My Communities

The identifying assumptions and conclusions part is often tricky and considered the hardest in the Civil Service Examination. Assumptions are the unstated information needed to be valid for the conclusion to hold true. On the other hand, conclusions are made based on the assumptions given, so conclusion needs to agree with the given assumptions.

After donors view my Theory of Change, they should understand the reason of existence of our organisation and what efforts we are making to bring meaningful changes in lives of persons with deafblindness.

People at all levels should be considered in process to refine the ToC. The top leadership along to field level staff, everyone needs to own the ToC to be implemented successfully.

After funders view my theory of change, the should see how possible achieving my goal is and how investing would most likely lead to success

After funders view my theory of change, they should understand why is it important for them to invest in our project.

The most important group to our organization are the girls who have returned to school after giving birth. The question to be asked is how is our awareness campaigns focusing on their parents have helped them to return to school.

I have finished this course some days ago but my assignments are yet to be reviewed by peers. How course team can you help. I want to use my certificate as soon as possible

After funders view my Theory of Change, they should understand how our long term approach and interventions turns young boys into amazing leaders.

Lets assume that i will show my ToC with my funder's (Donors) to make them understand the following three points:

1. The long term outcome (Impact) our organisation is visioning to achieve. Because this will let them know that how our long term objectives are aligned with theirs and what kind of potential we are offering to them (or we have for them) to achieve.
2. Another purpose that ToC will serve is to develop a trust, confidence of Donors over our long term objectives that they are realistic enough to achieve them. And for this, a road map or strategy in term of preconditions will be communicated, so that they have clear insight that how long term objectives/Outcome will be achieved? what are the innovations will be brought and how approaches are different but logical and in line with eachother.
3. Responding to the situation, ToC will aid the Donors to understand about the interventions will be done? How cooperation can be developed with similar efforts and how duplication of effort can be avoided.
   And i am confident that by reading my ToC Donors will be able to understand about my organisation, strategies, and future collaboration of efforts towards achieving of common interest

After the donor view my Theory of Change, they should understand the reason why the should invest in the project and the impact the project will have on the beneficiaries.

The following stakeholders will be in a group with them the refining of ToC will be carried out. These individuals will be those who were involved in entire process of ToC

1. Member of the BOD
2. Donor's representative
3. CEO
4. Program/Project unit Head (Facilitator of the Toc Process)
5. Beneficiaries/community/
6. Potential partner organization

After the donors view my Theory of Change, they should understand the purpose of investing money in the Theory of Change and the positive outcomes would be visible to them. In turn, they would be motivated for funding.

After the donors view my Theory of Change, they should understand the purpose of investing money in the Theory of Change and the positive outcomes would be visible to them. In turn, they would be motivated for funding.

May be you are right.

Wish you achieve desire outcomes.

Well said.

Which group of people will be What are some questions that you would like to ask this group of people?

Project beneficiares are most important stakeholder to speak to as we refine our Theory of Change.

The following questions can be asked to the group:
What type of service they expect from the intervention?
What preconditions should be produced to make a positive change in the life of the beneficiaries?
Waht is the dream of thier life ?(long term outcomes)

The group of people in the community, asked them any feedback because their feedback help also on how to improve the implementation of a theory of change

BRAINSTORMING
Brainstorming is a collaboration and very important with your team in order to have found that the easiest way to reach a consensus on the various dimensions captured by a long-term goal is to allow the group to brainstorm about it for twenty minutes and then begin the process of constructing the definition of the long-term goal from the results of the brainstorming.

After the beneficiaries view my Theory of Change, they should e able to understand; what specific changes (or outcomes) will occur to/in them should they take part in the project and what specific interventions will be implemented (in the various target areas/pathways of cause)...

this so key as it is one of the bases donors use to give out funds

it must not really be everyone, but some people at each stage

apart from a project being successful, it must also be sustainable in the long run

a) Partners
b) Some questions I would ask them include the following;
How effective has your Theory of Change been?
In what ways does it compare to ours?
Are there any suggestions of how our Theory of Change can be improved?
What measure have you taken to help you operationalize your Theory of Change?
In what ways (and areas) have you updated your Theory of Change?

very true

Funders must actually have the a huge say on the final Theory of Change, based on what they envisioned being achieved

Which group of people will be most important to speak to as you refine your Theory of Change?
A focus group discussion could be set up for the beneficiaries to set up the or redefining the theory of change.

A focus group discussion will be the best approach to explore

After funders view my theory of change, they should understand whether the theory of change is suitable or not to give funding.

I will choose stakeholders such as UNDP, Practicing evacuators and YEEs to collect feedback and refine my Theory of Change. After all they are the ones who is going to fund us and then be the implementers

Most importantly, monitoring and evaluation, partners and beneficiaries groups will be effective while refining the Theory of Change. I would ask monitoring and evaluation team, whether the precondition, longtime outcome are measurable and would ask to partners and beneficiaries are the intervention designed are really feasible to implement? and with the board members whether the Theory of Change align with company vision or not.

Most importantly, monitoring and evaluation, partners and beneficiaries groups will be effective while refining the Theory of Change. I would ask monitoring and evaluation team, whether the precondition, longtime outcome are measurable and would ask to partners and beneficiaries are the intervention designed are really feasible to implement? and with the board members whether the Theory of Change align with company vision or not.

Most importantly, monitoring and evaluation, partners and beneficiaries groups essential while refining Theory of Change. I would ask monitoring and evaluation team are the outcome and preconditions are measure-able and with the partners and beneficiaries whether the interventions are feasible to implement.

After donors view my theory of change document, they will understand that we have a clear purpose and direction

Target beneficiaries are very important stakeholders that can help refine our Theory of change. Important question i would ask include do you think providing you these services would lead to these pre-conditions? Are these services sufficient to provie these pre-conditions?

After funders view my theory of Change should understand that the outcomes would be beneficial to to target group and would change the lives of the community

Beneficiaries and Donors are the most important stake holders that needs to speak to as the theory of Change is being refined, some of the questions they need to be asked are; as the pathway captured their interests? and are the outcomes being represented in the plan?

the current version is adequate for planning purposes but needs more detail for an evaluation

It’s amazing how the process of answering simple questions can help you uncover so much complexity. It’s rather like a child lifting a large stone to reveal all kinds of creep crawly things that they never knew existed. Unfortunately, when developing a Theory of Change (ToC) we don’t have the choice, like children, to leave those things alone we don’t like the look of. Developing a ToC gives us the opportunity to address problems, complexity, and opportunities that exist within a programme and to think about how these issues can be monitored and evaluated.

Sometimes it’s difficult to find the right questions at the right time, and this is very true of when it comes to developing a ToC. Often people are thrown into a room together and quite simply asked to get going (without little facilitation or support). The following questions are intended to help guide people in that exact scenario. The questions can be largely treated as sequential, but there are no hard and fast rules in developing a ToC (sometimes it’s necessary to come from a different angle), so if you need to follow a different path these questions are interchangeable.

The majority of these questions are inspired by work that has been done within the advocacy world where pre-determined changes are sought using objective evidence. As such, this provides useful insights that can be applied to the research uptake process.

After the beneficiaries read the Theory of change, they should understand, how the strategy will improve their lives, their contribution to the positive change in their communities, how we value their input, how best to offer best services to them

Program implementing staff, the executive directors, the managers, the beneficiaries, donors or partners.
I would ask them what we can change so that we achieve our set targets and outcomes, which suitable strategies can we use.

After funders view my theory of change they should be more likely to understand how we plan to make impact and this should make them more eager to fund us.

When the team members view the Theory of change they should become better brand ambassadors

After volunteers read my theory of change report, they will better understand the goals of our work.

People who can help us improve our theory of change are those who have not been fully involved in the definition process, it can be the organization's management team, or a group of donors. They will be able to help us to detect assumptions, vague objectives, unclear diagrams, that is, all the areas of opportunity that our project has to improve it.

After our partners view my Theory of Change, they should understand whether and how we share common goal, beliefs, strategies and tactics in the same way.

After the donor reviews our Theory of Change, they should understand our long-term expected outcomes, the pathway of change, and how we can align those outcomes to the projects/programs they funded.

1. The donors
2. How relevant is this TOC to fit to the TOC of your organization/country development program?

After Partners view my theory of Change, they should clearly understand if we have the same objectives, preconditions and assumptions for a specific intervention. If we share the same view, stated in the Theory of Change, that means that our partnership has chances to be successful.

They should understand the meaning of quality education its uses and impacts on our society

They should understand the meaning of quality education its uses and impacts on our society

They should understand the meaning of quality education its uses and impacts on our society

They should understand the meaning of quality education its uses and impacts on our society

In order to refine my theory of change, I will invite some beneficiaries and local / technical partner to share their feedback on my draft theory of change. I will ask them if the long term outcome is valuable or not and if not valuable, what else, do the preconditions lead to the long-term outcome, if there are other preconditions... I will ask them if the assumptions are still valid or no more, if there are new assumptions; I will ask them about the indicators with some questions such as is it a practical indicator, is it adequate, objective... and will ask them about the data collection method that we chose.

Beneficiaries

After donors view my Theory of Change, they should understand why investing money in your interventions will lead to positive outcomes and how feasible is the change we want to create.

A long-term outcome tied to your organization’s mission.
Intermediate outcomes or preconditions that need to be achieved in order to create your long-term outcome.
Interventions or activities that will produce preconditions.
Indicators for measuring whether the outcomes in the pathway of change are achieved.
Assumptions that explain what you believe about why your interventions can and will lead to outcomes.
A pathway of change that shows how each of these elements interacts.

After reading goal and pathway of change, beneficiaries will understand how project will contribute to their society and life.

Partners- they should clearly understanding their role as partners so as to enable them cope with the change
Although each partnership agreement differs based on business objectives, certain terms should be detailed in the document, including percentage of ownership, division of profit and loss, length of the partnership, decision making and resolving disputes, partner authority, and withdrawal or death of a partner.

Stakeholders and beneficiaries are the best audience to communicate for taking inputs for refining our theory of change, as they have intensive knowledge about changing situation of their society.

Focus on the staff of the institution (Executive and Program staff),
Both new and existing staff benefit from having a clear pathway of change/ theory of change of the institution and how each intervention/ activity contributes to the overall goal of the institution. This is highly motivating as the path way of change diagram can show the staff or volunteers how what they are doing is contributing to the big picture.
How their interventions are assessed and appraised.
This planning leads staff to deliver services more efficient and also cost effective way. Allow staff to targeted the most appropriate areas of interventions. The staff able to evaluate the impact effectively and to identify what is working well and what may need to be refined.

Partners who are explicitly collaborating with the institution.
It is important to understand whether proposed interventional, specially the new interventions make conflicting, competitive space between partners that interrupt the mutual benefits.
Any strong disagreement for an instance when different partner organizations have different agendas for involvement.
Partners assist to ensure that the process is adequately inclusive of relevant perspectives, values and evidence.
They will provide more evidence of similar projects and programs, that could inform the theory of change.
To review how plausible the change path and the contribution that they could bring up.

Local partner in area of intervention.
A local NGO or association who wants to improve social condition locally needs to understand our vision and mission. Through the Theory of change we can show to these partners our strategy and the way to reach our goal. It is a method to share not only our strategy but to embrace a common outcome.

Beneficiaries can be a great starting point to redefine or adapt a ToC. Based on the needs and te assumptions of beneficiaries we can think alternatively and integrate/substitute some interventions.

Beneficiaries can be a great starting point to redefine or adapt a ToC. Based on the needs and te assumptions of beneficiaries we can think alternatively and integrate/substitute some interventions.

After founders view my Theory of Change, they should understand our strategic priorities.

after donor views my ToC, it should understand my strategy and how I wanna achieve it and what kind of innovation I'm putting in place, so they will give me funds to do it.

Beneficiaries must be included in the ToC process. I would ask them what are their issues related to the problem that my NGO wanna work on. It is important this step, because we don't have to forget that we are doing the project for our beneficiaries. Of course our project shouldn't just work on the specific issues put in place by our beneficiaries.

After funders view my Theory of Change they should understand that we engage homeless and slum children and youth in football games and use football as an interventional tool to make them realise the importance of formal education in improving their standard of living and charting out a bright future. The same way we would equip them with basic cognitive life skills, improve their awareness levels of civic issues that impact them in their daily lives and educate them on their rights and duties to become a productive member of the mainstream society.

This is not releveant to the task at hand.