Co-creating a multi-level theory of change and monitoring and evaluation framework
The challenge
Blue Light Victoria (BLV) is a not-for-profit organisation delivering community outreach, positive youth development, and mentoring programs for disadvantaged young people aged 10-25 in Australia.
In late 2024, BLV secured significant new funding to develop and deliver three interconnected programs aimed at improving youth wellbeing and reducing youth crime in selected communities. However, with limited time and budget for monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL), BLV needed to quickly develop a theory of change for each program, create a coherent theory of change for the overall initiative, and establish fit-for-purpose systems for data collection, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting.
How we helped
We led a participatory co-design process that brought together BLV’s executive leadership team, frontline program and operations staff, impact team, and administrative support staff. This inclusive approach helped ensure the design reflected BLV’s strategic goals, frontline realities, stakeholder needs, and practical constraints around resourcing and technology. We also drew on our own subject matter expertise, including relevant literature on effective youth mentoring and early intervention programs.
Together, we developed clear and simple theories of change for each program, nested within a broader, overarching theory of change for the initiative. This multi-level approach created a coherent structure that makes it possible to to collect data efficiently across programs and meaningfully aggregate results at the initiative level. At every step, we focused on building theories of change that genuinely reflected how the programs worked in practice.
We also created a practical MEL framework and data collection plan aligned with the theories of change, and worked closely with BLV to adapt and strengthen its existing data collection tools to support the new framework. Throughout this process, we tailored our work to BLV’s existing systems and real-world constraints to deliver tools that were usable, useful, and sustainable.
Looking forward
The new multi-level theory of change and MEL Framework gave BLV the tools it needed to monitor, adapt, and communicate about its new programs, while staying within its available resources. It also set BLV up to compellingly document and report its results at program close.
Client: Blue Light Victoria
2025
