By Divya Puramshetty, Program Management Manager; Shruti Venkatesan, Associate Director; Shantanu Dubey, MEL Lead, Saamuhika Shakti
The increasing complexity of social problems characterised by interconnected factors and unpredictable dynamics need more than traditional siloed approaches. Their inadequacy to tackle systemic issues that span socio-economic and environmental dimensions demanded a departure from stand-alone efforts to a collective approach that leverages and in-turn strengthen the efforts of organisations that join forces.
Collective impact (CI) initiatives provide a framework for such collaboration, bringing together multiple stakeholders to work towards a shared goal. By aligning diverse partners around a common purpose and narrative, CI initiatives can harness the collective expertise and resources needed to drive meaningful change. In this regard, a theory of change (ToC) becomes a critical tool as it provides a structured framework for aligning individual partner goals with that of the overarching program objectives. It ensures that all the efforts are coordinated and mutually reinforcing.
This article highlights the significance of a nested ToC approach in the context of Saamuhika Shakti, a CI initiative that brings together twelve partners to support informal waste pickers in Bengaluru municipality of Karnataka. Through the experience of Sattva Consulting, as the backbone organisation, we have developed a multi-layered ToC framework that effectively balances individual partner goals with the broader program objectives, fostering effective coordination and collaboration.
A nested theory of change is a multi-layered approach that provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and planning for social change. Unlike traditional linear models, which often oversimplify complex processes, a nested ToC breaks down the change process into smaller, interconnected components. This allows for a more nuanced and flexible understanding of how change occurs, while also ensuring that individual efforts align with the broader program goals (Mayne, 2015).
At its core, a ToC outlines the pathways through which a planned intervention leads to intended impact. By mapping causal links—from inputs and activities to outputs, intermediate outcomes, and long-term impact—ToCs clarify the assumptions, risks, and contextual factors influencing the change process. This structured approach not only guides program implementation but also establishes a foundation for monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems.
In collective impact initiatives like Saamuhika Shakti, while partners share a common goal, their individual paths to contributing to this impact may vary based on their scope and expertise. A nested ToC is particularly valuable in such scenarios, as it ensures that each partner's work integrates and aligns within the larger program's change narrative.
The following sections explore Saamuhika Shakti's journey in developing a nested ToC as part of Phase 2 of the initiative.
As the backbone organisation for Saamuhika Shakti, Sattva Consulting anchored the development of the nested ToC using a co-creation and consultative approach. The process followed can be categorised into the following four stages:
1. Explore, understand and establish the need to revisit the ToC
Currently in its second phase, Saamuhika Shakti evolved both in terms of scope of work as well as diversity of partners—ranging from grassroots organisations to entrepreneurial support organisations (ESOs)—each bringing distinct capacities, objectives and strategies. This phase also brings with it an increased focus on textile waste management and circularity, all while staying aligned with the core mission. Reflecting on these shifts, the backbone team drove collective alignment with the H&M Foundation and partner organisations to revisit the program's ToC curated at the start of Phase 1. This was crucial for capturing the initiative’s evolution, realigning impact pathways, and ensuring they remained consistent with overarching goals amidst changing operational dynamics and external factors.
2. Identify and define program’s pathways to change
As a first step in redesigning the ToC, the backbone organisation collaborated with H&M Foundation and partners’ to articulate the impact the program aims to achieve for waste pickers and family members. The backbone then worked to decode the overall impact pathways—starting by defining indicators of early and systemic change that would emerge in response to planned program interventions, leading to population-level impact. This alignment on key stages of change laid the foundation for the overall ToC, mapping out the core program interventions, their immediate outputs, resultant outcomes and the impact.
3. Develop program-level ToC andpartner-level ToCs
The nested approach to building a ToC was adopted and structured into two tiers:
4. Align and integrate program’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) systems with program ToC
The ToC and MEL strategies are interconnected aspects of a program’s design and implementation. While the ToC articulates the program’s rationale and pathways of change, the MEL strategy ensures accountability by systematically tracking and reporting progress toward the outcomes and impacts defined in the ToC. It also enables timely, data-driven decision-making throughout the program. Similarly, in the case of Saamuhika Shakti, we are currently in the process of integrating MEL system with the ToC by:
This alignment ensures an ongoing evidence backed feedback loop to support learning, to facilitate real-time program adaptations.
Early involvement of all partners in the ToC development process is crucial for fostering buy-in and alignment. Saamuhika Shakti’s experience demonstrated that active participation in co-creating their own ToCs gave partners a sense of ownership, ensuring the ToC reflected both individual and collective goals. This process was not only about aligning objectives but also about building trust and shared accountability among partners.
While the backbone organisation orchestrated the ToC co-creation process, ownership of the ToC ultimately rests with the partners. They are collectively responsible and accountable for implementing program interventions, achieving outcomes and driving population-level impact.
For the backbone organisation, tailoring the process of co-curating program and partner-level ToCs to accommodate the varying capacities of partners was crucial. Each partner brought a different level of experience and understanding of the ToC framework. Therefore, investing time and resources in ToC literacy and development was imperative. Additionally, some organisations required extensive support in articulating detailed causal pathways, while others needed fewer touchpoints and more minimal guidance. This variation was often driven by the complexity of each partner's interventions—some managed only 1-2 types of interventions, while others worked with multiple, concurrent strategies.
It took 3-5 months for the backbone organisation to complete the process of ToC creation. This involved conducting workshops, one-on-one sessions with partner implementation teams, and iterative feedback loops with the leadership of partner organisations to ensure that partners not only understood the broader objectives but were also equipped to link their specific interventions to the program’s systemic and population-level impacts.
The nested ToC is not static. It must be periodically revisited to remain relevant. One key observation was that while partners could outline their planned activities, they sometimes struggled to define the progression of these activities—i.e., what the resulting outputs and outcomes would be and how they could be measured. The backbone organisation recognised that the design of certain interventions would take time, requiring them to be revisited and refined later during the implementation phase as partners gauged shifts in ecosystem needs and adjusted accordingly.
Thus, it is imperative for both program- and partner-level ToCs to remain iterative. Periodic review cycles need to be established to ensure the ToC stays responsive to changes in both internal dynamics and external environments. It is essential to maintain momentum and focus on long-term systemic change.
The journey of developing and iterating the layered theories of change for Saamuhika Shakti highlights the intricate challenge of aligning various stakeholders in collective impact initiatives. While the approach has to be dynamic and fundamentally based on evidence, it too should be replete with conscious considerations. Furthermore, the devised change pathways should be viewed within an ever changing social system by keeping the goal as the constant. This very much keeps the process grounded. Having said that, at each stage, the call to collective action was revitalised by maintaining a balance between the key pillars of the Initiative–purpose, people, process, performance and learning.
