Assignment One Homework
Online Learning
OL 202: Learn How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs
Center for Sustainable Development

This week’s resources:
Class Home Page
Assignment One Discussion
Magee Project Example Assignment One
OL 202 Assignment One Student Logframe Template to Fill In

Assignment One: Beginning Logframes
Getting Started
Go to the Download Course Documents menu link to your left and open up the document called OL 202 Assignment One Student Logframe Template to Fill In. You’ll see that it’s the same matrix that we completed in Assignment Six of the first course, OL 201, but that in a number of the empty cells I have added more information.

Please do not change or modify what was written in your matrix from Assignment 6. It’s perfect the way it is. I’ll be checking!

Part 1.
Measureable Sub-goals.
The sub-goals are components of the main goal: Each of the sub-goals, added together, should fully describe the main project goal. You can see that I have annotated the student template so this is clearly visible when you compare the goal statement to the sub-goals.

In order to know if the activities that we chose to address the problem statement are working we need to have something measurable. Let’s start by making our sub goals measurable. From the research that you did on your activities in the last course, you may have found levels of success written up in the abstracts or conclusions of the scientific papers that you downloaded.

For example in my Assignment Three example from the previous course, the scientific studies that I found that people with plots in community gardens had increased consumption of fruits and vegetables—and that these programs could improve nutrition in children.

At this early stage of project design you don’t want to overstate the successes that you hope to achieve. So was conservative and said that “50% of 1,000 small children from 500 families in four cities surrounding Claremont will be able to have access to sufficient fruits and vegetables through a community garden program.”

Part 2.
Expansion of output descriptions
In as much as the sub-goals needed to add up to fully describe the project goal, the outputs also need to add up to fully describe the sub-goals. So we need to expand our definitions of the outputs to make sure that they will fully describe the sub goals. We also need to make the descriptions of our outputs very specific and measurable.

My first output for the week six of OL 201 student matrix said “Hold a forming beds and planting seeds workshop.” I have now changed this to say “20% of 500 families participated in workshops on forming beds and planting seeds and follow-up for 3 months.” This describes a specific thing as if it has happened. It is something measurable. And it relates to concrete elements within the sub-goals—i. e. “20% of 500 families.” It also gives a timeframe: 3 months.

Part 3.
Detailed Activities
Just like outputs add up to fulfill the sub-goals, you must now define specific activities which will add up to fulfill the outputs. Specific activities that you need can be found in the lesson plan that you wrote in the last course in Assignment Five about one of your outputs.

So, my first output is a workshop on community gardening. I needed to think creatively and refer to my lesson plan to decide what activities would I need to do to fulfill the output.“Hold a forming beds and planting seeds workshop.” I have now changed this to say “20% of 500 families participated in workshops on forming beds and planting seeds and follow-up for 3 months.” This describes a specific thing as if it has happened. It is something measurable. And it relates to concrete elements within the sub-goals—i. e. “20% of 500 families.” It also gives a timeframe: 3 months.

Standard Numbering Systems:
My first output 1.1 is numbered 1.1 because it is the first of two outputs of Sub-Goal 1. Then because developing a lesson plan is the first activity of Output 1.1 we will name it Activity 1.1.1. The second activity of output 1.1 will be known as Activity 1.1.2. This system of numbering will become important when we develop the budget and a schedule. I realize that this may be a new concept, but just use the template and write in your activities using my numbering system; it will make sense soon enough.

I then did the same thing with my other activities. You should do the same now.

The homework to turn in will be to add the following into the Logframe Template for your project:
1. Measureable Sub-goals
2. Expansion of output descriptions
3. Detailed Activities

Go to OL 202 Assignment One Student Logframe Template to Fill In to see what this could look like.

See you next week.

Tim Magee