Occasionally, I feel like baking something. Recently, I tried to make chocolate chip cookies, and I figured I had everything I needed on hand. I pulled the chocolate chips, flour, baking soda, and salt out of the pantry, dug deep in a cupboard for the brown sugar, and then went to the refrigerator for the butter and eggs. Eggs. No eggs. So, I thought to myself, “How important can eggs be? Maybe I don’t really need them.”
I learned pretty quickly, as I watched my cookie dough spread into a flat mess in the oven, that eggs matter. Their purpose is not singular, like salt. No, eggs have a multifaceted role in creating structure, adding moisture and richness, providing flavor, and contributing to leavening and browning. My experiment was a failure, and I won’t be trying that again.
When we want to bring change to our community, we have to consider what we put into the recipe. A Theory of Change will not succeed if you don’t understand your ingredients and are unable to measure them accurately. Inputs in a Theory of Change are the measurable resources required to reach the outcomes you want to achieve.
For the Kinship Fund Theory of Change, our big goal is to practice bold, community-driven, trust-based philanthropy that fosters meaningful, long-term partnerships so everyone in our community can thrive. And our strategy areas are:
- Foster the thriving of at-risk youth through mentoring
- Catalyze flourishing in a refugee/immigrant community
With this in mind, we examined our Inputs, including both Financial Resources and People Resources. These resources don’t just come from us. They come from our grant partners, too – the twelve organizations that we support through funding and technical assistance. And we need both: our resources and our partners’.
The financial resources the Kinship Fund committed to our goal are a minimum of $2 million over three years to fund two projects: the Place-Based Project to Support Refugees and Immigrants and the Youth Mentorship Collaborative.
The people resources include Kinship Fund staff to facilitate collaboration between grantees and to leverage our position, power, and connections to bring additional resources and funding to the projects. We are also dedicating resources to design and implement impact assessments as we move forward with our partners.
Our grantee partners are the eggs to this recipe. Without them, we have a failed attempt. Their commitment to implementing programming that supports our mutual target outcomes is the magic ingredient. In addition, other community partners, both public and private, will be needed to support and augment our grantee partners’ work.
The Activities that form the structure of our work together are numerous and will evolve as we partner. Out of these activities, with the inputs in place, we can define what kind of Impact we hope to achieve. Impact points are the tangible, specific, and measurable results of our activities. Our Impact includes short, intermediate, and long-term goals:
Short term
- 100% of Kinship Fund funding is unrestricted
- $2 million in grants distributed
- Development of a place-based model, in collaboration with grantee partners
- Deployed human assets and influence in the service of strengthening nonprofit partners.
Intermediate
- Place-based community improvement model implementation begins
- Increased number of youth in mentoring programs
- 85% of funding is multi-year
Long-Term
- Decreased number of girls incarcerated in San Diego County
- Increased funding to mentorship programs led by nonprofit organizations
- Increased number of youth accessing mentoring programs
- New public and private partners join both projects, and the community thrives
Putting these plans to paper doesn’t mean anything if we do not commit to doing the work. It would be like expecting my chocolate chip cookies to come out delicious when I chose to skip the eggs. It just won’t happen. That’s why our Theory of Change is more than a pretty graphic. It is our North Star to guide us to where we want to live: a community where everyone can thrive.