Nonprofit Logic Model Template
Every box in a logic model commits you to a number. This one scores each indicator on whether the data behind it exists today.
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A blank logic model template invites you to fill in twenty boxes with plausible language, and every box you fill is a commitment to produce a number. Nobody notices at the time. It surfaces eighteen months later as a report with a blank in it, because the outcome indicator that read so well in the proposal needs a six-month follow-up the organisation has never done. The arrows were never the problem. The data behind the right-hand columns was.
So this pack scores before it draws. Every element carries exactly one indicator, and every indicator carries one of four statuses. Live means a field exists and is populated for the whole period and the whole caseload. Partial means it covers part of one of those. Buildable means a form change or a join fixes it, with no new instrument and no external party. None means primary collection nobody can currently run. The field or the absence behind each status gets named, because recorded in staff notes is an absence rather than a partial.
In the worked example a 23-element chain scores 9 live, which is 39%. Read left to right it collapses: 8 of 14 elements from inputs through outputs, and 1 of 9 outcomes. 57% down to 11%. Six elements need collection nobody can run, and two of those six sit in signed agreements already, which is the kind of thing worth knowing before the reporting deadline rather than at it.
What is in the pack
Data Source Register
One row per indicator with a status of live, partial, buildable or none, and the field or the absence behind it named.
Measurability computed per column
The rate falls as you move right along the chain, and stating that fall as a number is what makes it a constraint rather than a feeling.
Input to Outcome Chain as a graph
Every element names the element it leads to, so an outcome nothing upstream reaches shows up as the wish it is.
One indicator per element, enforced
An element with three indicators is three elements or one vague one, and forcing the choice is where the thinking happens.
Measurement Gap Costing
Each gap priced in staff hours and cash separately, so the tier that costs no money can be approved this week.
The cross-check against signed agreements
Indicators current awards already require, scored on the same register, which is the ten-minute job that pays for the exercise.
How it works
- 1
Send the programme as it runs
Not the description in the last proposal. What happens, to whom, in what order, including the parts that go wrong and the people who leave.
- 2
Send your field list
A form, an export's headers, a screenshot of the custom fields. Without it every indicator gets marked unscored rather than guessed at. What the list is missing becomes the input to a collection designed backwards from your agreements.
- 3
Build the chain, then score it
One indicator per element and each element naming the next. Scoring is a separate pass, because mixing the two produces a register full of optimism.
- 4
Price the gaps and cross-check
Hours and cash in separate columns, then the indicators your executed agreements already require checked against the same statuses.
Frequently asked questions
Why score the indicators rather than just write the model?
Because a logic model is read as a commitment. A funder who receives one naming an outcome indicator can ask for that indicator later, and the organisation has no way to say no. Writing a plausible sentence into a box costs nothing now and a lot in month eighteen.
Is 39% measurable a bad score?
It is a normal one. What matters is the shape: 8 of 14 elements from inputs through outputs are live and 1 of 9 outcomes is. Every programme has that collapse because outcomes happen to people after they leave, outside any system the organisation runs. The same collapse caps the impact report, because a rate nobody can compute is a rate nobody can publish.
What do I put in a column I cannot measure?
The element, its indicator, and the note that nothing produces it today. An empty long-term outcome row with the reason stated is a better artifact than two confident sentences. Funders read many logic models and the ones that name their own limits read as more credible.
Does a federal award actually require this?
The award is where it gets set. Federal agencies communicate the expected outcomes, indicators, targets, baseline data or data collections the recipient is responsible for measuring, so an indicator you accepted at award is one you will be asked for.
What happens if a promised indicator has no data behind it?
It becomes a reporting problem with a deadline. Reporting requirements have to indicate a standard against which performance can be measured, so the gap surfaces as a row with no filter behind it in the indicator crosswalk.
Can I use a proxy indicator?
Yes, if it is labelled as one, the real indicator stays on the register scored none, and the narrative says what the proxy fails to capture. What the pack refuses is approximating an outcome figure, because a number no participant record supports is not a measurement gap.
How does this connect to a proposal?
The model goes in the proposal, so the scoring should happen before the narrative is written. A funder told at proposal stage that the six-month measure needs a follow-up route the grant could pay for is a conversation rather than a finding.
Find out what your model is promising
Send the programme and the fields you record. The first thing back is the measurability rate per column and the list of indicators nothing produces.
Score my model