{"id":47,"date":"2017-05-08T09:04:40","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T09:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/2020\/12\/23\/theory-change-funders\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T15:07:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:37:05","slug":"theory-change-funders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/theory-change-funders\/","title":{"rendered":"Theory of change \u2013 it\u2019s for funders too!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Illustration<\/a>

Photo Courtesy: Rosapuchalt  for Freepik<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>

It’s good to see more funders encouraging the charities they work with to develop theories of change — to help them select the most promising interventions to fund, and ensure the grantees they do support have coherent plans for achieving and measuring impact.<\/p>

But its potential doesn’t stop there, says Dawn Plimmer, writing for NPC. Funders can also use theory of change to help plan, review and evaluate their own work. Here’s why:<\/p>

1)    Strategy<\/h3>

By carefully thinking through each step required to achieve your goal (rather than specific activities you assume you should fund), theory of change will help you challenge assumptions in your thinking and consider the best way to use your resources.<\/p>

\"What<\/a><\/div>

2)    Communication<\/h3>

Theory of change is a useful communication tool—it can provide a clear narrative for the rationale behind how and what you fund links to your goals.<\/p>

3)    Learning & evaluation<\/h3>

It can help you prioritise what to measure. By measuring what’s really important to your mission and nothing more, you can ensure that the information you ask for from grantees is meaningful.<\/p>

This is an excerpt from the full article, which can be found<\/em> here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>

 <\/p>\n

\"donate<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s good to see more funders encouraging the charities they work with to develop theories of change — to help them select the most promising interventions to fund, and ensure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[3636],"series":[],"meta-filter":[],"schema-filter":[743],"no-display":[],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-monitoring-evaluation","tag-funders","contributor-new-philanthropy-capital","states-india","schema-filter-article"],"yoast_head":"\nTheory of change \u2013 it\u2019s for funders too! - India Development Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Funders can also use theory of change to help plan, review and evaluate their own work. This article by Think NPC tells you why they should.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"kn_IN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Theory of change \u2013 it\u2019s for funders too!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Funders can also use theory of change to help plan, review and evaluate their own work. This article by Think NPC tells you why they should.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"India Development Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-08T09:04:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-15T09:37:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Illustration-Meeting-Table.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"626\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"626\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Devanshi Vaid\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Theory of change \u2013 it\u2019s for funders too! - India Development Review","description":"Funders can also use theory of change to help plan, review and evaluate their own work. This article by Think NPC tells you why they should.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/","og_locale":"kn_IN","og_type":"article","og_title":"Theory of change \u2013 it\u2019s for funders too!","og_description":"Funders can also use theory of change to help plan, review and evaluate their own work. This article by Think NPC tells you why they should.","og_url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/","og_site_name":"India Development Review","article_published_time":"2017-05-08T09:04:40+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-01-15T09:37:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":626,"height":626,"url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Illustration-Meeting-Table.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Devanshi Vaid","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/"},"author":{"name":"Devanshi Vaid","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#\/schema\/person\/9ccd8ace9f05f5fc9085ec2e5bfae451"},"headline":"Theory of change \u2013 it\u2019s for funders too!","datePublished":"2017-05-08T09:04:40+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-15T09:37:05+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/"},"wordCount":214,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Illustration-Meeting-Table.jpg","keywords":["funders"],"articleSection":["Monitoring & Evaluation"],"inLanguage":"kn-IN","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/","name":"Theory of change \u2013 it\u2019s for funders too! - India Development Review","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Illustration-Meeting-Table.jpg","datePublished":"2017-05-08T09:04:40+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-15T09:37:05+00:00","description":"Funders can also use theory of change to help plan, review and evaluate their own work. This article by Think NPC tells you why they should.","inLanguage":"kn-IN","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"kn-IN","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/theory-change-funders\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Illustration-Meeting-Table.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Illustration-Meeting-Table.jpg","width":626,"height":626,"caption":"Funders Illustration Meeting Table"},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/","name":"India Development Review","description":"India's first and largest online journal for leaders in the development community","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"kn-IN"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#organization","name":"India Development Review","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"kn-IN","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/idr-logo-without-tagline-sm.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/idr-logo-without-tagline-sm.webp","width":1,"height":1,"caption":"India Development Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#\/schema\/person\/9ccd8ace9f05f5fc9085ec2e5bfae451","name":"Devanshi Vaid","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"kn-IN","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2ff7c808d3539c16c67949df0296e034b2baeb599fa173f683398d23fe4e3690?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2ff7c808d3539c16c67949df0296e034b2baeb599fa173f683398d23fe4e3690?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2ff7c808d3539c16c67949df0296e034b2baeb599fa173f683398d23fe4e3690?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Devanshi Vaid"},"url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/author\/dvaid\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7734,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/7734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"meta-filter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/meta-filter?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"schema-filter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schema-filter?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"no-display","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/no-display?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}