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In Part 1 of this series, I explained what a Theory of Change is and why it can be useful for changes on a personal and organizational level. In this post, I’ll explain how to create a theory of change, using the following format:

For this example, let’s say that I am overweight and out of shape. I want to improve my health, so I decide to construct a theory of change and action plan that will help me in that process.

Step 1: Desired Change Assumptions. In this step I look at all of the underlying causes of my less-than-stellar health and why I think I got that way. For this example, I’ll say that I want to change because I haven’t been feeling well and I want more energy. The underlying causes of my health problems are poor eating habits and a lack of exercise. Ideally, I would like to be fit enough to run in a 5k and want to eat at least 5 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables every day.

Step 2: Actions. This is the traditional action planning step that most of us are familiar with. In this step I’ll brainstorm all of the things I need to achieve my desired outcome. Because I think I need more exercise, I decide that I’ll join a gym and work with a trainer. I also need to learn more about nutrition, so I’ll go to the library and research good eating habits. In working with my trainer, we come up with a 5 times per week workout plan and an eating schedule of 5 small meals per day. I’ll continue in this plan for 3 months.

Step 3: Results & Reflection. Some changes can take place quickly, but many are an ongoing process - such as my health improvement example. When this is the case, it’s helpful to pause occasionally and assess the progress that you’ve made so far. Then you can determine if you want to continue doing the same actions, take a break, or rework your assumptions and actions for better results. After my 3 months of improved diet and exercise, I’ll assess my fitness by running in a 5k race. I’ll review my food logs to see if I’ve been eating better. Then I will decide if I want to work toward more improvement or come up with a maintenance plan.

The real power of a Theory of Change is that it forces you to really examine the assumptions behind your thinking. My example is a pretty simple one, but in a more complex situation, this 1st step is very helpful. It is also a continuous improvement type of process that requires evaluation and at least thinking about ways to make your processes and plans better.

I think the Theory of Change tool is great for planning, but I’m always interested in learning about other tools. If you know of a good one, please share it in the comments.

Do you need a tool to help you create a process for change? Do you know where you would like to go, but can’t find a route, or compass point that will take you to your desired destination? Is your business or organization stuck in place instead of moving forward?

In the nonprofit and charitable sector organizations exist for the explicit purpose of changing some aspect of their communities. There are usually many possible ways to create the desired change, so organizations have to choose how to use their limited staff and budgets to get the most “bang for their buck.” The most successful organizations usually have an underlying framework that they use to guide those decisions, rather than just making it up as they go along. One tool that we use to create such a framework is called a theory of change.

What is This and Why Should I Care?

The Ford Foundation, one of the largest and most respected charitable foundations in the U.S. defines a theory of change as:

“[A tool that] describes a process of planned social change, from the assumptions that guide its design to the long-term goals it seeks to achieve.”

This definition really only applies to nonprofit organizations who are trying to advance their missions. However, I think that the idea of Theory of Change has a lot of relevance in many situations all the way from individual personal improvement up to and including inter-governmental groups such as the United Nations. In my view, tweaking the definition to:

“A tool that describes any process of planned change, from the assumptions that guide its design to the to the long-term goals it seeks to achieve.”

In my slightly tweaked definition, a theory of change can incorporate core values, a change management plan, a behavior modification plan, or any other type of improvement.

How is This Different From an Action Plan?

On the surface, a theory of change looks like just another plan of action that we might use to: try to quit smoking, find greater efficiencies in our departments, or lobby for a new law. When it’s done right, though, a theory of change includes many elements not found in a traditional plan of action such as:

• Core values. In other words, why do you want to create that particular change.
• Plan of action. What steps are you going to take.
• Assumptions. Why do you think the steps in your plan of action will work?
• Desired outcome(s). What do you want to happen when you complete this process?
• Measures of success. How will you know when you are done?

In Part 2 of this series, I’ll walk you through the process of creating a theory of change. In the meantime, if you want to read up on this concept, I recommend Grantcraft’s Mapping Change: Using a Theory of Change to Guide Planning and Evaluation.

Photo by Michael Kaufmann.

I’m grateful to Lexi Sundell for including my post, How to Cross the Gap From Knowing to Doing in the Carnival of Creative Growth. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Lexi’s work, she is not only a talented painter and blogger, but is also a Senior Thought Leader at Personal Development Partners. In that role Lexi contributes tremendous insight and advice to people seeking to improve their lives through personal development tools and techniques.

Normally, a membership at Personal Development Partners costs $19.95 a month, but for a very limited time, you can purchase a lifetime membership for $57! If you aren’t familiar with PDP at all, it is a community of people who have come together to take the information they have gathered from years of study and support each other in applying it to actually improve their lives. In short, it is part group therapy, part peer coaching, and part butt-kicking!

I’ve been active at PDP for about 6 months now and I can definitely say that it is the nicest, most helpful, most success-oriented community I’ve ever participated in. Because there is a cost involved in being a member, the people who are active on the message boards are all committed to gaining positive results as well as offering genuinely useful advice.

I am certainly going to take advantage of this steal of an offer, and I hope you will too!

Other Resources
I would be a very bad blogger if I mentioned a carnival appearance and didn’t highlight some of the other outstanding posts. My personal favorites from this carnival are:

• 24 Weekly Actions for Creating Lasting Success from The Next 45 Years. Alex Blackwell gives you some very concrete steps to set up your week for serious achievement.
• Overwhelm: How to Break Your Life Down into Manageable Parts from Slow Down Fast! David B. Bohl has been putting out great posts for many months now, and this one is no exception. In this post he explains how to do some charting and time auditing to get a handle on your multitude of roles in life.
• How to Get Rid of Excuses NOW and Start Living the Kind of Life You’ve Always Wanted is from the new-to-me blog Super State. Discovering unfamiliar blogs is a great reason to peruse carnivals, by the way. Arin Vahanian encourages us to practice some mindfulness to catch ourselves in the act of making excuses and finding ways to reframe them as choices. It’s a helpful practice that I’m going to work with.

By now just about everyone realizes that we need to make some serious changes to the lifestyles of the developed world if we want the human race to be able to continue living on this planet much longer. Some people suggest that we need to make cut backs of up to 90% of our current environmental impact. Even if you don’t buy into that number (I don’t know that I do), you know that polar bears are drowning . Wars are being fought over oil and may soon be fought over water. Drought is afflicting Australia, the Southeast United States, and huge swaths of Africa, causing crop failures and contributing to the growing world food crisis. Even tourist activities, such as snowmobiling in my home state of Michigan, are being affected by climate change.

No one can single handedly “save the world” but it IS possible for one individual to create a positive impact and change the direction their own life is headed in. As I’ve written, inertia is a powerful force that keeps us from changing even when we know we should. One way to overcome inertia is to “put out” a big effort to get your own personal freight train moving in a different direction. I’ve come up with a few challenges designed to help you overcome your inertia and start to make positive environmental impacts. And the best part is, you only have to do one of them for seven days.

Seven Day Challenge

1. Go veggie. Switching to a vegetarian diet can decrease your carbon footprint more than buying a hybrid car (and it’s a lot cheaper)! By my math, this means that eating veggie for a week is almost as good as carpooling for a week. I’ve been a vegetarian for about 10 years and I promise that switching to a meat free diet will not cause your muscles to wither from lack of protein. Just be sure to eat some whole grains, legumes, and a couple of servings of eggs or dairy during the wee. If you’re already veggie or mostly veggie, take a shot at being vegan for a week and further reduce your carbon footprint. If you just can’t stand the thought of being meat free, at least cut back on your meat consumption and find a source of grass fed meat.
2. Turn out the lights. The No Impact Man lived for nearly a year with NO electricity. He actually had the power turned off to his apartment. You may want to keep your refrigerator and stove plugged in, but try living for a week without TV, lights, computers (you use them enough at the office) and all your other gadgets. Rediscover the fun of reading by candle light and hanging out at the park.
3. Walk, bus, or bicycle. Park your car and figure out other ways of getting where you need to go. If you live in an urban area with public transportation, this should be fairly simple. People in rural areas may have a very hard time with this (I know, I grew up in one), but even you can figure out ways to carpool, delay trips, or bicycle longer distances. But wait, “I use biofuels,” you say. Well, you might be contributing to the global food crisis. If you use pump Ethanol or biodiesel, you’re contributing to the problem, which makes me sad because I use commercially made B20. So unless you’re running your car on waste vegetable oil , you don’t get a pass on this one.
4. Eat a 100 mile diet. On average, each item on an American’s dinner plate has traveled 1500 miles to get there. That’s pretty crazy considering that most areas of the country produce a rich variety of food that is more than sufficient to keep us healthy for most of the year. If you need help finding places to buy local food in your area, check out Local Harvest.
5. Create no trash. In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage (University of Oregon). Try going an entire week without purchasing anything that comes in disposable packing. It’s pretty tough, but by purchasing bulk food items in your own containers (local co-ops usually allow this), avoiding take out food, and carrying a handkerchief to use for hand and nose wiping, you can do it. Or you could just…
6. Buy nothing. You can TOTALLY live for one week without buying anything. After all, in Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, author Judith Levine tried to go an entire year without buying anything except food and necessary personal care products. I bet you can even go for a week without buying food if you have any kind of pantry or refrigerator at all. You’ll really cut down on your garbage production, you’ll save money, and you’ll help the environment. Plus, it’s a great exercise in creative thinking to figure out how to make do with what you have or borrow what you need.
7. Get (politically) active. Individual changes are a great start to create positive environmental impact, but the real bang for your buck comes through systems change. In democratic countries, systems change is usually best achieved by making your voice heard in the political system. If this is the route you’d like to go, find an advocacy organization that works toward goals that you want to achieve and sign up. Make a donation if you can. For extra credit, write a snail mail letter to your elected officials (or even go see them or their staff) and explain your concerns. My friend Andy’s blog Elephants on Bicycles is a great example of a regular guy getting involved with his local system and advocating for change.

What I’m Doing

Now, I can’t just preach that you radically alter your lifestyle for seven days without sharing what I’m doing to decrease my own environmental impact and help the world in my own small way. I’m in the middle of my own 30 DAY challenge right now. Since April 10 and until May 9, I’ve pledged to live for 30 days on $30 of food. I’m doing this to raise money for an organization called Blandford Nature Center & Mixed Greens. Their work includes teaching young, mostly urban and suburban students about gardening, nutrition, and the environment.

I’m the first to admit that $30 for 30 days is not an original idea. I blatantly copied it from Evan of Hungry for a Month. However, I made several changes to his design to emphasize local food, community building, and the environment, which all relate to what Blandford & Mixed Greens do. I’ve written about the background a “rules” of the project on Rice, Beans & Mixed Greens. In a nutshell the rules are:

1. I can purchase $30 of food in 30 days. The only food I’m carrying over from my pantry are a few dried spices, for which I’m charging myself $0.45 for the month.
2. I can barter (i.e. trade labor) for LOCAL food, which means food grown within 100 miles of my workplace.
3. I can’t eat or drink any free food at my office or anything that anyone gives me (this is a tough one!).
4. At the end of the month I’m donating the remainder of my usual monthly food budget - $220 - to Blandford & Mixed Greens.

Right now I’m on day 13 of the challenge and I’m doing fine physically, but I’m doing FANTASTIC emotionally and in terms of my satisfaction with where the project has gone. I’ve been on the front page of the local paper, done an interview on the Mitch Albom radio show during afternoon drive time, and gotten more support and encouragement from friends, family, and complete strangers than I ever imagined.

Of course, I have to ask you for a donation now. If you’d like to contribute you can do so online through my ChipIn! page. You can also send a snail mail check to:
Blandford Nature Center & Mixed Greens
1715 Hillburn Ave NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49504

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Photo by Steve Jurvetson