Thinking About Change in Planning (Resource developed by Simon Croft) Voluntary sector organisations exist to make a difference in the world – for example, improving people’s lives, the environment, or the lives of animals. It’s important to be clear about the changes your organisation wants to bring about. In order to make those changes happen, organisations need to carry out practical activities, such as providing services. For example: Change: Isolated single parents getting out more, meeting others in a similar position and building better support networks Activities: Running a weekly coffee morning with a crèche; providing plenty of information leaflets and a monthly news-sheet of local activities It’s important to keep both change and activities in mind when you are planning for the future because they have to work together to produce results: • •
If you plan particular changes, but don’t plan any activities to bring them about, then no change will happen! On the other hand, if you plan activities that aren’t related to the changes you want to see, then those activities aren’t contributing to your goals.
You also need to measure both change and activities to get the full picture of your organisation’s results. Organisations that only measure their activities, such as how many people attended an event, and how many events were put on, can’t be completely confident about what’s different for those people as a result. It’s even possible to carry out activities with no or few changes happening. For example: • • •
Publishing a newsletter that readers don’t find particularly useful or helpful Putting on classes with a high drop-out rate because participants need something else first (such as offering CV writing classes to a group of people who need literacy help) Providing a drop-in service for homeless people that they enjoy because its warm, dry and makes a good cup of tea, but that doesn’t help them deal with problems they have
In reality most services do result in change, but measuring change is still very important: • •
To find out what works best and what could be improved To demonstrate your value as an organisation and hence attract future funding and resources
Measuring change takes time and effort so it should also be part of your planning. In the voluntary sector, changes made are usually called ‘outcomes’ and activities delivered are usually called ‘outputs’. The Charities Evaluation Service (CES) is a good place to start for help with planning and measuring changes and activities. See Principle 2, Item 3 ‘Monitoring progress against the plans and finances against the budget’ for details.
Code of Good Governance for Smaller Organisations: Useful Resources
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