Training

 

Customizable Assistance in Theory of Change

ActKnowledge can work with your organization or initiative in a variety of ways to assist you in building and using Theory of Change and the Ordering Change approach. Most often, we work with organizations to customize a scope of work. Our service offerings include:

• Introduction
• Training
• Facilitation
• Advanced Workshops

All of the services can include a period of technical assistance to answer questions, review your progress, and work with you as you build a theory.

Introduction

Half-day introduction: covers what Theory of Change is, benefits, when it is appropriate to use, how it may fit into your organization or initiative

Full day, including hands-on exercise: covers what Theory of Change is, benefits, when it is appropriate to use, how it may fit into your organization or initiative. Also includes an overview of the steps involved in constructing a theory and an exercise to get acquainted with that its actually like to do

Two-day Introduction and Workshop: covers what Theory of Change is, benefits, when it is appropriate to use, how it may fit into your organization or initiative. Also includes an overview of the steps involved in constructing a theory and a more in-depth exercise than the one-day intro, to get acquainted with that its actually like to do. Finally this version includes a half-day workshop on getting a theory-building process started in your initiative.

Training

How to Construct a Theory for Experienced Facilitators: this course is geared to people who already have group facilitation skills, and therefore focuses on the content, process and products of theory-building. It is aimed at working with facilitators to find ways to integrate techniques they have found successful with the goals of building a theory. After this course, a facilitator should be able to lead a group to develop a theory with minimal technical assistance. (3 days)

How to Construct a Theory for Novices: this course is geared to training people to be educated participants in the process. The goal is for people who plan to be participants in a theory-building process to fully understand what they are doing, how and why. It is not geared to developing the skill to lead the process and is only recommended for people who will have a facilitator.. (2 days)

How to Build an Evaluation from a Theory: this course is for evaluators, funders or program people who want to use a theory as a blueprint for evaluation. (2 days)

How to Work from and Existing Strategic Plan to Build a Theory: this course is for initiatives that are up and running and have plans in place and want to integrate a strategic plan or planning process with developing a theory. (2 days)

Note on Trainings: We do not believe that brief trainings alone are enough to create the comfort and skill level necessary to develop theories, so we highly recommend combining trainings with some level of on-going technical assistance.

ActKnowledge can directly facilitate theory development for your initiative in one of two ways:

Facilitation only: ActKnowledge facilitates group meetings to elicit the information necessary to build your theory. Staff from your initiative do the “offstage” work of synthesizing what is discussed and creating the theory “products”. ActKnowledge provides on-going technical assistance to that staff.

Facilitation and Theory building: ActKnowledge both facilitates and puts the information together to present back to your stakeholders for review, and continues the process until there is consensus that the “theory” is complete.

We can work with you to combine our experience with your knowledge of your work to brainstorm around some of the Theory of Change areas still being developed, such as:

• Team-building
• Dissemination
• Visual presentation
• Insitutionalizing it at your organization

While we don’t have all the answers to these and many other issues, but have a wealth of experience and ideas to offer.