Planning

You need a solid plan. Your consultation has probably already firmed into a plan, defining what you will and won't be able to do. Your plan has two purposes:

  1. It will guide what you will do in the future. Even if you have to change it later on or if something goes wrong, you'll still do much better if you have thought through beforehand what you want to do.
  2. It will be part of your organization's approval of what you will do. Depending on the nature of your organization, and especially if you are applying for funding, you'll have to give enough concrete detail to prove that you know what you are doing and that the plan is feasible. Clearly, your plan should be within your organization's parameters and its ability to support you.

Define in detail what you want to do. Plan your approach, and write it down in clear steps with a culturally attuned rationale. This sounds simple, but it probably isn't. Use a program development methodology to implement and evaluate your approach.

You can either report your community consultation, liaise with community stakeholders in the plan, or include key people in the writing process.

In your planning, consider a range of program options and evaluate each one. Report your research and consultation on which program program options are most suitable.

You will need to demonstrate that your plan is feasible and will work in practice. One way to do so is to spell out the "how" of implementation. Evaluate the proposed strategy compared with other existing programs and services, and identify gaps. Your implementation will depend on cooperation with other organizations. Get advice and help from other them on how the plan could be put into practice. When you evaluate the feasibility of programs or services, don't forget to check that they fit your organization's goals.

"Feasible" can be a relative term, because you will normally have a dropout rate. For example, if you work with heroin addicts, some will drop out of the program and relapse. If you help people set up micro-businesses, some of them will fold or go bankrupt. If you work in agriculture, some stock will die and some crops will fail. Consequently, you should set realistic goals and put a strategy in place to improve subsequent performance.

Check your plan:

  1. Is it viable?
  2. Could it be self-sustaining?
  3. Is it reproducible? Could someone use the same approach in another location?
  4. Could it scale up? Could you use the same approach to help many more people, or are there limits to the size of the program?

 

Determine your image

  1. Define your constituency. Who are they? Are they the ones you will mainly be marketing to? This sounds straightfoward, but you might be presenting your program separately to funding bodies and to chariy recipients.
  2. What are the main messages that you want to communicate?
  3. What is the best way to communicate with them?
  4. Determine the image of the program do you want to project:
    1. Do you need to choose a name for the program that will appeal to constituents and send the right message?
    2. Do you want to brand it with a new logo?

 

Budget

Unless you depend completely on non-monetary resources, a budget is integral to your plan. You'll need to prepare a budget and have a workable system in place for managing finances.

Relevant e-books: Managing finances | Finding Funding (Links open new windows)

 

Manage risk

What could go wrong? You should identify potential problems and put plans in place to prevent them or minimize their effects. Compare simple and complex projects to see how higher risk factors make projects more complex.

Click here for an e-book on risk management.

 

Program evaluation

You will need to determine at this stage how you will evaluate it afterwards. Your evaluation methodologies can be:

Then look at your evaluation strategy and related techniques devised for collecting and analyzing data. Does it meet the needs of decision makers, funding organizations and other stakeholders?

If you are doing the community development project as research, simply formulating an hypothesis or a plan is inadequate. Proving that it works is quite another thing. (And what precisely do you mean when you say it "works"?) You will need to formulate and implement a new program evaluation approach for your specific situation.

 

Relevant e-books

Consider also these techniques: Appreciative inquiry | Delphi | Open spaces