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Innovation to Impact

Using Theories for Change

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The concept of Theory of Change is meant to provide program planners and evaluators with guidance on how to make sense of the mechanisms that guide how something transforms. Theory of Change as a technique is usually visual, participatory and consultative in nature, and is something that is developed alongside the program itself. What is given less attention are the change theories that underpin a Theory of Change.

Confused? You’re not alone.

Clarifying this is critical if your Theory of Change is to have any meaning.

Change Theories & Theory of Change

Change theories are based (largely) on psychological and sociological evidence applied to human behaviour at different levels. These levels include:

  • Individuals
  • Groups (e.g., teams, families)
  • Organizations
  • Communities
  • Societies & Systems

Some change theories will apply at all of these levels, while some are designed more specifically for a specific level. For example, Kotter’s 8-step model for leading change is primarily an organizational change theory.

Change theories are meant to describe what is to change and explain how change is to come about. These serve as the bedrock for what a Theory of Change is meant to convey. A Theory of Change links the structures and resources tied to a specific program, unit, or process with various change theories to explain why it should facilitate transformation.

Design Considerations

While we might have a viable change theory, we might not have a strong design. We often see organizations that seek to make changes that their programs or policies were not designed to accomplish. For example, cognitive rational change theories are built upon the basic assumption that knowledge informs attitudes and beliefs which influence behaviour.

If your program or service doesn’t have a design that facilitates information accessibility that allows your end user (those who are the focus of your service) to understand and use that information, it’s unlikely we will see change. Just-in-time knowledge delivery (e.g., doing a Google search) implies that people have the means (e.g., tools and technology), the literacy, the skills, and the opportunity to access and use that knowledge, otherwise it’s not likely to facilitate change.

Being able to locate a family doctor isn’t useful if you can only do it at a time and place when such a professional isn’t needed.

Theories of Change can help us plan our programs and service offerings and plot the points of impact, but without good change theories and design considerations it’s quite possible we won’t achieve what we set out to do.

Want to learn more about how to develop Theories of Change and what an understanding of social and behavioural science and design can do to help you learn and create impactful programs? Contact us. We’d love to connect.

Evaluation’s Hidden Value: Clarifying Your Strategy

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Evaluation is more than just the assessment of merit, worth, and significance of a program, product, or service. Although these are the primary functions of evaluation, it can serve far more than this when designed and implemented in the appropriate manner.

Evaluation focuses attention on the things that your organization builds, has built, and implements and the purpose and role(s) they serve. In doing so, evaluation serves as a primary support tool for strategy. In order for an evaluation to do its job, it must be aligned with the purpose of the thing it is evaluating.

For example, if an evaluation is being asked to assess behaviour change, the focus of the program or stimuli (e.g., app, message, etc..) for that change is a core part of the strategy. By matching the program components with the activities and intended outcomes, evaluators can help determine the degree of alignment and assess (and advise on) the likelihood of success before any data is collected. It is through the data — the evaluation itself — that this alignment and the assumptions behind it are tested.

Theory into practice

The process of aligning the planned activities with the outcomes is part of what a Theory of Change is designed to do. To illustrate, consider a program designed to promote some kind of behaviour change (e.g. engaging in a new activity, doing more or less of something, etc..). For a change to take place, there needs to be a certain logic in how the intervention (i.e., the activity or service) is set up based on some established design principles.

We also know from the wealth of knowledge of behavioural science, that there are many different ways to promote change and that some are more efficacious than others. A skilled evaluator can help determine whether the approach being used is likely to produce the desired change by building out a Theory of Change and then matching that with the appropriate outcomes.

This is what the heart of a strategy is all about: aligning the resources, intentions, and actions together to produce an outcome.

Like the image above, evaluation helps peel back the top coat to reveal what is happening underneath. It helps take the mystery out of why programs work or don’t work and what the reasons are why people do things (or don’t).

It’s one of the reasons why we bring strategy, evaluation, and design work together. By connecting them, you get far more performance out of your program than if you just keep the cover on.

To learn more, contact us and we’ll be happy to show you what’s under your hood.

Image credit: Nathan Van Egmond

Theory of change: An introduction

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Is the above tree alive and growing or dead and ready to be made into furniture? How does something like a tree connect to providing a swing, becoming a coffee table, or supporting the structure of a home? That is based partly on a theory of change about how a tree does what it does. That might sound strange, but for more sophisticated things like human service programs, linking what something does to what it achieves often requires a tool for explanation and a Theory of Change can serve this need well if used appropriately.

Theory of Change is described as “a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context.” It has taken hold in the non-profit and philanthropic sectors in recent years as a means of providing guidance for program developers, funders, and staff in articulating the value of a program and its varied purposes by linking activities to specific behavioural theory.

Matthew Forti, writing in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), suggests a Theory of Change (ToC) contain the following:

To start, a good theory of change should answer six big questions:
1. Who are you seeking to influence or benefit (target population)?
2. What benefits are you seeking to achieve (results)?
3. When will you achieve them (time period)?
4. How will you and others make this happen (activities, strategies, resources, etc.)?
5. Where and under what circumstances will you do your work (context)?
6. Why do you believe your theory will bear out (assumptions)?

Unlike a program logic model, which articulates program components, expected outputs, and outcomes a ToC explains how and why a particular set of actions is to produce a change and the assumptions that underpin it all. ToC can be used with a program logic model or be developed independently.

What a ToC is meant to do is allow you to explain in simple language the connection between a program’s purpose, design, and execution and what it produces in terms of benefit and impact. While it may draw on theories that have been published or tested, it may also be unique to the program itself, but in all cases, it is meant to be understandable to a variety of stakeholders and audiences.

Creating a Theory of Change

A strong ToC requires some understanding of behaviour change theory: what do we know about how change happens? It can’t simply end up with “and then change happens”, it must have some kind of logic that can be simply expressed and, whenever possible, tied to what we know about change at the individual, group, organization, system, or a combination. It’s for this reason that bringing in expertise in behaviour change is an important part of the process.

That is one of the points that Kathleen Kelly Janus, also writing in the SSIR, recently made as part of her recommendations for those looking to better the impact of creating a ToC. She suggests organizations do the following:

  1. Engage outside stakeholders
  2. Include your board and staff
  3. Bring in an outside facilitator
  4. Clearly define the outcomes that will spell success
  5. Track your results rigorously.

Inclusion, consultation, and collaboration are all part of the process of developing a ToC. The engagement with diverse stakeholders — particularly those who sit apart from the program — is critical because they will see your program differently. Outsiders will not get caught up in jargon, internal language, or be beholden to current program structures as explanations for change.

Defining the outcomes are important because change requires an explanation of the current state and what that changed state(s) look like. The more articulate you can be about what these outcomes might be, the more reflective the ToC will be of what you’re trying to do. By defining the outcomes better, a ToC can aid a program in developing the appropriate metrics and methods to best determine how (or whether) programs are manifesting these outcomes through their operations.

Supporting strategy

A ToC is best used as an active reference source for program managers, staff, and stakeholders. It can continually be referred to as a means of avoiding strategy ‘drift’ by connecting the programs that are in place to outcomes and reminding management that if the programs change, so too might the outcomes.

A ToC can be used as a developmental evaluation tool, allowing programs to see what they can do and how different adaptations might fit within the same framework for behaviour change to achieve the same outcomes. Alternatively, it can also be used to call into question whether the outcomes themselves are still appropriate.

By making a ToC accessible, easy to read and to understand the key is to make it visual. Employing someone with graphic design skills to help bring the concepts to life in visual representation can provide a means to clarify key ideas and getting people beyond words. It’s easy to get hung up on theoretical language and specific terms when using words; where possible use visuals, narrative, and representations. Metaphors, colour, and texture can bring a ToC to life.

A ToC, when developed appropriately, can provide enormous dividends for strategy, performance, and evaluation and help all members of an organization (and its supporters and partners) understand what it is all about and how what it does is linked to what it aims to achieve. The ToC can serve your communications, strategy development, and evaluation plans if done well and appropriately facilitated, particularly for complex programs. It doesn’t solve all your problems, but few things will help you understand what problems you’re trying to solve and how you might do it than a good Theory of Change.

If you need help building a Theory of Change, contact us and we can help you develop one and show you how it can support your strategy, innovation, and evaluation needs of your programs and organization as a whole.