Theory of Change Template
Outline a roadmap to bring change to your organization with the Theory of Change Template. Become the transformational agent inside your organization.
About the Theory of Change Template
An independent service designer, Piera Mattioli, created the Theory of Change Template to help organizations collaboratively map out their activities and how they contribute to the long-term goal they want to achieve.
What’s the Theory of Change Template?
This template is based on the Theory of Change (TOC), a method developed to map out how initiatives or interventions lead to the desired outcomes and goals. What’s different about this methodology is that it first defines the long-term goals or objectives, then traces work back to identify what actions lead to the desired outcome.
The Theory of Change Template has five sections:
Project references.
Understanding the organization.
Analysis of levels of change.
Analysis: long-term goals, outcome, output, and activities.
Define your strategy, prototype, and iterate.
Benefits of the Theory of Change Template
The Theory of Change Template helps you visualize the necessary conditions to reach your organization's desired goals and outcomes. When you lay out all the players and assumptions, it becomes easier to have different views that previously were not so obvious.
The practice of theory of change enables teams to deliver programs and projects that will have an impact. Besides building a framework for the changes you want to bring to your organization, the Theory of Change also gives you a guide for measuring success, making it easier to see what’s working and what isn’t.
The Theory of Change Template is excellent for helping teams find solutions to complex social problems, as it shows how each group of individuals actually contributes to producing long-lasting results.
How to use the Theory of Change Template
This template is designed to be a collaborative tool, and it’s also meant to be edited and adapted to suit your organization’s needs. When applying the theory of change model, keep in mind:
Prep work:
Define together why you are doing this and what goals you want to achieve. Think about what kind of contribution you need and see who should be part of the team.
Using the Theory of Change Template:
Map your ecosystem. Understand your organization and map out every stakeholder.
Why does your organization exist? Write down your vision.
What are the impacts of your activities? Define the levels of change you contribute to.
Analyze the canvas Activities, Outputs, and Outcomes and make connections between them.
What are the assumptions around your connections? Define how you’ll measure impact.
How to communicate your theory of change outcome:
Define your target audience and why they need to know about the Theory of Change.
Set a content strategy based on your audience.
Test and iterate if needed.
Pro tip: After you defined your TOC, you can present it with this Change Management Presentation Template.
What are Lewin's 3 stages of change?
Lewin’s three stages of change explain how the change process takes place according to these three steps: unfreeze, change process, and refreezing. According to social psychologist Kurt Lewin, organizations go over this process when applying changes in management or behavior. Unfreezing is when people realize a method or process doesn’t make sense anymore. As the name says, the change process is the beginning of change, where people are open to new ways of working and behaving. Refreezing is the final stage, where changes are incorporated and a new organizational system is put in place.
What is the format of the theory of change?
The Theory of Change (ToC) is a methodology for planning and evaluating social change initiatives. It identifies a long-term goal and maps out the preconditions and outcomes required to achieve it, arranged from short-term to long-term. The ToC includes key elements such as an outcomes framework, causal pathways, specific indicators, interventions, supporting evidence, stakeholders, timeline, and broader context. These components are often represented visually to understand the relationships and steps to achieve the desired social change.
Get started with this template right now.
Startup Canvas Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Documentation, Strategic Planning
A Startup Canvas helps founders express and map out a new business idea in a less formal format than a traditional business plan. Startup Canvases are a useful visual map for founders who want to judge their new business idea’s strengths and weaknesses. This Canvas can be used as a framework to quickly articulate your business idea’s value proposition, problem, solution, market, team, marketing channels, customer segment, external risks, and Key Performance Indicators. By articulating factors like success, viability, vision, and value to the customer, founders can make a concise case for why a new product or service should exist and get funded.
Executive Summary Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Project Management, Documentation
Pique their curiosity. Get them excited. Inspire them to keep reading, diving further into your proposal details. That’s what a good executive summary has the power to do—and why it’s a crucial opening statement for business plans, project plans, investment proposals, and more. Use this template to create an executive summary that starts building belief, by answering high-level questions that include: What is your project? What are the goals? How will you bring your skills and resources to the project? And who can expect to benefit?
Corrective Action Plan Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Operations, Strategic Planning
For a manager or HR leader, it’s the least fun part of the job: Documenting an employee’s performance issues and talking about them directly to that employee. A corrective action plan makes that tough task a little easier by putting issues into a professional, written framework. That way the process, next steps, and details of the conversations are all clearly documented. This template will enable you to eliminate murky communication, align on expectations, and provide step-by-step instructions for your employee.
Ansoff Matrix Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Operations, Strategic Planning
Keep growing. Keep scaling. Keep finding those new opportunities in new markets—and creative new ways to reach customers there. Sound like your approach? Then this template might be a great fit. An Ansoff Matrix (aka, a product or market expansion grid) is broken into four potential growth strategies: Market Penetration, Market Development, Product Development, and Diversification. When you go through each section with your team, you’ll get a clear view of your options going forward and the potential risks and rewards of each.
Funding Tracker Template
Works best for:
Kanban Boards, Operations
For many organizations, especially non-profits, funding is their lifeblood—and meeting fundraising goals is a crucial part of carrying out their mission. A funding tracker gives them a powerful, easy-to-use tool for measuring their progress and staying on course. And beyond helping you visualize milestones, this template will give you an effective way to inspire the public to donate, and help you keep track of those donors. It’s especially useful when you have multiple donations coming from a variety of sources.
Team Charter Template
Works best for:
Meetings, Workshops, Team Meetings
A team charter is a document that outlines your team’s purpose and objectives, as well as steps you will take to reach your goals. The team charter illustrates the focus and direction for all team members. When created collaboratively, the team charter is a great way for individuals to feel even more connected to one another within the group. A team charter template is useful when you’re first establishing a new team, adding new members to an existing team, or when you need to better align regardless of your team’s tenure.