Project design is often understood as synonymous with proposal development. However, a well-designed project goes far beyond the requirements of the average proposal. While organizations invest significant amounts of time and resources into proposal writing, there are often large gaps in project design skills among staff. These gaps limit the ability of organizations to secure funding for what is often very impactful work, worthy of larger-scale donor support.

This is a step-by-step guide to building strong projects that translate into strong proposals and, as a result, increased funding and organizational growth. These steps can be used at any scale, whether you are building a small six-month project or a complex multi-year initiative. The strength and clarity of your design is what matters most.

Step One: Conduct a Needs Assessment

A needs assessment is a critical first step in the design process. It forms the basis of your understanding of a problem and the unique capabilities of your organizations to address it. A needs assessment aims to capture and express findings from the perspective of the focus population. Whether you are working with newcomer women, homeless youth, or families experiencing food insecurity, you need to understand how this focus population defines and experiences the specific challenges they face and the solutions they want to see. This data is often gathered through primary sources such as surveys, focus groups and key informant interviews, as well as secondary sources such as previous project reports or other credible academic or community-based research. The findings help inform and refine your project strategy and approach, and may even foster new thinking and innovation.

A needs assessment should always be conducted to the greatest extent possible prior to writing a proposal or launching into the next phase of the design process. In practice, this step is often overlooked for various reasons (e.g. a lack of time and resources, a sense that an organization already knows the needs of its focus population, etc.). A needs assessment does not need to be a large and costly operation to be useful. Use your best judgement to keep it in line with your budget and the scale of your project. Most importantly, the focus should be on expressing the needs and lived experiences of the people who will be most impacted by your work.

Here are some questions you may want to ask in your needs assessment:

  • What are the focus population’s greatest concerns and needs?
  • What is the focus population’s vision for the future?
  • What assets and resources already exist in the community or among the focus population to help meet those needs and contribute to the community’s desired future?
  • Where are there gaps in skills, resources or other areas?
  • Which of these gaps is your organization best suited to address? How does this complement work already being done?
  • What are the donor’s interests? What are they likely to fund? If you do not have a specific donor in mind, which donor might be a good fit for this?

Step Two: Conduct a Stakeholder Analysis

In the nonprofit sector, we generally agree that collaboration is necessary. However, in our day-to-day rush to meet the next proposal deadline, we often do not prioritize and invest in these kinds of relationships as much as we should. Often, we scramble to establish partnerships once funding has been secured and implementation has begun. However, the earlier we engage partners and stakeholders in the project cycle, the more we all benefit from these relationships over the course of a project and beyond.

A stakeholder analysis is a tool that can be used to improve participatory and collaborative approaches. The first step is to list all stakeholders that may be engaged in your project in some way. This may include government, community groups, subject matter experts, researchers and, of course, the focus population. Make this a true brainstorm with your team and encourage creativity. Think beyond the usual suspects. What are some unique or unlikely partnerships? What kinds of stakeholders may be important in helping you to test new ideas or strategies? Once you have a long-list of relevant stakeholders, narrow it down by prioritizing those that are most central to your work. The next step is to meet with them. While in-person is generally best, online sessions can work just as well, as many of us have learned in the current pandemic environment. The objective should be to understand the following about your stakeholders:

  • What related problems/challenges are they facing or addressing?
  • What motivates or interests them to engage in this type of work?
  • How can they contribute to solving the problem you have identified? What leadership role(s) might they be best positioned to take on as a part of this work?
  • How can you best engage and collaborate with them now and in the future?

Experience shows that when stakeholders, especially the focus population, are highly engaged and take on well-defined leadership roles throughout the project cycle – from planning and design to implementation, monitoring and reporting – a project is more likely to achieve results. 

Step Three: Conduct a Problem Analysis

Once you have gathered and worked through the information above, you can begin to narrow the focus of your project. One way to do this is through the problem tree method. A problem tree is a commonly used visual tool that helps to break down a complex issue into its parts and explore the cause and effect relationships between these parts.[i] The main objective of this phase is to determine which elements of a complex problem your project will address.

Key stakeholders, including representatives from your focus population, should be involved in your problem analysis. This is essential for building a shared understanding of the problem and the ways in which your organization, in collaboration with others, is best positioned to address it. Again, while meeting in-person is ideal, when not possible, this can still be done well virtually with the help of a few tools.[ii] The richness of this exercise is in the discussion and debate that it generates. Take the time to allow people to explain their perspectives and reasoning. Make sure that the most marginalized voices are heard by creating safe spaces for discussion and using various kinds of feedback tools (verbal, written, visual, etc.). This will increase the likelihood that those involved will feel ownership of the project and that project results will more accurately reflect the needs and interests of all participants.

Step Four: Document your Project Design

The next step is to translate the selected elements of your problem tree into a solution tree or a results-based project framework. This part of the process can take various forms. Whether you are using a theory of change approach, a logic model or one of various types of workplan templates (which, in many cases, are determined by the donor) the key is to not get too bogged down in the technicalities of the tool itself but rather to get to the core of the question “what needs to change?” [iii] In other words, now that you’ve narrowed down the core elements of the problem, how you will address this problem? By taking the selected elements of your problem tree and flipping them into solutions, framed as project results, your project design framework will begin to take shape. For example, if the core problem you have identified is high drop-out rates among adolescents in x community, you can reverse this problem into the following desired result: increased academic success among adolescents in x community. Through continuing to ask the question “what needs to change?” at every step in this process, the rest of your project framework will emerge.

The objective of this phase is to clearly articulate the results you are aiming to achieve in a logical and realistic way. Work backwards, starting with your highest-level goal (referred to as backwards mapping) to ensure that each step is logically linked to the previous one. A common mistake is to begin developing project activities before articulating the desired project results. It is much easier to design effective outputs and activities when you are clear about the results and overall impact you want to achieve. It is also much easier to measure progress and evaluate impact when you have clearly expressed what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there. Project design is a highly iterative process. Be flexible, share your ideas, listen to stakeholder feedback and be prepared to draft numerous versions of your project framework before settling on a final version.

A Sample Project Design Framework

Summary

The project design process begins with a thorough assessment of the problem you are addressing and ends with a detailed, evidence-based, creative and clearly articulated plan. Overall, this process allows us to more thoroughly understand the needs we are aiming to address and helps us to design and develop more appropriate and effective strategies to address those needs. The more we invest at the front-end of the project cycle, the better we are setting ourselves up for success over the long-term, with the ultimate goal of designing opportunities that enable communities to shape their own futures.

Genevieve Drouin is a project design specialist who has worked with UN agencies, government, non-governmental and not-for-profit organizations in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada. As co-founder and partner at Involve Consulting Group, she leads and supports organizations through project design, management and partnership building processes as well as strengthening performance and risk management systems. She also advises organizations and conducts training on measuring and improving gender equality results from an intersectional lens. In addition to her consulting practice, she is part-time faculty in Humber’s International Development Graduate Program, teaching the fundamentals of project design and results-based management. Connect with Genevieve on LinkedIn or by email at genevieve@involvegroup.ca.

[i] Resources on how to conduct a problem tree analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j-_Y7D35H4; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCG2xKM7JbI; https://www.odi.org/publications/5258-planning-tools-problem-tree-analysis

[ii] Suggested online meeting tools include Jamboard and Murals, that can be used as substitutes for flipcharts, whiteboards and sticky notes and Slido, a Q&A and polling platform that can be used to poll meeting participants in real time, create word clouds, etc.

[iii] Resources on how to conduct a solution tree and theory of change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUiKdwgJpD8; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a_rS2QgqnE