Assignment Two 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 Two Discussion
Download Class Documents
OL 202 Assignment Two Student Logframe Template to Fill In
Assignment 2: Planning for Impact
Getting Started
Go to the Download Course Documents menu link to your left and open up the document called OL 202 Assignment Two Student Logframe Template to Fill In. You’ll see that it’s the same matrix that we completed in week one, but that in a number of the empty cells I have added more information. Use this as a guide to fill in the empty cells in your project’s logframe from last week.
Part 1.
Impact statement
If we return to the negative impact statements on our problem statements from Assignment One of the first course we will see that it says that these challenges “reduce their children’s ability to concentrate in school and also reduces the ability of adults to lead the productive, meaningful, prosperous lives they need to leave the cycle of poverty.” Where will that lead those children to be 15 or 20 years from now? Their lack of development and education will keep them trapped in the cycle of poverty and they may continue to be undernourished and unhealthy.
Much as our goal statement was a mirror image or a positive version of our problem statement, the project’s impact statement will be a positive version of the long-term negative impact. So my impact statement says that “1,000 small children from 500 families in four cities surrounding Claremont, California have sufficient food and better nutrition and lead healthy, prosperous, productive lives.” That sums up why I’m doing this project: so these children won’t grow up under nourished, unhealthy, and poor, but well developed, healthy, productive, and prosperous.
“Impact is the long-term, sustainable change in the conditions of people that structurally reduce poverty and improve human well-being”.
Part 2.
Outcome statements
Much like our outputs and Sub-goals added up to equal our main project goal, our outcomes need to add up to equal our impact statement. The impact statement reflects the results of the project outcomes.
Hopefully, our project influenced peoples’ decisions to make changes in their behavior—such as incorporating nutrition into their daily routines. This isn’t something tangible that you can touch and feel (like a new school building) but behavioral changes that result in healthier lives. These behavior changes over five years, or 10 years will create impact. And this is why we do impact-oriented projects.
My outputs and sub-goals discuss people attending workshops and having measurable improved nutrition in the short term. But will they continue to maintain that level of nutrition after my crew has left? Outcomes described the fact that people have adopted these healthy practices permanently into their lives.
The community garden outcome for my project states: “1,000 small children from 500 families adopt a family gardening into their lives allowing children to grow and develop properly, be able to participate in education, and be prosperous, productive members of their communities.”
This positive outcome is a reflection of the corresponding section of my problem statement that is the basis for the project’s health and hygiene program.
“1,000 small children from 500 families in four cities surrounding Claremont, California, suffer a lack of access to sufficient fruits, vegetables, and meat products due to a lack of a place for raising their own vegetables and a lack of a program for collecting surplus food from restaurants and grocery stores.”
Add outcome statements adjacent to each of your Sub-Goals.
Part 3.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Indicators and Means of Verification
This week we are going to begin developing a Monitoring and Evaluation plan that will be expanded in the third course of this series ‘Positive Outcomes.’
Why a monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) plan? We want to be able to observe if our theory of change (our activities and outputs) are working. If we aren’t achieving the results we want in the process of the project—and we can identify that—we can make adjustments to improve our results. An M&E plan also means that we can provide factual final reports, and learn from the results of our project.
Since we worked so hard to make our outputs and activities measurable, indicators let us know we succeeded. For example, if we hold a workshop for 100 people—an indicator would be that they did indeed attend.
But we need to verify that they did come—so means of verification could be workshop sign-in sheets and photographs.
Look at my example for ideas and go ahead and place indicators and means of verifications adjacent to your outputs and activities as shown in the example
The homework to turn in will be to add the following into the Logframe Template for your project:
1. Impact statement
2. Outcomes statements
3. Indicators and Means of Verification for outputs and activities
Go to OL 202 Assignment Two Student Logframe Template to Fill In to see what this could look like.
See you next week.
Tim Magee