The benefits of theory of change work. cookie regulatons Theory of Change (ToC) is a methodology or a criterion for planning, participation, adaptive management, and evaluation that is used in companies, philanthropy, not-for-profit, international development, research, and government sectors to promote social change.Theory of Change defines long-term goals and then maps backward to identify necessary preconditions. Copyright 2023 The Center for Theory of Change, Inc. |, Backwards Mapping and Connecting Outcomes, Become a Center for Theory of Change partner. This is similar to many other issues that come up in matters of hierarchy and delegation: effective leaders delegate and trust their teams to carry out the work. not just about the practices of our member brands: the Fair Wear approach offers A theory of change is typically communicated in a narrative or diagram format (or both). The relationship of indicator to outcome can be confusing and may be clarified with this simple formula: Ill know [outcome reached] when I see [indicator]. For example, Ill know that teenagers in the program understand the prenatal nutrition and health guidelines when I see program participants identifying foods that are good sources of nutrition. A graduated set of indicators can be used to measure and assess the extent to which an outcome has been realized. , if implemented, will lead to the long-term outcome. [1], Theory of Change explains the process of change by outlining causal linkages in an initiative, i.e., its shorter-term, intermediate, and longer-term outcomes. In the final analysis, therefore, the real benefit of the Theory of Change method is that it builds capacity for purposeful theory and its effective use. We present algorithms for approximate envy-freeness and proportionality when two instances are considered to be adjacent if they differ only on the utility . What a useful theory of change looks like. In many global supply chains, value is not shared equitably, and producers have limited ability to negotiate a fair exchange for their goods and services. Using theory of change to develop an intervention theory for designing and evaluating behavior change SDApps for healthy eating and physical exercise: The OCAPREV theory. The Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. At a minimum, every outcome for which initial interventions will be designed should have at least one indicator. No elements found. We also need to be able to combine evidence from a number of studies in order to build a stronger picture of what is taking place, how it is unfolding, and, most importantly, how context influences the initiative. Evidence of success confirms the theory and indicates that the initiative is effective. (A recurring weakness is that assumptions are poorly articulated and stakeholders are unsure about how the change process will unfold across components.). She argued that stakeholders of complex community initiatives typically are unclear about how the change process will unfold and therefore place little attention on the early and mid-term changes needed to reach a longer-term goal. It can be represented in a change map (a visual representation of the change you want to see and how you expect it to come about), as a narrative (a spoken or written account of connected events; a . How theory of change thinking has evolved. Learn more about the software and pricing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. While the pandemic is far from over, we are confident of our path toward a new normal for garment workers, with a united front and a shared vision for change. As a monitoring tool, a Theory of Change helps identify useful indicators to assess progress and can facilitate adaptive management. Governments collect data on changes in state but, of course, the data may not be calibrated to measure the kinds of change anticipated in any one Theory of Change. DFID, London. Correspondence to Social changeFootnote 1the process whereby individuals and communities adjust or abandon customs and associated leading ideas, values, and purposes to act differently in response to random (unique) or systemic factorsis no simple matter. As an ex post evaluation tool, evaluators can assess the actual achievements of research projects or programs against expected outcomes, increasing research transparency and accountability to results.[20][24]. Reeler (2007) A three-fold theory of social change and implications for practice, planning, monitoring, and evaluation. any key beliefs or assumptions about the pathway of change, including how actions will be implemented; who will implement these actions; what relationships and hypotheses connect the actions, outcomes and goals; and how long it will take to realize intermediate outcomes or end goals. We use cookies to provide you with the best experience of our To compete in todays market, businesses drive down prices at the expense of those most vulnerable, meaning that producers may not receive payment that covers their basic needs or even the cost of production. The purchase of products with the Fair Trade Certified seal has generated $846 million to farmers, workers, and fishers who have . can use to improve workers wages. website. Fair Wear Foundation is a non-profit organisation. In our experience, targeted tools are the key to concrete action. This simply cant go on. Here is an example of a theory of change diagram. Read more about the organisation below. She challenged designers of complex community-based initiatives to be specific about the theories of change guiding their work and suggested that doing so would improve their overall evaluation plans and would strengthen their ability to claim credit for outcomes that were predicted in their theory. Plausibleevidence and commonsense suggest that the interventions Palgrave Communications, 4, 90. We have adopted a cross-cutting approach for gender equality and emphasised better wages and social dialogue as building blocks for change. Weve developed a Theory of Change that demonstrates how all stakeholders benefit from our process and how our goals become reality. However, the literature suggests that good theories of change address several key areas (see Chen, 2015; Funnell & Rogers, 2011; Reinholz & Andrews, 2020; W.K. Our mission is to see a world where the garment industry supports workers in realising their rights to safe, dignified, properly paid employment. [15][16], A Theory of Change is a high order, or macro, If-Then statement: If this is done, Then these are the anticipated results. Her stature in the field, and the apparent promise of this idea, motivated a number of foundations to support the use of this techniquelater termed the Theory of Change approachin the evaluations of community change initiatives. cookie regulatons Stachowiak, Sarah (2010) Pathways for Change: 6 Theories about How Policy Change Happens. 2020 marked a year of transition for Fair Wear: the end of one Strategic Partnership and the dawn of the next. They are also helping to understand and assess impact in hard to measure areas, such as governance, capacity strengthening and institutional development. As we move from specific interventions to long lasting impact, we need to consider that the world changes as well, and this can influence the ultimate outcome. This work can help the funders and leaders of a social change effort clearly articulate their objectives, discuss equity considerations, define roles of decision-making authority and enable useful measurement and learning. Consequently, Theory of Change is strengthening monitoring, evaluation and learning. Content-baseda change in the nature of a concern. For example, our Labour Minute Costing Calculators equip managers and trade unions to calculate the effect a wage increase (e.g. Theory of Change (ToC) is a multi-purpose tool that can be applied for the purpose of planning, managing, monitoring, and evaluating research, especially change-oriented research (e.g., research-for-development, transdisciplinary research, sustainability science). In this light we reflect on the past five years as we conclude our Strategic Partnership for Garment Supply Chain Transformation with our partners CNV Internationaal, Mondiaal FNV, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We use cookies to provide you with the best experience of our You need all the help you can get, which is why change management models are so important. Fair Wear Foundation's Theory of Change 2019 Fair Wear Foundation's Theory of Change . 24.1 and 24.2). , should lead to an ultimate outcome. Assumptions are ideas, beliefs, norms or principles that inform how you think about your program, the people involved, and how it will work. Measuring changes in state can exceed the capacity of any one actor's monitoring capabilities. Olivier Serrat . Theory of Change is focused not just on generating knowledge about whether a program is effective, but also on explaining what methods it uses to be effective. Indicators may be said to operationalize the outcomes that is, they make the outcomes understandable in concrete, observable and measurable terms. Theory of Change (ToC) is a methodology or a criterion for planning, participation, adaptive management, and evaluation that is used in companies, philanthropy, not-for-profit, international development, research, and government sectors to promote social change. Innovations continue to emerge. Developing theories of change for social programmes: Co-producing evidence-supported quality improvement. Outcomes can be mapped in a linear or causal sequence, though change is typically more complex than a simple cause-and-effect relationship. 2023 The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Specifically, development aid Consider changing the search query. We acknowledge all Traditional Custodians, their Elders past, present and emerging, and we pay our respects to their continuing connection to their culture, community, land, sea and rivers. Other than direct program-related outcomes (impact), the Theory would anticipate outcomes in influence and outcomes in leverage. Groups can also leverage this work to resolve fuzziness and tension and the earlier this refinement happens, the better. industry needs to change. (1997): Voices from the field: New approaches to evaluating community initiative. Needless to say, both hinge on their own stage of development. The Annie E. Casey Foundation proposes mapping an organization's social change work along three criteria: Impact, Influence, Leverage. We continuously innovate this model and identify opportunities to expand our reach through business partnerships and through the expertise, technologies, and resources provided by our philanthropic partners large and small. ). Vogel, Isabel (2012) Review of the Use of Theory of Change in International Development. here. Theory of change - Focussing on what you hope to achieve and how, using clear definitions and sequences. Theory of Change defines long-term goals and then maps backward to identify necessary preconditions. "Impact, theory of change, and the horizons of scientific practice". Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, 3:2, 95110. She called for the use of an approach that, at first glance, seems like common sense: lay out the sequence of outcomes that are expected to occur as the result of an intervention, and plan an evaluation strategy around tracking whether these expected outcomes are actually produced. This is often done during evaluations reflecting what has worked or not in order to understand the past and plan for the future. In addition, a theory of change is often required by funding agencies as part of grant proposals. In this narrative, Fair Wear's vision of success, pathways of change and the different actors of change are discussed. Communicate work more succinctly with a common language. A program logic model is a simpler (often linear) visual representation of how a program is supposed to work. The Outcomes Mapping focus on changes in behavior would tend to direct a Theory of Change toward outcomes like this, which are outcomes the change agent cares most about and which it can relatively easily monitor and evaluate. Jackson, E. (2013) Interrogating the theory of change: evaluating impact investing where it matters most. here. They speak for or against competing theories. [22] If the change model is instead treated as something to adjust as organizations learn what works from experience in the field, then the theory should not be at odds with strategic behavior. Recognize the most appropriate clients, audiences, and partners a sponsor can work and hold open conversations with. It explores theory of change models, processes and products as well as key theory of change concepts, benefits and limitations. A Systematic Review of Theory-Driven Evaluation Practice from 1990 to 2009. Testablethe theory of change These include: whose voices to include, who makes key decisions and how to identify and address historic biases. Does Theory of Change frustrate or complement strategic thinking? Funnell, S. and Rogers, P. (2011). Read more about our McLellan, Timothy (2020). The Annie E. Casey Foundation first commissioned ORS Impact to develop a practical theory of change guide in 2004. Fair Trade Certification Standards. A theory of change should answer six overlapping questions: (i) what concern, its underlying causes, and consequences, does one and others wish to ameliorate in the long term As in other applications, a research ToC describes the causal relationships between a research project or program and its intended results (i.e., outputs, outcomes, and impacts), framed as a set of testable hypotheses about how and why research contributes to change.[20][24]. For example, to realise your theory of change, you will probably assume that participants will turn up and complete the intervention. The Empirical Basis for a Theory of Change A theory of change is only as good as its empirical underpinnings. The visibility and knowledge of Theory of Change grew with the creation in 2002 of theoryofchange.org[7] and later of Theory of Change Online[8] software. document underlying assumptions, as well as strategies, activities, outcomes and goals. These are all mapped out in an Outcomes Framework. Marrying visioning, planning, and evaluation perspectives, leveraging also concepts of logic models Another refinement, which directly addresses this problem of attribution, comes from Outcome mapping. The challenge that emerges is, therefore, how to sustain their support while letting others develop the theory. It can help teams test assumptions related to adapting and implementing strategies and clarify complicated pathways to change. The messy group work is then usually captured by the facilitator in digital form, through which the content can be expanded, edited, printed, shared, and otherwise managed as the theory continues to be developed. 3. Theory of Change can begin at any stage of an initiative, depending on the intended use. Toggle Application in Research Planning, Adaptive Management, and Evaluation subsection, Application in Research Planning, Adaptive Management, and Evaluation, Limitations and function of a linear model, Learn how and when to remove this template message, United States Agency for International Development, Sustainability Research Effectiveness Program, "TOCO Software Theory of Change Community", "Impact, theory of change, and the horizons of scientific practice", "Outcomes and Impacts of Development Interventions: Toward Conceptual Clarity", "Conceptualizing the elements of research impact: Towards semantics standards", "A refined method for theory-based evaluation of the societal impacts of research", Our thinking on theory of change: for charities, Our thinking on theory of change: for funders, "How to rapidly reduce greenhouse gases at scale", Theory of Change Basics: A Primer on Theory of Change, Supporting Young People to Make Change Happen: A Review of Theories of Change, Theory of Change Review: A report commissioned by Comic Relief, Technical Papers: A Series of Papers to support Development of Theories of Change Based on Practice in the Field, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theory_of_Change&oldid=1149916812, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2016, Wikipedia neutral point of view disputes from March 2023, All Wikipedia neutral point of view disputes, Articles needing additional references from January 2023, All articles needing additional references, Cleanup tagged articles with a reason field from March 2023, Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from March 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, Netter Center for Community Partnerships (Philadelphia), United Federation of Teachers (New York City), The impact of your work is its program outcomes, Your influence is how much other actors change as a result of your work. Procedurala change in the way the processes that manage a concern are carried out. Aromatario, O., Van Hoye, A., Vuillemin, A., Foucaut, A., Prommier, J., & Cambon, L. (2019). UK Department of International Development. Its Lewin's three-stage model of change2 focuses on the driving forces that facilitate or hinder change, and how those involved in the change agree that the change is necessary, collaborate towards the desired result and In the 2010s, interest increased with some reviews commissioned by Comic Relief in the UK, the Department for International Development in the UK, the Asia Foundation and Oxfam Australia to name a few. If developing Theories of Change is to be useful here, it will New Approaches to Evaluating Community Initiatives. [24] Theory of Change begins by first working out program goals or desired impact and working backwards on outcome pathways, rather than engaging in conventional forward oriented so-that reasoning. This reflects the basic definition above, simply meaning how and why a given intervention is going to work. FAIR TRADE USA is a 501(c)(3) | Tax ID: 41-1848081, Not all Mothers Day Flowers are Like the Others, Fair Trade USA and Education in Ivory Coast. spaces, practices, people, timing, etc.) One answer to the question is that Theory of Change does not, in fact, model how things happen; rather, it models how we believe things will happen. (Illustrative examples of social change that, chronologically, produced profound social consequences include the industrial revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the feminist movement.) [24] Theory of Change can accompany or be embedded within a research proposal. toward the long-term change will be brought about and documented with indicators that suggest how much of, for whom, and when each outcome is to be realized.Footnote 4 In short, a theory of change explores and represents a so that chain. (Eds.) A Closer Look at Our Theory Of Change. Finally, it can be an opportunity to engage with program staff and intended beneficiaries to: (Aromatario et al., 2019; Funnell & Rogers, 2011). In the early days of Theory of Change, Anne Kubisch and others established three quality control criteria. To date, Theory of Change has not distinguished impact, influence, and leverage as types of outcomes, but it may be useful to do so as a way of focusing the Theory of Change on measurable achievements. This leads to better planning, in that activities are linked to a detailed understanding of how change actually happens. Hence, the Theory of Change method enables organizations to think about their work more deeply.) accountability that offers the industry a critical testing ground for ideas and However, Patrizi notes that ToC is only at odds with strategic behavior if an organization treats their ToC like any other fixed plan.
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