Flipping the Script on Logic Models

Proper planning can greatly improve the positive outcomes of these big things. Many organizations use a traditional logic model to help with this planning, which looks something like this:

I would argue that a more helpful logic model looks like this:

This model starts with the big picture and works backwards. Also, the traditional logic model is linear, but this model is cyclical. This is because terms are always changing. Policies change, needs change, resources come and go. You may have created a wonderful program in 1950, but that may not be what is needed in 2013. By constantly questioning what the needs are and how your organization can best help, programs can be changed to provide the best possible outcome.

Needs and Goals
Merriam-Webster defines impact as “to have a strong and often bad effect on something or someone” and “to hit (something) with great force”. In the nonprofit world, impact is the positive change that comes about from a program. While I understand the term as it applies to the standard logic model, I think a more proper term, or phrase as the case may be, is “Needs and Goals”. Needs and goals may seem like two different things, but they go hand-in-hand, and in fact, when it comes to the work of high impact nonprofits, you cannot have one without the other.

One of the first things that one must think about before starting a program is need. Look at your audience (as defined by your mission). What do they need? If your constituents are homeless, you might say, “They need food,” or “They need shelter.” But you can’t fulfill that need without also asking yourself, “What is our goal?” because there are many different ways you can go about helping your constituents. One way is to provide them with the food and shelter they need to make it through the day. Another way is to go deeper into the root of the problem and work towards systemic change. Perhaps there is a high population of homeless in your area because minimum wage is too low or because there is a lack of resources for veterans or the mentally ill. Your goal might be to lobby for a change in policies or to work with soldiers as soon as they come home from war, which would be a very different program from providing meals and beds.

While it’s easy to say that all nonprofit organizations should work towards systemic change, organizations that provide more surface-level help serve a vital role as well. The questions that you need to ask yourself when developing a program are, “What problem are we trying to solve? Is the problem prevalent enough to justify our work? What are the needs and what are our goals in relation to those needs?”

It is important to start with these things instead of leaving them to the end of your planning. Before you start limiting yourself with the resources available to you, think big and without limits. What is the change you want to see in the world? Start here.

It is also important to ask yourself at this point “What do we want to know about the work we do and its effects on our constituents?” While you can’t fully develop an evaluation plan at this point in the process, it is important to begin thinking about the kinds of information that will help you solve the problem at hand and will inform your program.

Outputs
Next, we have outputs, or the things that come about as a result of our activities. While it may seem backwards to come up with products before we have the activities, it is in fact more difficult to come up with an activity when you don’t know what you want to end up with.

Let’s say your goal is to transform the lives and expand the minds of every child in Anytown, CA through art. You have done the research and you know that 75% of youth in the area don’t have access to art training and supplies in their schools. Before you connect the activity to the outcome, you need to decide what products or outputs are needed to get you to your goal. In this case, your output may be “After-school arts programs are provided in every school in Anytown.” Only with this output in mind can you create a list of activities that will get you to this goal.

Activities
Here is where you get to have some fun making your vision tangible. What are you going to do to turn ideas into reality? I think it’s important to stop here a moment and talk a little about a common mistake of nonprofits. Too often, the planning is a long, drawn out process that crosses all the t’s and dots all the i’s before any work is started, leaving the organization with so much “skin in the game” that it’s a huge waste of time if you can’t get funded and is difficult to change if you do get the program going, but it doesn’t go well. In addition, the evaluation component is often left to the very end, and then is only created to appease funders.
Instead, nonprofits should consider taking a design thinking approach. Design thinking is a faster process that allows for changes to be made until the desired outcome is produced. Different people explain the process in different ways, but the approach is generally:

1. Understanding the needs of your constituents by observing, listening, talking to, and engaging with them.
2. Defining the problem by making sense of the data accumulated during the first part of the process.
3. Generating solutions (note the use of the plural) to the problem. The goal here is quantity, not quality. Even a seemingly bad idea might have bits of good in it that can be used later.
4. Prototyping and testing it out. Do a small scale version of a couple of your best ideas. Be nimble and willing to tweak things that aren’t working well or scrap the whole program if you aren’t seeing it move in a positive direction.

The end result of this process should be a good start to a solid program and a lot of lessons learned. You should also have plenty of data to work with. At this point you should have already thought broadly about what information will be helpful to successfully solving the problem you set out to solve, but now you can be more specific about what exactly you will be evaluating and how. It is critical to the success of the program that you collect and analyze information about it. The complexity of the evaluation will change depending on the size and scope of the program, but some benchmarks do need to be set.

Inputs
The last things you need to consider are the resources available to the organization. Resources can mean a lot of things: money, community engagement, volunteers and staff time, funders, stakeholders, etc. While it might seem counterintuitive to build a program without an accurate assessment of what is available to you, leaving resources as the last piece of the puzzle allows you come up with the best solution to the problem at hand. And, if the solution is truly outstanding, it may be easier to get these resources you need than you think.

Conclusion
Nonprofit leadership would do well to allow themselves the time for thoughtful planning at the outset of a program in order to achieve positive outcomes. Also, by applying the circular and “flipped” logic model and design thinking to their planning, they can create these positive outcomes faster, implement any necessary changes before the program has become outdated, and reach goals they never before imagined being able to attain.