Logic Model

A Logic Model puts a project on one sheet as a chain. Money and people go in at one end. Lasting change comes out at the other.

The chain has five links. Inputs are what you put in. Activities are what you do. Outputs are what you produce. Outcomes are what changes. Impact is what lasts.

The workbook calls the Logic Model visually oriented. It is drawn as a linear diagram. It shows each link leading to the next in order. The workbook also calls it a simplified and linear picture of a project.

That is its strength and its weakness. A funder can read it in a minute. But a straight line hides a lot. The model says less about why change should happen, and less about the world around the project.

Its close cousin is the Theory of Change. Both draw a causal chain. The Theory of Change tells the story behind it. The Logic Model draws the boxes.

The flow, in the workbook's own order (Chapter 4, section 4.3). The workbook reads the model downwards from impact, not upwards from inputs, because a project is designed backwards from what it wants to leave behind:

From vision to numbers. The workbook's flow starts with the project's vision, from which the impact statement is written. The mission statement is the project's overall objective, framed to deliver that impact statement. Meeting the objective produces the overall outcome, with KPIs targeting measurable parameters — the workbook names reach, depth and inclusion.

The learning loop (4.3.1). The Logic Model is not run once and filed. Section 4.3.1 is titled "Learning loop in Logic Model" and says a feedback loop operates within the model. The section's whole content is a diagram, which the stored workbook text does not carry, so the workbook gives no described steps for the loop beyond that.

Logic Model against Theory of Change (6.1). The workbook contrasts them on five counts — philosophical approach, causality and assumptions, flexibility, visual representation and scope of context. On every one the Logic Model is the narrower, more visual, more linear of the pair: it depicts causal relationships but "may not delve as deeply into the underlying theories and assumptions", it is often seen as static though in practice it can be adapted, and it focuses on a project's internal components rather than the external context. Some organisations use both frameworks together to get the strengths of each.

Built on the workbook's own Chapter 4 case study — financial literacy for rural women. The targets are the workbook's; the rupee figures are illustrative.

Empowering Rural Women: A Financial Literacy Initiative, run by a Ratlam NPO.

Reading the chain both ways. Downwards, it is a design: the impact demands this outcome, which demands these outputs, which demand these activities and inputs. Upwards, it is a warning system. If materials slip past month 2, workshops slip, knowledge scores cannot rise on schedule, and the impact survey at the end will find nothing to report.

Where the learning loop bites. Suppose the month-6 review shows attendance at 41% against a target of 70%. A Logic Model run as a one-off filing does nothing with that. Run as a feedback loop, it sends the project back to its activities — moving workshops to evening slots, say — while there is still time for the outcome to be reached.

Chapter 4 (Understanding Logic Model in Social Programs for Social Impact Assessment, 10% weightage) is named after this framework and is built on it end to end: the components in 4.2, the flow in 4.3, the learning loop in 4.3.1, KPIs in 4.3.2, costing in 4.3.3 and the worked matrix in 4.4 and 4.5. Chapter 6 (10%) contrasts it with the Theory of Change in a five-row table, and Chapter 5 (5.9.3) names it among the methodologies behind the Social Project Monitoring Framework.

Chapter 6's first sample question is a direct Logic Model question: "______ seeks to capture the deeper understanding of the change process and the context in which it occurs" — the answer is Theory of Change, with the Logic Model as the distractor. Chapter 6's second asks what "measure the activities or targets set to be accomplished in every project activity" — outputs. Learn the five levels in order and the ToC contrast, and both question types collapse into one.

• Inputs → activities → outputs → outcomes → impact. Most wrong answers swap two adjacent levels. Outputs are what you produced; outcomes are what changed.
• The Logic Model is the visual, linear, less flexible one. The Theory of Change is the narrative, adaptable, assumption-testing one. If a question mentions deeper theories, tested assumptions or external context, the answer is Theory of Change, not the Logic Model.
• "It is crucial not to mistake project outcomes for project impacts" is the workbook's own warning, in section 4.3.i.
• Intermediate outcomes sit at 1st, 2nd and 3rd level under the overall outcome — see Outcome. They are levels of outcome, not a sixth link in the chain.
• The t0 year counts under inputs, not as a separate stage before the model begins.
• The Logic Model is not the same thing as the logframe. Logical Framework Analysis is the planning method and its matrix is the output document; the Logic Model is the underlying chain of five levels that the matrix's rows follow.
• "Often seen as static" is not the same as "is static." The workbook adds that in practice a Logic Model can be adapted, and that organisations may combine it with a Theory of Change.