NEF Consulting offers facilitated staged support in the development of a Theory of Change. There are three design principles underpinning our approach:
- Co-design: We work alongside your team to co-design the Theory of Change using a participatory approach. The Theory of Change is developed over one or two separate workshops with the team, allowing time between the sessions for you to gather comments, review and reflect on the outputs.
- Feasible and robust: Using proven methodologies that build on the best practice of developing theories of change to clarify the need, goals and how planned activities will drive the desired change.
- Develop understanding: NEF Consulting will act not just as a facilitator of a process, but as a ‘critical friend’ drawing on our experience to offering insights and challenge throughout the Theory of Change development process.
We find a staged approached works well. The following outline programme is an example of how we might facilitate the process for developing a Theory of Change but this would be adapted, for instance, depending on whether the Theory of Change is for an organisation or for a specific programme or project.
Outline programme
Stage One: Workshop to start work on a draft Theory of Change.
We will facilitate a workshop, usually with 6-12 representatives from your organisation, including those responsible for leading the Theory of Change development and, possibly, one or two from key stakeholder groups. You can then circulate the draft and gain comments from a wider group of stakeholders.
Stage Two: Wider comment and involvement from stakeholders.
This stage would be led by you and does not need to involve NEF Consulting. You would update the draft Theory of Change to incorporate the comments from the wider group and submit it to us for review.
Stage Three: Meeting to review comments, discuss and refine the Theory of Change.
This might be a second workshop but is usually a meeting with the team within your organisation who are leading the Theory of Change development.
Stage Four: Finalise the Theory of Change.
You will further refine and add detail to the Theory of Change. NEF Consulting can offer support as a ‘critical friend’ at this stage through email and telephone support – we would agree the nature of this support after Stage Three.
Contact us today with as much information as possible about the background, your objectives, and when you would like to start developing your Theory of Change, and we’ll get back to you with details.
