Your focus is delivering your work, supporting those who need it, responding to what’s in front of you, and doing your best with limited time and resources.

Creating a Theory of Change… why should you care?

Budgets for evaluation are being slashed. I’ve seen this first hand in Higher Education Institutions, and I’m betting it’s happening elsewhere too.

But the need for measuring impact and evaluative work remains. So what is the solution?

Billy Wong’s recent article about how Theory of Change is being used, is excellent.

However, there is one area where I take a slightly different view.

Elfrida is a Swedish tax inspector. Her job is to locate people who were not paying taxes for dog ownership.

What does she do to track the dogs down?

“Good doesn’t necessarily mean complicated. It means done well”

When people hear the word simplifying, they often worry it means ‘making things basic’, ‘cutting corners’, or ‘not doing things properly’.

I’m proposing something different.

Last month I wrote a guest article for TASO about how to write a Theory of Change using their Mapping Outcome and Activities Tools (MOATs).

In it, I described how writing a Theory of Change in some ways is like writing a pop song.

For me, evaluation is part art, part science.