What is "theory of change" and why does it matter?
It's perhaps the most important component of your nonprofit's strategy
It took me a while to understand the importance of theory of change. Early in my nonprofit career I tended to discount the term as yet more jargon, but I've come to learn that it's perhaps the most important component of strategy for a nonprofit.
Your theory of change is the insight that powers your organisation. It explains why the things your nonprofit is doing will produce the change you want to see. If your organisation doesn’t have the right insight, and act on it, it will struggle to succeed.
The reason theory of change is so important is that there is often a big gap between the things our nonprofits do, and the change we seek to achieve. Your theory of change helps bridge that gap by explaining why the things your organisation is doing will, or should, contribute to the change we want to see. That means, among other things, that those seeking to understand your impact can assess your theory for themselves to determine whether your strategy holds up.
Imagine two nonprofits working to reduce teen pregnancy. One believes their insight is that educating teens to make informed choices will lead to a reduction, while the other believes that promoting teen abstinence will have the biggest impact. Two big and very different insights - and insights that can be tested with research (which shows decisively that education trumps abstinence). The first approach will have much greater impact than the second given their respective theories.
I first understood the importance of this concept when working for an advocacy nonprofit. My organisation, the International Group, produced deeply researched reports on conflicts around the world, with detailed policy recommendations to key policymakers. The impact we sought was not the number of reports published, or advocacy meetings held, but the influence we had on key decision-makers in an effort to help them make better informed decisions, leading to a reduction of conflict.
Now it was next to impossible to measure whether or not our work contributed to a reduction in conflict given all the variables. But if we applied ourselves we could measure whether we were reaching key decision makers with our work (by number and quality of advocacy meetings, public recognition of our work, surveys of decision makers, analysis of decisions made) and then make credible assumptions that better informed decision makers will make better decisions. Of course, that premise can be questioned, in which case you can query the impact of Crisis Group's work - but it still remains an assumption I'm happy to lean into.
