individuals in seeking redress. ("Success Stories" (http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AP_success_feedback_main)

The ACLUs goals are both short-term and long-term, as it works within the legal system to help individuals get a better outcome, by having their rights respected and additionally would like to extend such basic rights to all, a lofty goal by any standard. The tertiary objectives of the organization demonstrate the manner in which it chooses to go about seeking its objectives, courts, congress and public opinion. Seeking to engender individuals to be aware of rights as well as seek redress when such rights have been violated is paramount to their goals and their desire to elicit long-term and short-term results. Additionally, the front page of the website also lists a series of issues, specific to the ACLU goals. Everything from Criminal Justice to Women's Rights and many in between are linked through the website to issues of interest to anyone seeking to know what the ACLU stand is on any given issue and what the organization and its members or prospective members are doing about it, currently. (http://www.aclu.org/)

The manner in which one can determine the difference between the ACLU's goals and objectives is very practical, the goal is to extend the basic rights of the constitution to all peoples and the objective is to do so by employing the tertiary tactics, the court, the congress and public opinion. (Chambers and Wedel, 2005, p. 65-67) the objectives of the ACLU are then applied to specific issues, according to the perceived needs of the issue itself and what the historical best practices are for achieving successful change for any given issue. The application of objectives can be very broad to very specific based on historical best practices according to the ACLU and other civil rights movements. If for instance a goal is to reduce the infringement of the constitutional rights of a single individual, who was transgressed against, the legal means might be used as a logical objective, while other goals, such as decreasing the utilization of the U.S. sponsorship of torture and/or rights infringement in the rest of the world, the call is to inform the public of the problem and then allow members and individuals in the organization to write congressmen and utilize the press to broaden concern for the problem. Though all of the tertiary objectives may be used in every case the focus is on what has worked best in any given similar case in the past.