A theory of change explicitly articulates the cause-and-effect steps for how a project or organization can turn inputs into a desired impact on the world (i.e. it’s their theory of how they’ll make a change). They generally include the following sections:
Inputs / activities: What the project or organization does to create change (e.g. “distribute bednets”)
Outputs: The tangible effects generated by the inputs (e.g. “beneficiaries have access to malaria nets”)
Intermediate outcomes: The outputs’ effects, including benefits for the beneficiary, (e.g. “malaria nets are used” and “reduced incidence of malaria”)
Impact: What we’re ultimately solving, and why the intermediate outcomes matter (e.g. “lives saved”)
Best practices when crafting a theory of change (i.e. for creators):
Invest sufficiently in understanding the problem context (i.e. understanding the needs and incentives of the beneficiaries and other stakeholders, as well as barriers to change and the economic & political context)
Map the causal pathway backwards from impact to activities
Question every causal step (is it clear why A should cause B? how might it fail?)
Hallmarks of an excellent theory of change (i.e. for reviewers):
A focused suite of activities
The evidence and assumptions behind each step are explicitly named
The relative confidence of each step is clear
It is clear who the actor is in each step
Common mistakes to avoid in theories of change are:
Not making fundamental impact the goal (e.g., stopping at ‘increased immunizations’ instead of ‘improved health’)
Being insufficiently detailed: (a) making large leaps between each step, (b) combining multiple major outcomes into one step (e.g. ‘government introduces and enforces regulation’).
Setting and forgetting (instead of regularly iterating on it)
Not building your theory of change into a measurement plan
From: Nailing the basics – Theories of change — EA Forum (effectivealtruism.org)