The Constellation's Theory of Ownership by Philip Forth

[Dr. E. Mohamed Rafique]

The Constellation's Theory of Ownership by Philip Forth was in Google sites at the link
https://sites.google.com/a/communitylifecompetence.org/theory-of-ch...
till end 2023, but in Feb 2024 these pages are not anymore on Google sites. 

As we cannot afford loss of this foundational document, outlining the genesis and the building blocks of The Constellation, I am reproducing this table and figure from an offline version I had saved in 2021.

For, the Constellation’s experience is that communities can and do respond to the challenges that they face when they take ownership of those challenges.  When a community takes ownership of the challenge that it faces, it is on the road to sustainable change (Forth 2015). 

Philip Forth lays out The Constellation’s “Theory of Ownership” for the SALT-CLCP methodology in table format as: 

Learning Festival

“We are proud of what we have shared. We feel inspired by what we learned.”

—Energy and joy in learning and sharing.
—Stories in format for Knowledge Asset.
—Start of Knowledge Asset.

Process Step/Tool	Precondition met by this tool	Indicators that Precondition has been met.
Who are we?	"We have come together with a shared purpose and a sense of who we are."	—A sense of shared humanity —A sense of community and optimism.
Where do we want to be? / The Dream	“We have a dream and we understand the power of dreams.”	—A shared dream in text and/or graphics —Numbers involved in dream. —Engagement in group dream. —Enthusiasm and commitment of participants.
Where do we want to be? /Surface practices.	We understand the skills we need to reach our dream. ”	—A set of practices for SA framework —A sense of moving from dreams towards action.
Where are we now? /Self-Assessment	“We recognize our skills. We know the skills we need to move towards our dream.”	—Practices for Self Assessment —Completed Self Assessment —Serious, engaged and challenging discussion. —Levels agreed by consensus, rather than by voting.
What are we going to do? / Action Plan	“We know what we are going to do. We can do this.”	—Priority practices defined. —Completed Action Plan —Actions? Time? Resources? —Commitment by individuals to action. — “Small, doable actions.” —Energy to act.
Just do It! / Actions	“We have made progress. We have done this ourselves.”	—Evidence that deliverables in Action Plan have been delivered. —Pleasure and pride in actions taken
Where did we get to? What did we learn? What can we share? /Review	“We know where we got to. We know what we learned. We know how to do better next time. We want to share”	—Documentation of review —Documentation for learn-and-share —Recognition that there is more to do. —Pride in achievement
The Dream/Self Assessment/ Action Plan....	The cycle continues “We will use what we have learned to get closer to our dream.”	—Revisit the dream —Serious review of Self Assessment —This feels as if it the way we do things around here.

Table 1: The Community derive the Monitoring and Evaluation Indicators from the CLCP Steps and tools proving their ownership of the process and its evaluation - From “The Theory of Ownership”  (Forth 2017)

Though Philip Forth has modelled this “Theory of Ownership” from the more well-known “Theory of Change,” outsiders can easily verify the Community’s Ownership using the same indicators from the table above which is re-packaged as a diagram that follows:

Figure 1: Thus Phil's Theory of Change proves that Community owns every step of the process from developing indicators to conducting their self-evaluation, which in the CLCP context is called “Self-Assessment of Change”.