[continued from the main page]
One of the principles of the writing of the activities sections is result oriented, if this is followed, it should be easier when you are writing the results section, since it is about the outcomes of the activities section. Defining clear, meaningful and monitorable results are required for a good proposal. The expected results in a proposal can be categorized as three levels: output, outcome, and impact according to the time they happen.
The outputs are those results that happen right away after the performances of the activities, which are normally lighter and minor compared to other two levels; the outcomes are those results that will not be seen right away, but will be seen as mid-term results or a while after the activities end, and normally more intense; the impacts are those results that happen after a longer term like a few years or even longer, and could happen after the project is completed. And thus the outputs and outcomes are required to be included in a proposal, but you may decide if the impacts will be included but it will certainly enhance the qualities of your proposal.
Taking as an example as in the virtual proposal of “Improving the Governmental Policy Decision Making in Mumbai”, the outputs could be the immediate impression of the data from the surveys of local people’s opinions about the current policy making procedure such as how many people have joined in and what is the percentage of disagreement; or the output of the training course to help the community members to understand their roles in policy making. The outcome could be that after the analysis of the survey data, a clear plan has been derived from the surveys to give the ideas on how to improve the policy making procedure in the city. And the impact could be that the governmental policy decisions become more transparent and start getting the opinions from local populations a couple of years after the project.
