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Community Impact Outcomes

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Strategy #1: Use the Bonner Capacity Building Form and Process to Begin Quantifying/Articulating Impact

Bonner Program directors/coordinators can easily the use the Bonner Capacity Building Form and the process of implementing it to begin to collect information that also aggregates and quantifies community impact for partners. This information could also be valuable to share in several formats such as: 

• Bonner Program Annual Reports
• Campus Center Annual Reports
• Grant / Funder Reports
• Community Partner / Agency Reports (i.e., if you collect and share this information with partners)

Step 1:

Carry out the Capacity Building Form via interviews, workshops with partners, or surveys with ALL of the sites where your Bonner Program and/or center is working in a sustained fashion. Input that information into BWBRS (as is requested) at least once annually. For more details on this process see: Capacity Building Projects

Step 2:

After a semester or year, carry out follow up (again using interviews, workshops, or surveys) using the Service Accomplishments Survey. This survey essentially looks the same as the Capacity Building Form but allows you to ask the partner the following simple questions:

• Who worked with you? To what extent and depth?
• What got done?
• How would you describe the value or impact of that work? 

Step 3:

Aggregate and summarize this information (for each site) to report. Think about creating a nice annual report, infographic, or other visual summary (that you can share widely on campus and with relevant community constituents). Then do the same for the whole program.

Strategy #2: Build Specific Outcomes for Programs and Evaluation Strategies for Them 

The second strategy is more complicated and may require leadership within specific programs and partnerships to do more research and homework. This strategy generally involves building an outcome-based program model and a "theory of change" for that program. 

• An outcome-based program model generally:

• Takes stock of the broader context or situation (including an assets oriented approach)
• Defines a set of intended impacts, usually in a way that identifies or states a problem (i.e., our community needs to improve high school graduation rates from 50% to 90% by 2020) (these are called outcomes)
• Defines a strategy or program model, based on evidence (such as examples, prior practice, and research) to address the intended impacts and outcomes (these are called outputs)
• Defines what resources, training, management, supplies, activities, etc. are needed to carry out this strategy and/or program model (these are called inputs) 

Developing a Logic Model for an Outcome-Oriented Approach

To work on this more complex approach generally involves creating an outcome-based program model and a theory of change or logic model. This is a term for describing a conceptual model that links intended outcomes (i.e., higher graduation rates, lower poverty levels, or improved wellness) with outputs and inputs. This graphic provides a simple illustration of this:

Follow along with this full article here (actually developed by a university extension office): The Logic Model for Program Planning and Evaluation

To develop a logic model, you want to ask yourself a set of questions in the following sequence:

1. What is the current situation that we intend to impact?

2. What will it look like when we achieve the desired situation or outcome?

3. What behaviors need to change for that outcome to be achieved? 

4. What knowledge or skills do people need before the behavior will change?

5. What activities need to be performed to cause the necessary learning?

6. What resources will be required to achieve the desired outcome?

Another great resource is this handbook developed by the Kellogg Foundation.  It includes a number of worksheets and steps.

It is longer than the short article (at 71 pages) but provide a more thorough introduction. 

The Logic Model Development Guide contains four chapters and two comprehensive appendices.

• Chapter 1 presents a basic introduction to the logic model as an action-oriented tool for program
• planning and evaluation. It also offers an array of sample logic models.
• Chapter 2 consists of exercises and examples focused on the development of a simple program logic model. Exercises include practical examples, checklists for reviewing content quality, and a template for developing a logic model.
• Chapter 3 gives instructions on how to expand a basic logic model to explore and explain the theory- of-change that describes the rationale for your program.A template and checklist are provided.
• Chapter 4 offers two exercises that afford the reader with an introduction to how the basic logic modeling techniques introduced in the previous chapters can be applied to inform thinking about what should be included in an evaluation plan.Templates and checklists are also provided. 

Below is an example from the workbook, focusing on a free clinic program.