January 1, 2004

A Practical Guide to Documenting Influence and Leverage In Making Connections Communities

This guide offers practical guidance to capturing and documenting influence and leverage in communities that are implementing the Making Connections program. It provides clarification, concrete examples, and suggested approaches for documentation of influence and leverage. Following an introduction, the definitions of the terms influence and leverage are explained and they are distinguished them from other terms commonly used as part of comprehensive change efforts. The following section offers guidance in selecting and developing specificity around key influence and leverage outcomes for a community. Steps are identified that can be taken to focus and prioritize the documentation of influence and leverage. In addition, specific language is identified for naming different types of influence and leverage outcomes. Section 4 focuses on techniques and tools for documenting influence and leverage outcomes and provides concrete approaches to documenting influence and leverage outcomes. A variety of options are presented for a representative sample of influence and leverage outcomes. The final section suggests different approaches to connecting the documentation of influence and leverage to an action agenda. A case is made to connect learnings about documentation and leverage with ar community's action and accountability agenda. It also addresses different roles of specific groups in the Making Connections arena: community members, site team leaders and coordinators, and agency and institution partners. The guide includes tips for team training, along with examples of how different communities have implemented the Making Connections program.