Week 6: Putting theory to work

This week’s big question

Can you turn theory into something a real organization could use? No new concepts this week. We apply the failure theories and social capital to your site visit, and convert each team’s mission into a one-page theory of change. Module 3 · builds LO3, LO5 (apply the lenses) · thread: data/evidence.

Readings

Application week, no new reading.

Session 1 · Mon Sep 28: Field-notes clinic

A studio: you turn your visit into evidence. On sheet 1 you take the three most useful things you saw, heard, or read and turn each into a claim with a kind of evidence (a document, a person, an observation) and an exact citation: the website line, the 990 part and line and page, the person and date. On sheet 2 you make the four-move case for why your org is a nonprofit (the failure, the mechanism, one line from the filing and one thing from the visit, and what would change your mind) and add one social-capital observation; that argument is the analytical spine of the final report. A neighbour ticks each claim checkable or not yet, and both sheets are collected: they are Monday’s in-class work, so photograph sheet 2 before you hand it in. I circulate to troubleshoot fieldwork and fallback issues before the usual window closes Friday.

Session 2 · Wed Sep 30: Theory-of-change studio

A Rail B studio: your team designs a theory of change for its new nonprofit (inputs → activities → outcomes). Existing programs give you practices to learn from and adapt. A source showing that a program exists does not establish that it achieves its intended outcome.

We watch Muhammad Yunus’s “Grameen Bank at a Glance” (2011, 5:31) in class. Discuss these questions with your team and record brief notes on sheet 1:

1. Problem and response: who has difficulty getting a conventional bank loan, and what does Grameen change to reach them?
2. The chain: identify an input, activity, output, and intended outcome. Which link needs more evidence before you call the program effective?
3. Your startup: choose a practice your team could learn from. What would you keep or change for your community, and why? If it does not fit your mission, explain why.

After eight minutes of team discussion, we compare an example chain and a hypothetical startup adaptation. Grameen’s own description of its lending practices gives us a source to check. Improved livelihoods are intended outcomes that need evidence. Grameen is a bank, so your team still needs to explain why a nonprofit fits its own concept.

Apply the same questions to your startup on sheet 2. For each activity, cite an existing practice, explain your adaptation and intended change, and say why you expect it. Circle the least-sure row and name an assumption to test. Teams swap sheets to check the source, the fit of the adaptation, the outcome, and the assumption. The B1 instructions explain how to cite U.S. and international examples.

Both sheets are Wednesday’s in-class work and are collected, so photograph them first. Sheet 2 feeds B1, due Sunday. Bring your team’s mission draft.

What’s due / prep

• Wednesday’s studio builds the Theory of Change; with the need statement and mission it completes the B1 Concept brief (5 pts, credit), due Sun Oct 4.
• Rail A · A2, Visit evidence (10 pts, credit) due Sun Oct 4: proof-of-contact, the 990 pulled and linked, and a few lines of raw notes. Visit booked for later? Submit the booking confirmation to A2 in Canvas by Sun Oct 4, 11:59 PM. You may complete the visit and remaining A2 work afterward without a late penalty or using a late pass. See Site Visit & Analysis.
• Aim to finish your site visit in the usual window (through Fri Oct 2). Bring any visit notes you have to Monday’s clinic; if your visit is still ahead, bring the org’s filing and website.

Looking ahead

• Lab week is two weeks out (W8). The 990 you pulled for A2 becomes half of the A3 990 comparison (15 pts, due Sun Oct 18): your org read against a second org you never have to visit.