PAI's Theory of Change

By Lindsay Patterson

It is August at PAI. The halls are relatively quiet, punctuated by frenetic bursts of activity as we prepare for the exciting activities and opportunities presented by the coming autumn. For now many of the staff are on vacation and those who are here dress casually for work, but carry a sweater to negotiate between the sultry DC summer and the air-conditioned office. As the Chief Operating Officer, I use the quiet of August to reflect on and move forward our strategic planning. PAI began this process over a year ago with an in-depth environmental scan that spurred fascinating conversations engaging both board and staff. We have worked through board meetings focused on strategic planning, leadership team and all staff retreats and a variety of conferences between staff and Board members to discuss the challenges and opportunities in our current world. The organizing principle guiding our strategic planning has been the development of a Theory of Change. This has proved to be a valuable and effective model for organizing and building our strategic and annual planning.

Theory of Change is built on logic models which have been around since the 1960s. The classic logic model illustrates program components and helps stakeholders clearly identify inputs, outcomes and activities. An organizational level Theory of Change takes the logic model further by encouraging planners to explore how and why a desired change is expected to come about as a result of planned activities. A program level Theory of Change contains more detail of resources, activities, and outputs that in turn feeds into the big picture of mission, vision, goals, strategies, and outcomes. Samples of a Theory of Change are pictured below. While both the organizational level and the program level Theory of Change have common elements, the organizational level provides a “Board’s eye view” while the program level includes information that is essential for implementing the larger vision. Combined, the levels provide easy-to-read, interlocking visual representations of the plan – at both the macro and micro levels.

In working with and through a Theory of Change, PAI staff discovered some powerful strengths:

• Adaptability: The flexibility of Theory of Change allows PAI to tailor the process to serve our planning work to date, history and governance. It can incorporate existing pieces of planning work and can easily be scaled to provide different pieces of information for different audiences; it can be as detailed or brief as necessary.

• Critical Thinking: Assumptions are the foundation of the Theory of Change. By clearly articulating the assumptions that inform our work, Board and staff can clarify the fundamental convictions, beliefs and values that shape our views of how we create change in the world. Early identification and clarification of assumptions build a common understanding and reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings. By collectively stating and questioning our assumptions we built a shared understanding of where we start in bringing change to the world. For example, a few of our assumptions that frame PAI’s work are: Advocacy combined with research is effective in creating change, and partnerships and collaborations are an effective way to leverage work, especially for PAI.

• Broadening the Horizon: Theory of Change requires PAI to move beyond a simple work plan or list of activities to identifying the outcomes of our work, from short-term to intermediate to long-term. This then feeds ongoing evaluation of our work, giving us the flexibility to shift our activities and outputs as needed to best achieve our outcomes.

• Engaging stakeholders for maximum impact: Theory of Change allows for appropriate access points for all of PAI’s stakeholders.The Board of Directors can focus on the big picture pieces (vision statement, mission statement, goals and long-term outcomes) and be informed of the details (resources, strategies, activities and outputs). Program staff, using a sound big picture framework, can plan activities and outputs that are aligned with goals and move toward all the outcomes – short term, intermediate and long term.

• Traversable: Theory of Change encourages thoughtfulness in users through constant testing and consistent evaluation. If a particular strategy does not fit within a goal, it serves as a check point. If you are patient, this can lead to stimulating and concrete discussions about what is the right work – a crucial and continuing challenge for nonprofits which cannot look to a simple indicator like stock price to measure success.

• Alignment over time: Each year PAI’s annual planning will be linked back to our Strategic Plan, testing it for continued accuracy. Every year, we will plan our activities and outputs using the frame created by our strategies and outcomes. We hope this will be a vaccine against the all-too-common fate of strategic plans: sitting on a shelf (or in an electronic file), collecting real or virtual dust.

• Measures and Evaluation: M &E is often thought to be worthy of some attention but too frequently shunted to the side. It is a truism that evaluation measures should be developed at the time the work is being planned, but this is often not the case. Theory of Change encourages smooth integration of our indicators as they relate both to planned work and to outcomes. It then becomes more evident to staff why indicators are important and exactly how they fit in with our planned work to create a tool for measuring our outcomes.

• Outcomes: Theory of Change adds a component that is not typically included in a Strategic Plan. By identifying short term, intermediate and long term outcomes for our work, PAI is able to track and measure the impact of our work over a longer term. As a policy advocacy organization, this is crucial for us. Changes in policy are often gradual and result from a complex interrelationship of actors, institutions and the political environment. PAI may work on a policy for years before we see our desired goal materialize. With tiered outcomes we can track how our day-to-day work builds to accomplish our goals.

Further information about Theory of Change can be found at the following websites:
http://www.theoryofchange.org/
http://www.innonet.org/
http://www.wkkf.org/default.aspx?tabid=75&CID=281&NID=61&LanguageID=0

We will continue to keep you informed through the PAInsider as PAI moves through the process of developing its Theory of Change and Strategic Plan.