How Theory Of Change simplifies complex systems for better outcome driven strategies.
The world is making many things more convenient, easier, and simpler. We can order food, find transportation, and even cool our cars down before opening the doors, all with the click of a button. But this same technology, overlayed with globalisation, interdependence, never ending policies, and complex systems, has created a challenging landscape for social entrepreneurs.
With so much to consider, how can you ensure your efforts are making a difference?
How can social enterprises justify their investments in empathy?
How can we know if the simple things, the feel good actions like showing empathy and listening to someones tough day, is truly creating positive change?
My go to answer is always, ask them? Ask the people you serve whether what you’re doing is making a difference to their day, their lives and their world?
Of-course putting those questions and answers together - to understand the overall enterprise impact performance - needs to thoughtfully qualified and quantified.
Fortunately, by leveraging the innovative genius of Systems Thinking ‘change theory’, a powerful methodology has emerged to help social enterprises measure, quantify, and qualify their impact.
The Theory of Change methodology empowers social impact teams to identify ineffective strategies, understand learning opportunities, and improve their services intentionally and measurably.
Essentially, it’s a planning and performance mapping process that allows you to trace cause and effect then measure the effort and impact.
The genius is that it grows your understanding of the ‘how’ to better shape your ‘why’ into concise outcome driven strategies.
Big thank you to the people who wanted to figure out how to better understand and plan for social change.
Resources:
The source:
The roundtable conversation that started to figure out better ways of doing community change.
Which led to the book by Carol Weiss
Which inspired a movement for better social impact performance management
Eventually coming to Australia to help organisations with a guide to the concept of the theory of change, including its definition, key elements, and how it differs from a program logic model. Authored by Kathryn Goldsworthy, Senior Research Officer at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
As one of our social impact goals aligns with the United Nations Social Development Goals;
It’s good to be across the /UNDG-UNDAF-Companion-Pieces-7-Theory-of-Change.pdf. It’s a practical guide to the technics for developing a theory of change as part of the UNDAF (United Nations Development Assistance Framework) process and relates closely to the other seven companion guidance papers on programming principles, the UN Vision 2030; including,
The Concept - what is it, how is it applied to the UNDAF process.
Moving from Theory to Practice, four key steps of the process.
Lessons Learned and Tips, including the need to validate, and a quality assurance check.
Helpful tools and references.
Would you like to learn more?
Let us know what to add to the Library of the Genius of Innovation.