title: Using conceptual models as a planning and evaluation tool in conservation.
abstract: Conservation projects are dynamic interventions that occur in complex contexts involving intricate interactions of social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental factors. These factors are constantly changing over time and space as managers learn more about the context within which they work. This complex context poses challenges for planning and evaluating conservation project. In order for conservation managers and evaluation professionals to design good interventions and measure project success, they simultaneously need to embrace and deconstruct contextual complexity. In this article, we describe conceptual models--a tool that helps articulate and make explicit assumptions about a project's context and what a project team hopes to achieve. We provide real-world examples of conceptual models, discuss the relationship between conceptual models and other evaluation tools, and describe various ways that conceptual models serve as a key planning and evaluation tool. These include, for example, that they document assumptions about a project site and they provide a basis for analyzing theories of change. It is impractical to believe that we can completely eliminate detail or dynamic complexity in projects. Nevertheless, conceptual models can help reduce the effects of this complexity by helping us understand it.
authors.affiliation: Foundations of Success, Bethesda, MD 20816, USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Margoluis
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stem
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Salafsky
authors.forename: Marcia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D017145:Models, Educational; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D016730:Program Development / Q000379:methods*; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors