9 Defining a change logic

To understand how change occurs, models have been developed which help us understand and position our work. Although every process of change is different, they often share certain features. These common features are what the models try to capture.

There are a number of change models that will help us explain to colleagues how and why public interest communication can support broader climate-friendly outcomes. Many models share a bottom-up approach, where individual-level changes add up and begin to influence norms within communities and societies, which in turn influence governments, to create reform to accelerate change towards climate outcomes. These models can operate at many different scales — for example, an organisation, a community, a city, a country, or even the whole world.

Here is the ‘Four Dimensions of Change’ model, adapted from Itad, described in the blog post ‘Viewing Capacity Development through Four Dimensions of Change‘ [https://www.itad.com/article/viewing-capacity-development-through-four-dimensions-of-change].

Starting in the top left part of the circle, we can start to see how our communication intervention could transform perceptions and actions among individuals.

This then builds towards interest and change at a relationship, community or societal level. This might be conversations in social media, or reporting in traditional media. This can then become visible to leaders, allowing public audiences to make demands of their governments and institutions to take action. These legislative, economic or institutional reforms then become self-sustaining, leading to longer-term shifts in behaviours, norms or attitudes. You can see some examples of this in action, at the section ‘Consider measurement and metrics’, below.

A communication campaign will tend to focus on directly influencing the top two quadrants (personal transformation and transforming relationships), in order to indirectly influence the bottom two (collective patterns of thought and action, and transforming structures and systems). However, in planning, delivering, and evaluating interventions, it is important to consider all four.

Using a more linear approach, such as the one illustrated below, we can better see where and how different activities might influence each quadrant, and helps us plan for measurement activities to help us understand our impact. How are we measuring personal transformations? How are we measuring the transformation of relationships, and structures?