July 2009 Newsletter

The Architecture of Project Design and Presentation

In the June 2009 newsletter, and in Proposal Development, we looked at the human dimension of project design; we talked about participatory needs assessments, consensus building, and donor input. This month we will look at management tools that will increase the likelihood that your project will have human-scale impact.

Beginning Logframes

The Logical Framework (logframe), also known as the Theory of Change, is a powerful tool that aids in project planning, budgeting, project management, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for assessing impact. Different groups and organizations take different approaches, so logframes come in a variety of styles and configurations. In working with donors and stakeholders, your logframe will allow you to communicate to others exactly what you are trying to accomplish, and convey to them if you are making progress toward your goals.

In Proposal Development we used a participatory needs assessment to define the problem, and then researched activities that would provide solutions in order to come up with a project concept. Your project concept can be laid out in a simplified logframe matrix that allows you to organize:

§ the project goal

§ outcomes that fulfill the goal

§ outputs that fulfill the outcomes

§ activities that fulfill the outputs

§ inputs necessary for the activities

This rest of this article has MS Word tables and is best viewed as a PDF document.

Condensed version of the article.

Expanded version of the article.