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Plain-English guide · for nonprofits
What is a logic model?
Updated September 2026
A logic model is a one-page map of how your program is supposed to work: what goes in, what you do, what comes out, and what changes. Funders ask for it because it shows you can tell the difference.
Four columns, read left to right: inputs (what you have), activities (what you do), outputs (what that produces), outcomes (what changes). If a reader can follow the row without squinting, the model works.
The four columns
Inputs
Staff time, volunteers, money, space, partners. The resources the program consumes.
Activities
What you actually do with them: run the pantry, teach the class, make the visits.
Outputs
The countable product: meals served, sessions held, people reached.
Outcomes
The change: short term (knowledge, access), medium term (behavior), long term (conditions). The outputs versus outcomes distinction is the hinge of the whole model.
Build one in an afternoon
Start at the right edge
Name the change first. Working backwards keeps the model honest; working forwards tends to justify whatever you already do.
Fill each column with three to five items
More than that and it is a spreadsheet, not a model. One page, always.
Read each arrow out loud
"Because we do X, we produce Y, which leads to Z." Anywhere the sentence feels like a leap, that is the assumption a funder will probe. Write it down under the model.
Date it and revisit yearly
Programs drift. A logic model from three years ago describes a program you may no longer run.
What it is not
It is not a strategic plan, a budget, or a promise. It is a shared picture of how the program is meant to work, so your team, your board, and your funder are arguing about the same thing when they argue. That is worth an afternoon.
This is general information. Each funder sets its own reporting rules, so follow your grant agreement and the funder's own guidelines.
Logic model is one of 41 terms in our plain-English nonprofit glossary.
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Sources: Definition and method content; no external statistics cited.