In all seriousness, many funders require logic models and many of you feel tremendous pressure to put something together that makes some kind of sense. Non Profit AF, which produces an irreverent, cutting edge non profit newsletter that everyone should check out, loves to make fun of logic models (and consultants but we'll leave that alone for now). If you take a little time and effort a logic model can be transformed from an exercise in nonsense to a seriously useful tool. There are thousands of options for constructing a logic model. Whichever one you choose, Impact recommends you address at least the following topics:
Problem: Overarching problem backed up by data.
Subproblem: What are the contributing factors to this problem? This should be based on research not intuition.
Goal: A bold, simple statement about what you are hoping to accomplish.
Objective: What are the two or three steps you will take to accomplish your goal?
Activities: Provide an enumerated, detailed list of your activities.
Process Measures: How will you know, with data points, that you did what you said you were going to do?
Short-Term Outcome Measures: You probably won't be able to "fix" anything in one fiscal year, but what evidence do you have that you are on the right track and this project should continue?
Long-Term Outcome Measures: Were you able to move the needle toward improving the problem you identified?
It is helpful to have an outsider who is not emotionally invested in your project work though this process with you and help you determine where you might be making assumptions or missing steps. It is magical when a program can demonstrate outcomes directly related to the problem they are worried about. Actually, it's not magic, it's LOGIC.
|