Along with the 30 or so other members of my school's Public Purpose Task Force, I was asked to read Zeroing in on Impact, a September 2004 article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. (The Public Purpose of Private Schools will give you an idea of the focus of our Task Force.)
The article discusses two tools for nonprofit organizations to utilize in fine-tuning their goals, how they go about achieving those goals, and how they measure whether or not those goals are met. The authors share the process undertaken by the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families as it morphed into the Harlem Children's Zone. Intended impact and theory of change are the tools utilized by the Rheedlen Centers as they underwent their process, and the tools the authors see as necessary for guiding a nonprofit towards restating goals and prioritizing resources in order to achieve those goals.
- - - - -
Intended impact is a statement or series of statements about what the organization is trying to achieve and will hold itself accountable for within some manageable period of time. It identifies both the benefits the organization seeks to provide and the beneficiaries.
Theory of change explains how the organization's intended impact will actually happen, the cause-and-effect logic by which organizational and financial resources will be converted into the desired social results. Often an organization's theory of change will take into account not only its own resources but also those that others bring to bear.
- - - - -
The authors go on to elaborate upon intended impact and theory of change, clarifying how the process would work. The major issue I see is that we are going to attempt changes to the way our school has functioned these past many years. To do this successfully, so that people have a greater likelihood of not only "going along" with the change, but believably incorporating the change into their daily school lives, we will have to carefully construct and explain our vision. We will have to ensure that its scope is manageable either within the existing structure of our school, or be prepared to systemically alter that structure to support this new scope.
I am curious to see how this initiative plays out over the coming year. It could be the gorilla in the room, in the sense that like the folks earnestly watching the basketball game, they did not notice the person in a gorilla costume walking through the game. Or it could be the gorilla in the room, in the sense that the gorilla is all too noticeable and people do not move while it is present. (Hmm, maybe it will be a playful gorilla that everyone is willing to "play" with ;-)