Get your theory of change work for you

Sep 22

Does your mission-driven organization have a theory of change? Do you actually use it? Most mission-driven organizations that I have encountered don’t have a true theory of change, and even if they do, they don’t see the power that their theory of change has in their day-to-day work. Theories of change have the potential to guide your work and decisions, not just be a checkbox that you complete for a grant or an evaluation.

What if I told you that your theory of change could help you reach your goals? Well, it can. Having a theory of change can:

Create a shared understanding of what you are working toward and exactly how you will get there. Oftentimes, people that work with different components of an organization have slightly different understandings of what the organization is doing and what your ultimate goal is. A theory of change provides that shared understanding that aligns the team and helps individual team members understand how their work fits into the big picture of an organization.
Allow for “pressure testing” your model. Without a theory of change, your thinking about what your program is doing, why, and how goes unquestioned and untested. This leaves room for blind spots and assumptions that could benefit from additional perspectives.
Align around your timeline for change. A lot of the impacts that we are working towards within mission-driven organizations are long-term changes in people’s lives or conditions. Your theory of change will provide clarity on how long you expect those changes to take, as well as what you would expect to see happening in the short and mid-term to know that you are on track to those long-term changes. Your theory of change will also take into account what other factors outside of your control influence those long-term impacts you are working towards.
Clearly communicate a project’s aims. Your theory of change is also a communications tool to be able to share with other partners around what your organization is doing and why.
Help identify and open “black boxes” in your thinking by identifying assumptions that underlie your approach. This also them allows you to test your assumptions about why you think changes will happen and strengthen your theory of change over time.
Provide a process for structured organizational learning. You can create a learning strategy around your theory of change to understand if your theory is proving true.
Generate a framework for prioritizing the use of strategic resources. As you make decisions, you can think about how those decisions align, or not, with your theory of change. Any coherent theory of change or strategy pushes resources toward some ends and away from others. Think about if the decision you make will bring you closer to your vision or impact and in what ways it aligns with how you think change will happen.

Image illustrating a theory of change as what you do clearly linked to what you are trying to achieve

Ok, you’re bought in on the benefits of a theory of change…but what actually is it?

The way I think of theories of change may be a little different than what you have heard before. I use the language around theory of change because it is familiar to a lot of people and a good descriptor of what I’m talking about. I think about theories of change as an umbrella term for a way of thinking about your organization or program that clearly articulates and links what you do and what you are trying to achieve. Some other terms you might have heard around this are logic model, program map, or logframe.

A theory of change is NOT:

An exhaustive map of all of your interventions
A flow chart of your processes
A static document

A theory of change is a process and product for strategic learning through which you:

Articulate causal links between your actions and the outcomes you seek
State the assumptions that undergird your model
Identify how you will know if your theory is right

So how do you go about making a theory of change?

Image laying out the main components of a theory of change as impact, changes, and activities

At a base level, your theory of change will include the specific Activities, Programs, or Strategies you undertake to carry out your work. Then how those are connected to the Changes you expect to occur among individuals, families, communities, organizations, or systems as a result of your work. Which will ultimately lead to a sizeable, lasting, positive, long-term aspirational vision or goal.

There are a couple of ways you can go about doing this.

Start with the end in mind. This is often where I will start when I am working on a new theory of change. It’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day details of your activities, but starting with the end in mind can help bring the conversation back to the big picture around why we are all here. Start with the Impact you would like to see - thinking about what change you want to see in the world. From there, think about the Changes - what must be true in order for the impact to be true? What changes have to occur before the impact can happen? And finally think about how what you do connects to these changes - what must we do to make the above changes happen?
“So That” Chains. Another way to approach developing your theory of change is to start at the beginning with your Activities and work up to Impact. To do this, I use “so that” chains. “So that” chains are pretty straight forward - you list out one of your programs or activities and then explain why you do that. We offer this program so that people experiencing homelessness learn job skills so that people experiencing homelessness are hired so that individuals can stabilize and end the cycle of homelessness.

In practice, I almost always use both approaches. Switch between them if you are feeling stuck or need a change of perspective. Or use one to double check the links to the other. The middle section - where the two approaches meet - is where it is most helpful to have outside eyes to make sure that the leap makes sense. You are so well-versed in what you do and your end goal, that sometimes the middle piece gets forgotten. As you have these conversations, you will start to see how the Changes you are hoping for are interconnected and how your work fits into that.

The final step is to identify the assumptions and external factors that influence your theory of change. These lay out the things that influence both how the work is done and why.

Assumptions are why you believe your theory will work. These can also sometimes be referred to as values, the underlying beliefs that your organization holds to be true. These are important to specify because they help you put the why behind your work. For example, I was working with a foundation who was entering a new program area. They had done all of this work laying out their new strategy. They had clearly outlined what they were doing and the impact that they hoped that would achieve. And then I asked them, “why did you decide to focus on that population for this strategy?” And they couldn’t answer it. It took a lot of discussion and we landed on the need to focus on the most vulnerable populations for them, which was tied to socioeconomic status. Now they were able to connect the assumptions they had about why they focus on a certain population to their work and their impact. And they can then communicate that to grantees to clearly focus their work and impact.

External factors are the context in which you work. These are the things that are beyond your control but influence your work and how you engage in your communities. When I was working with that same foundation on their theory of change, when we got to the external factors part, they created a list of external factors that was two pages long. They were working within a complex system with many players that weren’t really coordinating together. Once we laid out their external factors, we were able to clearly see how those factors were influencing their strategy and work - where there were direct connections and where there were gaps. And understanding of the external factors also helps you create a more realistic theory of change. As you know, you need to know what is going on in your ecosystem and how that is going to impact your work.

Assumptions and external factors can show up on your theory of change in different ways. They can be incorporated into the actual visual that you create, they can be a list on the side, they can be a separate document. The important thing is that you clearly articulate them and how they influence your work.

So you have a theory of change, now what?

Now that you have a theory of change, you need to actually use it. Going through the development of a theory of change is a useful strategic learning process for your organization. But the true magic comes when you actually incorporate it into your work. There are four main things to do with your theory of change after you draft it:

Get feedback from individuals who are familiar with your work and who will provide honest feedback. Share your draft and explicitly ask for feedback from different groups: participants, staff, community partners, board members, etc. Ask what is clear and confusing, what is plausible and what is missing, and if it is authentic to your work.
Communications. Your theory of change can be a powerful tool for consistent and intentional communication about what you do, what changes you expect to see, and why. You can use this to communicate with your funders, partners, community members, and participants. Consider your audience and the level of detail they need. Make sure to practice your talking points internally to ensure consistency (this also helps team members see how they contribute to the vision and outcomes). Integrate it into other communications materials, like your annual report or website.
Decision Making. Your theory of change can guide your strategic decision-making and resource allocation. When you are making decisions about new programs, changes to programs, partnerships, budget, and the team’s time, revisit your theory of change to make sure there is alignment between your decisions and your theory. Ask yourself, “how does this decision impact our theory of change?” Will one course of action significantly change our ability to make meaningful outcomes happen? Will a course of action help our activities be more coherent and mutually reinforcing? Does a course of action expose a different way of thinking about how we make an impact that we hadn’t considered before? Taking a few minutes to reflect on your theory of change when making important decisions will help your organization evolve to make a greater impact with the resources you have.
Revisit your Theory. Right now, your theory of change is just that - a theory. Ultimately, you want to refine your theory of change over time based on lived experience and evidence. Your theory of change is your roadmap for what to measure and why to understand if your work is making an impact. Schedule a time to revisit your theory of change in 6-9 months and edit it. This draft represents your current thinking about your community context, target population, activities, and outcomes. Your understanding will evolve in the months to come.