What is a logic model? Development, examples and templates for evaluation practice

This guide organizes the model into inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and impact. This is one possible approach. Inputs are resources; activities are what is done; outputs are products and services; outcomes are expected changes; and impact refers to broader significant effects. Some models instead describe short-, medium- and long-term outcomes.

Be careful not to confuse outputs and outcomes. For example, holding 10 seminars is an output, while participants becoming able to design evaluation indicators in their own organizations is an outcome.

Sources differ in where they place changes in knowledge and skills. The OECD's 2023 glossary includes changes in knowledge and skills directly produced by activities within Outputs. This site's examples treat learning after training as a short-term outcome, but explicitly follow the terminology and forms required by the recipient.

• Inputs: personnel, budget, materials, venue and time
• Activities: training, ongoing support, research, consultation and outreach
• Outputs: delivery counts, participant numbers, products and distribution counts
• Outcomes: changes in knowledge, attitudes, behavior, relationships and conditions
• Impact: significant higher-level positive and negative effects, including unintended effects

Here we propose working backward from what should change and for whom. Work back through intermediate changes, initial changes, outputs, activities and inputs, then check feasibility in practice. For an existing program, you may also start from current activities and check in both directions.

Once complete, read each arrow aloud as "If A happens, B should happen." Where this feels wrong, there is a causal leap or a missing assumption.

1. Define the target group and final outcome
2. Place intermediate outcomes that lead to the final outcome
3. Organize outputs as direct results of activities
4. Check the activities and inputs that produce outputs
5. List assumptions and external factors
6. Assign evaluation indicators to what you want to measure

The following is a fictional example for illustration. For evaluation training, the activity is conducting exercises; the output is 12 participants submitting draft plans; the initial outcome is being able to explain the relationship between questions and indicators; the medium-term outcome is agreeing on data collection items at work; and the long-term outcome is using evaluation results to improve the program.

Satisfaction alone does not establish use at work. This example tracks use in meetings after training. Align checks with meeting schedules and opportunities for practice, and record barriers to use, including in relation to time and supervisor cooperation.

Many reasons logic models fail concern the specificity of wording and insufficient stakeholder agreement, rather than the beauty of the diagram. Outcomes that are too abstract are particularly difficult to translate into evaluation indicators.

Expressions such as "the community becomes more active" or "awareness increases" are difficult to measure on their own. Specify who will begin to take which actions and in what situations.

• Do not mix activities and outcomes
• Describe outcomes as changes for the target group
• Match long-term outcomes to the scale of the program
• State external factors outside the main diagram
• Connect the completed model to evaluation indicators