Summary
The Impact Garden is a framework for planning and evaluating change work by picturing it as a garden instead of a chain of cause and effect. It comes from Unity Effect, a social enterprise based in Bonn, Germany, which publishes it under an open Creative Commons licence. In place of a linear logic model, teams map ten linked dimensions, each with a garden image: a shared vision is sunlight, resources are soil, meaningful interactions are pollination, learning loops are water.
Unity Effect says it helps people see “what’s truly thriving, what needs tending”. Built for evaluation, it’s also offered for strategic planning, network building and project design.
Rationale
Part 1 doubts that anyone can trace “a straight line from intervention to outcome”, which leaves open how such work should be evaluated. The Impact Garden is one worked answer from evaluation practice.
Source: unityeffect.net