Planning & Strategy · Free
Logframe & Indicator Builder
Write your logical framework the way a donor reads it — goal, outcomes, outputs, activities, then indicators with baselines, targets and means of verification.
A logical framework — a logframe — is the one-page logic that almost every institutional donor asks for: if we carry out these activities, we will deliver these outputs; if those outputs hold, this outcome will change; and that change contributes to a wider goal. It is not the same thing as a Theory of Change. A Theory of Change is the wider explanatory story — the pathways, the causal assumptions, the things you believe about how change happens in a particular township. A logframe is the measurable contract that sits underneath it: fewer words, tighter levels, and every claim attached to an indicator someone can actually verify. Most teams work best by drafting the Theory of Change first with our free Theory of Change Builder, then compressing it into the logframe here.
Fill the boxes from the top down, one short point per line, and keep the levels honest: an output is something you deliver, an outcome is something that changes in people's lives, and only one or two outcomes per project is realistic. Write each indicator so a stranger could measure it — who or what is counted, where, by when, from what baseline, and against what target — and name the data source you will genuinely be able to produce at report time. Be specific to your context: township names, MMK unit costs, ward or village tract counts, and the months when the rains or the security situation will stop you working. When you are done, print or download the logframe and paste it straight into your concept note, proposal annex, or partner workplan.
The long-term change your project contributes to but cannot achieve alone. One sentence, written as a state of affairs rather than an activity, and honest about contribution: you are one of several actors moving this number. Most donors expect exactly one goal statement.
What changes in people's behaviour, access, or wellbeing by the end of the project — the level you are accountable for. Keep it to one or two. Write each as a completed change ('households use…', 'women participate in…'), not as a service you deliver, and make sure each one is plausibly reachable within your budget and timeframe.
The concrete products and services your team delivers — infrastructure built, people trained, kits distributed, committees formed. Number them under the outcome they serve (1.1, 1.2, 2.1…) and include quantities. If an output does not plausibly move its outcome, either the output or the outcome is wrong.
The work packages that produce each output, with enough detail that a finance officer could cost them. Note the quantity, the responsible team or partner, and roughly when in the project cycle it falls — including the months when rains, harvest, or movement restrictions make field work impossible.
One indicator per outcome and per output, each written so two different people would measure it the same way. Give five things: the exact unit counted, the population and place, the baseline value with its source and date, the target with its deadline, and the means of verification. Disaggregate by sex, age and disability where it matters, and prefer one indicator you can really collect over three you cannot.
The conditions outside your control that must hold for the logic to work, and what you will do if they do not. Write the assumption as a positive condition ('access remains possible…') and pair it with the risk, its likelihood, and your mitigation. Be candid about access, authorisation, exchange-rate and staff-safety risks — reviewers trust a realistic risk column far more than an empty one.
For every indicator above, say where the number will come from, who collects it, how often, and who checks it. Name the actual instrument — Kobo form, attendance sheet, stock card, clinic register, post-distribution monitoring call — and note the cost and staff time, because a means of verification with no budget line will not happen. Include how you store data safely and how long you keep it.
Tip: one point per line. Print / download keeps your layout.