Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Strategy for Social Change

Workbook
Stage 1: Understand the Problem Stage 2: Design a Strategy for Impact Stage 3: Test, Learn, and Iterate

STEP 1. IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM STEP 1. UNDERSTAND INFLUENCES STEP 1. ANTICIPATE FAILURES

STEP 2. RESEARCH CAUSES STEP 2. DECIDE ON AN APPROACH STEP 2. PLAN FOR FEEDBACK

STEP 3. DEFINE SUCCESS STEP 3. BUILD A THEORY OF CHANGE STEP 3. TEST AND ITERATE

STEP 4. FOCUS ON BEHAVIOR

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 1: Understand the Problem

Step 1. Identify the Problem

A. Assignment: Conduct a dialogue to get to the heart of the problem

The following Q&A process can help you dig deeper to identify the problem that you’re most concerned about.

Working alone or with a partner.

⇒ Repeatedly ask “Why is that a problem that I wish to solve?” and other questions that help you understand what the
problem is really about and why it concerns you. Focus on why the problem is important to you in your role as a social
entrepreneur or policymaker.

⇒ To assess whether you’ve gone deep enough, ask yourself:

o What would the world look like if the problem was solved?
o If the issue I’ve identified was successfully addressed, would I feel that the problem was solved?

⇒ Avoid asking or answering about causes of the problem or solutions to the problem. (You’ll come to that in Step 2.)

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

1. What is the problem I want to solve?

Enter answer here…

2. Why is that a problem?

Enter answer here…

3. Why is that a problem?

Enter answer here…

4. Why? (or other question to help understand what the problem really is about)
Enter answer here…

5. Why? (or other question)

Enter answer here…

6. Why? (or other question)

Enter answer here…

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

B. Assignment: Write a problem description

In one or at most two sentences, describe the problem that you wish to address. Use your insights from the preceding problem
dialogue. Be sure to include who you’re particularly concerned about—the potential beneficiaries of the solution you hope to
design.

● Don’t include the causes of the problem. You’ll come to that later.

● Don’t include a solution to the problem. You want to leave open a range of solutions.

● Avoid unwarranted assumptions. Only include assumptions that you have evidence for or are pretty confident about.

Enter your problem description here…

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 1: Understand the Problem

Step 2. Research Causes

Assignment: Identify significant causes of the problem
Based on your problem description and after you’ve researched the problem:

⇒ Identify several of the significant causes of the problem for the particular intended beneficiaries of your work

⇒ Explain why you believe they are significant causes

Don’t be obsessed with so-called “root causes.” The most effective solutions often involve more direct or immediate causes.

SIGNIFICANT CAUSES WHY YOU BELIEVE THEY ARE SIGNIFICANT CAUSES

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

© 2020 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

This publication is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License.
Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 1: Understand the Problem

Step 3. Define Success

Assignment: Describe your ultimate outcome—what success would
look like
Based on what you’ve learned about your social problem, its causes, and your intended beneficiaries specify a single ultimate
outcome of your program or policy in one or at most two sentences. This is what you will hold yourself accountable for
achieving, and what you would regard as success. (Don’t confuse this with aspirations about improvements in people’s lives that
you hope your ultimate outcome might eventually lead to.)

If you have more than one ultimate outcome in mind, choose the one that’s most important to you.

Don’t try to specify the particular metrics you will use to assess whether you achieved the outcome. Rather, describe the nature
of improvements in terms of quality (better), quantity (more, less), or differences from the way things are now. What matters is
that the outcome is clear enough that an independent outsider could determine whether you achieved it or not.

Enter your ultimate outcome here…

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 2: Design a Strategy for Impact

Step 1. Understand Influences

A. Assignment: Identify major stakeholders
First, take ten minutes to list all of the stakeholders you can think of who are contributing to your social problem, or who are
affected by the problem, or who will be affected by or contribute to possible solutions. Include people or institutions that may
support or oppose your work.

Now narrow your list down to 3 – 5 key stakeholders who could particularly make a difference, positively or negatively, and
describe how they would make a difference.

ALLY OR OPPONENT +
MY MAJOR STAKEHOLDERS
HOW THEY WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

B. Optional Assignment: Sketch a systems map

Draw a map of the system in which your problem resides. Model your map on the homelessness example and Jordan's diabetes
example provided in the “Understand Influences” step of the module.

You may sketch the map in freehand or use a computer graphics tool, including PowerPoint. Paste the image here or include it in
a separate file.

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 2: Design a Strategy for Impact

Step 2. Decide on an Approach

This is an opportunity to take what you’ve learned so far and brainstorm a range of different solutions. Keep them at a pretty
high level without getting into the weeds.

 You can deliver services directly to beneficiaries.

 You can change government or corporate policy.

 You can change societal mindsets and systems.

 You can conduct or support research on the problem.

If you’re advocating a government policy, describe the theory of change for the underlying policy and not for the advocacy
effort.

Be sure that your ideas are grounded in what you know about the problem, what you have learned from running your own
program if you already started, and what you can learn from other people’s work. Keep in mind that you are most likely to
succeed with an approach that responds to the causes (but not necessarily “root causes”) of the problem.

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A. Assignment: List criteria to assess approaches

Identify no more than five criteria you will use to assess your possible approaches. The criteria should represent your highest
priorities as a social entrepreneur. For example: meeting the needs of your beneficiaries; your capacity to implement the
approach; fitting your values; fitting your risk tolerance; likelihood of success; cost effectiveness.

You may wish to jot down the approaches in Assignment B below before listing criteria.

CRITERIA
1 Example: Meets beneficiaries’ needs

2 Example: Riskiness

B. Assignment: Explore possible approaches to solving the problem

Identify several plausible approaches to solving your problem and enter a brief description of each one in the table below. For
each approach, apply each of the criteria in Assignment A and enter a grade from A to F.

For example, suppose that your first two criteria in Assignment A are (1) meeting your beneficiaries’ needs and (2) riskiness. If an
approach meets their needs pretty well, you might enter a grade of B under criterion 1. If you regard an approach as too risky,
you might enter a grade of D under criterion 2.
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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

CRITERIA
APPROACHES
1 2 3 4 5 Notes
Example: Addiction counseling B D

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 2: Design a Strategy for Impact

Step 3. Build a Theory of Change

A theory of change shows how your work will lead to the social change you want to make happen. The theory of change is a set
of causes and effects that identifies every step that is required to reach your ultimate outcome.

Assignment: Sketch a theory of change for achieving your ultimate

outcome
Your completed theory of change demonstrates how you will turn your proposed solution into a viable program, policy, or social
enterprise.

THREE BASIC STEPS FOR DEVELOPING A THEORY OF CHANGE

Start with the ultimate outcome—what would be success. Begin by copying the ultimate outcome you defined in Stage
1 1, Step 3 into the template below.

Now identify necessary intermediate outcomes. These are changes in people’s behaviors and/or other things that must
happen in order to achieve your ultimate outcome. Specify exactly who needs to do exactly what (behaviors) and what
2 else needs to happen (other intermediate outcomes) to achieve the ultimate outcome. Focus on people or institutions
whose actions are essential to achieving your solution. It is common to have several intermediate outcomes, where
each one will lead to another until they produce the ultimate outcome.

Now connect every intermediate outcome to an activity that will cause it. An activity may change, reinforce, or
3 accelerate behaviors or cause other things to happen. Focus on major activities rather than being too detailed.

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

 Every outcome should be caused by an activity or previous outcome, every activity should cause an outcome, and every
intermediate outcome should contribute to the ultimate outcome. Draw arrows to show the causal links.

 Check that you have strong causal links from each intermediate outcome to any further intermediate outcomes, and
from intermediate outcomes to the ultimate outcome.

 Build your theory of change on good information. Be sure that you have evidence—or at least good reasons—to support
the causal links from each activity to intermediate outcomes.

 Although you may have a number of parallel, complementary strategies in mind, describe only a single strategy.

 If you’re advocating a government policy, describe the theory of change for the underlying policy and not for the
advocacy effort.

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook
ACTIVITIES
Causes
What you
will do
Add your major activities here
Specify the 1-3 major activities –
described at a high level – that you
will do to drive the behaviors and
other intermediate outcomes
necessary to achieve the ultimate
outcome.
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INTERMEDIATE OUTCOMES
Cause
Behaviors: What
others must do
Add your major behaviors here
Specify exactly who needs to do
exactly what in response to your
activities to achieve the other
intermediate outcomes.
Keep this to a small number of
essential actors. These almost
always include – and sometimes
may only include – your
beneficiaries.
ULTIMATE OUTCOME
Additional behaviors Cause
or actions: What What you will achieve
else must happen
Add other intermediate outcomes Add your ultimate outcome here
here
Specify other intermediate Specify the ultimate outcome
outcomes that, together with the (described in Stage 1, Step 3) that
behaviors in the preceding column, will be the direct result of your
are necessary to achieve the intermediate outcomes.
ultimate outcome. These may be
non-behavioral consequences of This is success in the form of social
those behaviors or direct change. It is what you are
consequences of your activities accountable for.
There’s no need to fill out this
column if the behaviors in the
preceding column suffice to achieve
your ultimate outcome.
Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 2: Design a Strategy for Impact

Step 4. Focus on Behavior

Assignment: Brainstorm Behaviors, Barriers, and Ways to Overcome
the Barriers
Identify two or three decisions and two or three actions by beneficiaries and other stakeholders that are necessary for
your theory of change to succeed. For each one, brainstorm barriers to actions that people may need to overcome.
Then brainstorm how you can motivate the actions, create the right conditions, and generally make it easier for
essential actors to adopt and sustain necessary behaviors.

ACTIVITIES TO HELP
NECESSARY BEHAVIOR
ESSENTIAL ACTOR BARRIER TO BEHAVIOR ACTORS OVERCOME THE
(DECISION OR ACTION)
BARRIER

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

After you identify the necessary behaviors and the barriers to their performance, return to your theory of change in Stage 2,
Step 3 and improve it by using your insights to revise your activities. Be sure there’s a “you do” activity to drive each necessary
behavior “they do” in your theory of change. (You will continue to revise your activities and behaviors as you implement your
strategy and get feedback.)

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 3: Test, Learn, and Iterate

Step 1. Anticipate Failures

Assignment: Conduct a Premortem to test your strategy for weak
spots
Look to the future and anticipate which elements of your strategy are most likely to fail. Consider these four major areas where
things could go wrong.
1. Problems with the causal links in your theory of change: How confident are you in the evidence supporting these causal
links? Does your strategy provide the right conditions and incentives for people to behave in the ways that you need them to in
order to succeed?
2. Internal problems with your implementation of the strategy: There are inherent risks in implementing any strategy. These
risks are often related to your activities. Consider your capacity and resources (staff, expertise, time, funding) to get the job
done, and internal management problems, including staff resistance to the strategy
3. External factors out of your control. Even if you design a great theory of change and implement it perfectly, what might occur
in the world that could have a negative impact on your activities and outcomes? Consider inertia or opposition by your
beneficiaries; insufficient support from stakeholder allies; unexpected challenges from stakeholder opponents; and major
changes in the economy, in policy, or in your operating environment
4. Unintended consequences: Your theory of change focuses on a small number of key actors. But we live in a web of social and
economic relationships. Consider ways that your solution might create additional problems or complicate the situation for
beneficiaries or other stakeholders.

How will you modify your strategy to mitigate the problems that you foresee?

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Assignment: Identify weaknesses in your theory of change

What are the most problematic assumptions in your strategy, and how would you test them?

WEAKNESSES HOW TO TEST

Problems with the

Causal Links

Implementation
Problems

External Factors

Unintended
Consequences

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

Stage 3: Test, Learn, and Iterate

Step 2. Plan for Feedback

As you begin to implement your strategy, you will need information about how you’re progressing. Prepare plans to collect both
unstructured feedback and indicators of progress. These will allow you to make the necessary adjustments to be on track
towards success.

A. Assignment: Plan to collect unstructured feedback on the

implementation of your program
This includes the views of beneficiaries and other stakeholders (including your own staff) about how things are going.

KEY INDIVIDUAL OR INSTITUTION HOW YOU WILL GET THEIR FEEDBACK

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

B. Assignment: Plan to collect structured feedback on your progress

Consider what activities, behaviors, and other intermediate outcomes are essential to achieving your ultimate outcome. Use
these elements of your theory of change to define indicators, and then establish ambitious but achievable targets.

WHO WILL COLLECT, RECORD, AND

ACTIVITY INDICATORS ACTIVITY TARGETS
ANALYZE THE INFORMATION

BEHAVIOR AND OTHER

BEHAVIOR AND OTHER WHO WILL COLLECT, RECORD, AND
INTERMEDIATE OUTCOME
INTERMEDIATE OUTCOME TARGETS ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
INDICATORS

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Strategy for Social Change Workbook

C. Assignment: Describe the indicator for your ultimate outcome

This will be a quantitative or qualitative indicator reflecting the improvement you intend to make in people’s lives through your
program or policy.

WHO WILL COLLECT, RECORD, AND

ULTIMATE OUTCOME INDICATOR ULTIMATE OUTCOME TARGET
ANALYZE THE INFORMATION

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Stage 3: Test, Learn, and Iterate

Step 3. Test and Iterate

Assignment: Sketch a plan for a pilot study
A pilot study provides an opportunity for you to test, learn, and iterate at a limited scale without committing the same level of
resources required for a full launch.
Suppose that you were planning to conduct a pilot study for your strategy.

⇒ How many participants would you have and how would you select them?

⇒ What indicators of progress would you particularly be interested in, and why?

⇒ From whom would you seek general unstructured feedback, and what issues would particularly interest you?

If you are already running a program, identify potential weak links between the “we do” activities and “they do” behaviors
required by your theory of change. How might you A/B test alternative activities to strengthen the link?

Enter your notes for your pilot study or A/B test here…

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