266: Making a Real Difference
At risk of pissing a lot of people off: nonprofits tend to fall into one of three categories:
Feels good (most common)
- Animal shelter
- Neighborhood garden group
- Friends of the library
Looks good (less common)
- Harvard
- The Met Opera
- charity: water
Does good (least common)
It's not that a major research institution or local church doesn't do some good, but they are not focused primarily around creating measurable, positive, long-term change through their work. Because that takes a lot of discipline and focus, and most nonprofits have an easier time raising money by making their donors feel good or look good.
Having founded a nonprofit in college, served on two nonprofit boards, and raised $250k+ in strategic giving, I want to talk about an important concept for creating this kind of last impact: a theory of change.
What's your theory of change?
Let's says you're an aspiring changemaker.
You want to make a difference. Good. The world needs changing. But wanting isn't enough and hope isn't a strategy. Busy work dressed up as good intentions helps no one.
You pick a problem. Let's say infant mortality, or climate change, or the fact that too many kids go to bed hungry. Important stuff. The kind of problems that keep you up at night.
Now comes the hard part: not the doing—the thinking.
Because the world is a web. Pull one thread, and everything else moves. But which thread? And how hard? And in which direction?
Your theory of change is your map of that web.
It's the story you tell yourself about how A leads to B leads to the thing you actually care about changing. Without it, you're just throwing good intentions at complex systems and hoping something sticks.
The Cobra Effect is a great example of how intended solution to a problem can actually exacerbate the problem or creates new problems.
When India was under British colonization, there was an effort to reduce the cobra snake population. Animal rights aside, it's understandable why you might want to cut down on something that could poison and kill you.
But hiring someone to go out to actually measure cobra population rates is costly, dangerous, and the data would be questionable.
So they put up a bounty for every cobra head someone turned in. Basically proof that you killed a cobra, thus reducing the population. And that worked for a minute. Until some savvy folks realized if you started a snake farm, you could cut their heads off and make a pretty good living.
End result: more cobras than before. The exact opposite of what they wanted.
This simple theory of change had holes in it.
Applying theory of change on global warming
Take global warming.
The problem isn't really that average temperature has gone up by a few degrees, it's the result of that heating—the change in climate: rising sea levels, heat waves, tropical storms. And what we're most worried about is the negative consequences: displaced migrant populations, crop failures, ecosystem destruction, heat deaths.
But the root problem of global warming is carbon. Too much of it, in the wrong places, at the wrong time. But we can go even further than carbon. The real problem is the systems that put carbon there. The incentives. The alternatives that don't exist yet. The behaviors that feel easier than change.
So what's your theory of change?
Are you planting trees because trees absorb carbon? Are you building better batteries because we need to store renewable energy? Are you changing minds because policy follows public opinion? Are you changing policy because markets follow regulation?
You can't tackle everything at once. And you have to see that your work is only part of a larger picture. But you need to know which role you're playing in the larger effort—and why.
And here's the thing that makes most people uncomfortable: your theory might be wrong. That's okay. Wrong theories can be fixed.
No theory at all? That's just acting with good intentions and crossing your fingers.
The best part about having a theory of change isn't that it makes you right. It's that it makes you testable. When new information arrives—and it will—you can update your theory. When methane turns out to matter more than CO2, you adjust. When nuclear power becomes safer, you can champion the building new plants.
But you can only pivot when you know where you started.
The truth is, you can rarely measure the absolute change any social impact effort makes. If you plant 10,000 trees, you still might not see global CO2 levels fall. But because we have a pretty clear understanding of how trees capture atmospheric carbon, we have strong reason to believe that those trees helped.
Most social impact efforts fail not because people don't care enough. They fail because caring isn't enough. They fail because good intentions met complex systems and never bothered to ask, "Then what?"
Your theory of change is your "then what." It's the bridge between the problem you see and the solution you're building. It allows others to hold you accountable, and for you to demonstrate your impact in the real world.
Concrete examples of theories of change
Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), which I mentioned at the top, is focused on reducing the human, health, and financial impact of malaria on its affected populations, largely in sub-Saharan Africa.
Their theory of change is simple:
- Activity: distribute long-lasting insecticidal bed nets to communities that have a high malaria burden and a net / funding shortage, seeking to reach "universal coverage" to all members
- Immediate result: mosquitoes land on the nets and instead of infecting people with malaria, die from the insecticide. Because the entire community is protected, no one can become a carrier for malaria.
- Long term outcome: According to the CDC, “in community-wide trials in several African settings, [bed nets] were shown to reduce the death of children under 5 years from all causes by about 20%.” Lower malaria rates help more children stay in school and more adults continue working, which helps individuals and families, and stimulates developing economies.
- Auditability: AMF tracks net presence and use for three years post-distribution. A significant number of studies, including randomized controlled trials, have demonstrated and quantified the effectiveness of the bed nets.
Since we're visual people, here are a couple of additional diagrams. I found these from a quick online search. They all a little different, and that's fine.
What matters is that each one explains the causal links from what they do (activities) to what results they get (immediate outcomes), and the explicit explanation and evidence that those results lead to lasting positive change (long term outcomes).
Frontline makes the case that their efforts recruiting and training a diverse new generation of social workers will make life better for the children of England.
YES Outdoors makes the case that
Eli's Place has a theory of change that shows how their farm-based long-term residential treatment and recovery program can help young people in Canada with serious mental illness get and stay better.
This is just a great template for visualizing what a theory of change entails.
I get that this is a bit more wonky and academic than some people would prefer. And look, you don't have to volunteer, donate, or help out an nonprofit that's this dedicated to making impact.
Please don't take this the wrong way.
The whole idea of a civil society is that people can organize around shared values and beliefs. I'm not criticizing your involvement in the neighborhood trash clean up day or donating to your alma mater. A community theater is a Good Thing (TM) even if it just provides a venue for people to express themselves and tell stories. You should feel good that you are doing anything to support your community.
But me personally?
If I'm going to spend significant time, effort, and dollars on something, I want to understand our plan for how those inputs lead to long-term gains.
And the sophisticated donors and major foundations, the ones that really care about what they're doing, they want to see their grantees demonstrate measurable impact.
That requires a theory of change—a framework that can be analyzed, debated, referenced, and improved.
If you're looking to make a difference, I'd encourage you jump in and learn by doing. But as you go, develop and refine your framework along the way.
Because the question isn't whether you have a theory of change at all. You do.
The question is whether that theory is providing clarity, whether it's based on the best available evidence, and whether you're brave enough to revise it when the evidence points in a new direction.
In the end, changing the world isn't just about passion and good intentions.
It's about understanding how the world actually works—and making the tweak that tips the scales towards good.