The Change Pathways Map series

Follow our courses to make your own Change Pathways Map!

What is a Change Pathways Map?

A Change Pathways Map (CPM) is a visual representation of your project or organisation, as a system.  It shows the project activities and what happens as a result of these activities. It tells a story of your project or organisation, what it does and how that does or will affect people’s lives.  It is a theory of change.

Your Change Pathways Map can help you to:

• Understand and communicate the key activities, outcomes and the intended cause-effect within your project and the community it serves.
• Elicit and document your project’s theory of change
• Design your evaluation and data collection plans.
• Identify gaps and opportunities.
• Vision, plan and encourage dialogue with project participants, team members, community, local authorities.
• Communicate plans, progress and outcomes to funders and other stakeholders.

What can a Change Pathways Map tell you?

• How is your work contributing to the impacts that you seek?
• What is the relationship between the activities you do and outcomes you seek?
• Which data should you prioritise?
• Why are you doing the things you are doing? And where should you focus your resources?

Explore the CPM for the Nutritious Trees Project in DRC, by moving around the map and zooming in and out.  (Ordinarily, you would view a map in larger format, here it is just an example).

Start your map today!

Make a map for your project by taking the three courses in this series:

1. Discover: Change Pathways Mapping
2. Discover: Kumu Mapping Tool
3. Do: Change Pathways Mapping

The first two courses are short introductions, so can be completed quickly.  (Kumu is the free digital tool that you will use to make your map).

The third course is a step-by-step guide to producing your own map.  If you complete the action learning activities, by the end of this course you will have your own map.  (Don’t be tempted to skip the first two courses – if you do you will miss important information and key steps in the process!)

*The courses are listed below.  Be aware that they may not show up in the order that they should be taken!*