Lesson

A classic strategy approach consists of formulating a mission and vision, defining the products and market(s) and strategic actions to develop them. But this is much less satisfactory for civil society organisations and projects, which are after all focused on social impact and value. In such a case, it is useful to consider developing your strategy in the form of a Theory of Change (ToC).

What is Theory of Change?

In a ToC you describe in a clear way, the change paths, including steps and the causal connections between them and assumptions that are necessary to realize the desired social effects. A ToC explains how its initiators believe or think the change will take place. It outlines the assumptions, also called the rationale, behind the intended change. A ToC describes the theory (not scientifically) of how one thinks that change takes place.

In general, it is a visual representation of the process of how you expect changes to come about. This process consists of various causal relationships: by making certain interventions – for example by carrying out activities or projects – you gradually come to social changes.

Creating a ToC can be done at different levels: macro, sector, organisation, and program/project level. An organisation can have different ToCs, for example, five program ToCs and a corporate ToC. It is important that the interconnectedness between the ToCs is clear.

The success of the ToC approach depends primarily on its proper use. Furthermore, it is important to involve a broad group of stakeholders in the drafting of a ToC. In addition, (local) knowledge of the context and experience in the field of work, also from the past, is essential. Finally, the socio-scientific expertise in the context is important.

Where to start?

Before you can get started, you start by providing insight into the context in which the organisation operates. This can be a single organisation, but it can also be a collaboration of organisations, which want to take on a long-term program together.

In the preparation of the ToC process, it is important to define the subject. What is the subject of analysis? This may be the bigger social problem that the organization is trying to change. Then, based on the subject, we choose with which actors you will develop the ToC. The question is: who are you going to talk to?

Step 1:  The Dream

What change do you want to see? This is the starting point. The big difference with other methods is that a ToC is not problem-oriented but assumes a long-term objective (impact) or dream and from there reasons back to the present. So, you start by formulating the common social dream.

A dream is a sharp picture of the change in a few years, an inspiring picture, the longer-term perspective (5-10 years). A change that your organisation wants to contribute to in a meaningful way.

A good dream is:

• Believable: a realistic new reality.
• All-encompassing: show a picture of people and institutions that are involved in the change and not necessarily just the reach of your organisation
• Focused on the target group: it is clear who benefits from the change

Make sure that formulating the dream provides a clear picture; you fill the dream with an explanation of what it means. You can think of using verbs and describing what is changing for the target group.

Step 2: The Conditions

Now make it clear how and why changes take place and how they contribute to the realisation of the dream. You describe all the necessary conditions, such as changes, conditions, and situations, that could make the dream possible. You look at the social, political, economic, ecological factors of social change. But also: the actors and the mutual power relations, gender equality principles, opportunities for change and driving forces behind the change.

You can give substance to the conditions in different ways:

• Peel off the change areas step by step in a structured way; from the dream back to reason.
• Through an open brainstorm, in which you later structure.
• Based on various themes (physical means, norms and values, abilities), search for the relationships with the dream.
• By analyzing the involvement of actors in the theme: are they positive about the change or not? Do they have a lot of influence and how can that determine the case?

It is important that you do not take your initiative or organisation as a starting point. Look at what is needed across the board, society, to make the dream a reality.

Step 3: The Connections

After naming the conditions, you make causal connections and add conditions if necessary. You place the conditions in a logical order. To do this, use a ‘like this, then that’ reasoning. One condition leads to another and eventually to the dream. Perhaps not all conditions can be linked together. Some conditions can occur independently, others are strongly connected, sequentially or take place at the same time.

This creates a picture of short-term results or medium-long-term outcomes for individuals, organisations, or communities. For example, it is about change in behaviour, experience, or attitude. Also, think about how the conditions affect each other. Are the relationships simple (cause-effect) or multiple (reinforce-each other)?

The result of this step is a description of the long-term goal (impact) and the change paths that contribute to achieving it.

Step 4: The Assumptions

When the conditions and interrelationships are known, you investigate which assumptions you have made. Name and test them. You make it explicit in an assumption why you think it’s like that. You show and explain what you have assumed in achieving the change. Formulating assumptions is crucial in developing the ToC; this creates the theory. You describe the why behind the change steps. What assumptions underlie the ‘if this, then that’ reasoning. These are working hypotheses that you try out in practice. They support the logic of the change you want to bring about.

In addition, you look for substantiation for every assumption. You refer to one or more sources based on which you assume. These sources can be both internal and external, for example, own research or experience or available scientific research. If necessary, you plan further research yourself. With the substantiation, you demonstrate the assumption. The conditions describe the ‘what’ of the change, the assumptions the ‘why’.

You come to assumptions by asking questions: why does one lead to the other? What does it take to change? It can also help to explain the process and outcome of the ToC (so far) to relative outsiders.

Consider the following aspects:

• An assumption is a deeper explanation of the causality between change A which leads to change B, it is not part of the change path itself
• Assumptions are about the degree of willingness to change (or the possibility of change) of an actor himself/herself and the willingness of an actor to change in relation to his/her environment
• Assumptions are about the expected changes in the context itself
• Assumptions are not formulated negatively (they are not risks), and always refer to research into how the change works

Step 5: Positioning

Who are we and what is our influence? So far, we have built an overall theory for change. The following steps help us decide on the role we have in contributing to the change. The mandate of the organization determines the influence you can have on the intended change. For example, a municipal government or welfare organization has a different influence than a lobby organization or a trade union.

You can then determine which part of the ToC you will take care of. What can you control (control), what do you influence and what falls into your focus or focus area?]

Indicate in the ToC:

• The sphere of concern: these are the changes that your organisation thinks you should contribute to in one way or another, because this fits your mission or social vision, but you have no direct influence on the change.
• The sphere of influence: these are conditions that you can influence given the experience, capacity, and network of your organisation.
• The sphere of control: these are conditions that your organisation, whether in a partnership, can largely achieve.

Step 6: Strategic priorities

To arrive at an implementation plan, you first choose the strategic priorities.  The image of the situation to be changed, which has been described so far, does not necessarily have to lie within the sphere of influence of your organization. You will have to make choices, where you will and where you will not intervene. You make these choices based on criteria such as the history and mandate of your organization, the willingness of stakeholders to change (feasibility), strategic choices, priorities of the target group, available duration and/or financial resources (or what you think you can mobilise).

By thinking about the influence of your organization on the change areas in the ToC, you make it specific to your organization. This ‘specific’ ToC forms the basis for the strategic priorities that you set as an organization. You connect the goals to these priorities, and you work them out in result chains of projects or programs. The elaboration can be done with the help of a Logical Framework.

This also helps to establish change indicators so that you can determine the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning trajectory.

This is also where the consideration takes place of how big the contribution of your organization can be to the change.

Step 7: Results and effects

First, you decide how you want to measure the change. You develop indicators to measure progress and to be able to assess to what extent the intended change is being realized. Investigating whether your ToC does indeed do justice to the complex reality within which your interventions take place can only partly be done with quantitative indicators. You will base the result and the effect measurement on more qualitative ways of data collection. The two most used M&E methods for qualitative data collection are Most Significant Change (MSC), developed by Rick Davies and Outcome Harvesting developed by Ricardo Wilson-Grau.

The indicators that you develop within the framework of the ToC are different from the indicators that you use when drawing up a project or program. In a ToC you develop indicators focused on the change. After all, you want to know if and how the change took place. For each condition you formulate indicators, which show how the condition develops and what effects occur that contribute to the impact. Not only do you want to know if the intervention has been carried out, but you also want to know what the effect of your intervention is compared to the change.

MSC is a form of participatory monitoring and evaluation. It helps collect data at all levels (output, outcome, and impact) in a ToC. The essence is to bring together a collection of significant stories (stories that have meaning) in a structured way. These stories are collected in the field, where the effects are palpable.

Outcome harvesting is another form of M&E and is used to identify, describe, verify, and analyse changes. It was developed to gather evidence for change and use it retroactively to understand how an organization or program has contributed to the change.

Only if you design the monitoring and evaluation in a structured way, you can successfully adjust the ToC. So, you will have to think about:

• who is part of the monitoring and evaluation process?
• who determines which data is collected and who collects it?
• how are the results reported and with whom are they shared?
• what is being done with the results?