One of the basic principles that we try to convey to
both funders and nonprofits is the importance of breaking down short,
intermediate and long-term outcomes. Outcomes should represent changes
that can logically be expected given your program plan and length of
the grant period. Outcomes also need to be within the sphere of
influence of a program.
For example, a program targeting a 10th grade health
class to reduce pregnancy rates in a particular high school, will
probably not have an impact on teen pregnancy across the nation or even
across the county. However, it may help increase awareness of how to
prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among the students
who attend the weekly health seminar on this topic. Increased awareness
is a realistic short term outcome that can reasonably be measured at
the end of a grant period.
Perhaps students attending these seminars will alter
their sexual behaviors over the course of the next few years because of
what they learned in these sessions. This could be a reasonable
intermediate outcome. However, keep in mind that this behavioral change
may not be solely attributable to the health seminars. Many of these
kids may have been exposed to other factors (parental influence,
movies, experiences of peers, etc) that could also have contributed to
their changed behavior.
Four or five years down the road this particular high
school may indeed notice a drop in teen pregnancy rates— a long term
outcome. This may be attributable to the health seminar, but it could
also have been caused by changes in social norms regarding sexual
behavior, increased marketing of contraception by the media, or other
factors.
The key message here is that major changes in behavior
and conditions take longer to occur. As more time passes between the
intervention and the intended result, there’s less likelihood that the
changes you are witnessing are 100% attributable to your program. When
articulating your program and its outcomes to your funders, it’s
helpful to convey them using a chain of outcomes:
A Recap:
Short Term Outcomes
– outcomes that are usually measurable within the duration of the grant
period. These outcomes are usually (but not always) denoted as changes
in knowledge or attitude. [Ex: Increased awareness of how to prevent
pregnancy among students participating in program]
Intermediate Outcomes –
Outcomes that take place within a slightly longer time frame than the
previous stage. These outcomes are usually seen as changes in behavior.
[Ex. Changes in sexual behavior among students that participated in the
program]
Long-term Outcomes –
Outcomes that more distant in time, harder to measure and less directly
attributable to your program. [Ex. A decline in teen pregnancy rates
for the high school targeted by the program]
So, the next time you write grant proposal, think about
the changes you think your program will produce during different stages
of time. You can make the case that your program if implemented
correctly will contribute to the long-term outcomes, but all you can
really be accountable for are the shorter term outcomes that are closer
in time, and within the scope of your project.
As you start developing your program plan, you may want to check out Innovation Network’s Logic Model Builder and Evaluation Plan Builder.
These tools are designed to help organizations think through their
programs and identify outcomes for the short, intermediate and
long-term.
