Launch of complementary eBook on the first four steps in project design and funding.

Possibly, right now you are beginning the design of a project or program, and developing a plan for funding it.

The eBook is a compilation of four powerful techniques that will get you started.

The twelve chapters in the book provide background information and step-by-step, hands-on instructions for using these techniques.

Each section allows you to download a series of editable templates that you can use to really speed up your project development process.

Section 1. How to Conduct a Community Needs Assessment. In this section we look at how facilitating a needs assessment with your community can lead to a better understanding of needs and their underlying causes.

The example in this section is for a very simple needs assessment conducted by a food bank in Southern California. They used a participatory assessment technique called the Ten Seed Technique.

Section 2. How to Design your Project Incorporating the Results of your Needs Assessment. In this section, we look for solution oriented activities for designing programs to solve the problems uncovered during the needs assessment.

First, in this Section 2 example, we look for solution-oriented activities to each of the problems prioritized in Section 1. Our search will uncover articles, handbooks and manuals focused on your community’s challenges.

Section 3. Don’t you want your project to work? Evidence based solutions are the key. Suppose that you are a mother whose children are suffering, and an unknown organization came to you with a plan to help your children. Wouldn’t you want that plan to work?

This section is for determining through scientific research if your initial activity ideas have shown evidence of having worked to solve your community’s needs and challenges. We’re looking for evidence based best practices. We provide simple instructions for finding scientific studies online.

Section 4. Fast Logframe for Project Funding & Management. In this section we’re going to take your problem statement, project outline and goal statement developed in the first three sections, and place them in a simplified matrix: this is the first step in building a logical framework.

This will only take 30 minutes to do, but it will make your project more presentable to a donor—and also much easier to develop management documents like budgets and schedules.

In Summary
Facilitating a needs assessment with community members gets right to the underlying causes of the challenges they face—and develops a sense of ownership on their part.
 
Including solution oriented activities that have shown scientific evidence of having worked on projects similar to your project, will give you a greater likelihood of success and sustainability once the project is launched.
 
Using my fast log frame template will quickly get you speaking the language that donors speak—and will set you up for developing budgets, schedules, and monitoring and evaluation plans. These in turn increase your chances of receiving donations and successes in managing sustainable, impact oriented projects.

Please note: These four techniques are part of the process for developing a project design in a course I teach called OL 101: Designing and Funding International Development Projects. The first two assignments in 101 include detailed instructions for conducting a live needs assessment, an example of a completed assessment, and a project concept based upon the results. The third assignment leads you through the process of finding evidence based best practices. The fourth assignment provides simple steps to developing a logframe and presenting it to a donor.

Designing & Funding International Development Projects begins every month.

Sincerely,

Tim Magee