I have submitted several grants over the past few weeks. All of them had me doing my Wizard of Oz dance when it came to the section for goals and objectives.  What is that?

Objectives, outputs, and outcomes….oh my!

If that’s not familiar to you, watch this and you’ll understand.

Just like “lions, tigers, and bears,” objectives, outputs, and outcomes can be scary, especially when you aren’t clear on the difference between them. Here’s some help:

Objectives are your performance targets.  You can have implementation objectives that measure your level of implementation (number of clients served, processes put in place, etc.) and outcome objectives that measure the results of your project (improved achievement, healthier clients, etc.).

Outputs and outcomes are very similar to the two different types of objectives. Outputs are similar to implementation objectives and outcomes are similar to outcome objectives. Outputs measure what you’ll be doing (services provided, processes developed, and deliverables).  Outcomes measure the results of what you do.

And all of these are different than goals, which are broad statements of purpose and intention. Objectives, outputs, and outcomes are very specific, but goals are broad.

Watch for future posts that will go into detail about developing strong goals and objectives.

More to read:

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