Nonprofit Logic Model & Logframe System: Theory of Change

A logframe written the week a proposal is due is usually a table of good intentions with targets attached to them, and a reviewer can tell.

The sequence that produces a defensible framework runs backwards from the one most teams use. Context and stakeholders first, then evidence, then the problem analysis, then the theory of change, and only then the matrix. Indicators come last because an indicator without a linked result, a unit, a dated target and a named source is not yet an indicator — it is a sentence.

Keeping assumptions, risks, preconditions and your own management actions in separate columns is the other half. Collapsing them into one "risks" list is what makes an adaptation review impossible two years later.

The Logic Model & Logframe System builds a US-style logic model and an EU-style logframe from one set of records, with a donor terminology setting that switches the labels without changing your IDs. It ships as an Excel Essential edition of 14 sheets for small teams and first drafts and a Professional edition of 28 sheets for multi-outcome, multi-partner or institutional-donor work, each blank and as a completed sample. Every indicator is scored 0 to 100 for design completeness and critical blockers are flagged — no linked result, no unit, a target without a date, a percentage without a numerator and denominator — while the results chain is checked for orphans, invalid parent levels and outcomes without outputs. With it come 10 Canva template families, 29 Word templates as one master document and as separate files, a field and formula dictionary and a quick start guide.

It is not certification or approval by any donor, whether the EU, USAID or the UN, and your donor's instructions always take precedence. It is not a participant database, a MEAL tracker of actual results, a WBS, a Gantt or a budget tool: it stops at a structured handoff. Excel is the source of truth, and the Word, Canva and PDF files do not synchronise with it.