APPLICATION OF PROVISIONS OF THE THEORY OF CHANGE TO ASSESS THE EFFICIENCY OF GRANT SUPPORT OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Today, the issues of attracting grant programs to support the development of local communities in Ukraine are extremely relevant. During the war, they experience a significant lack of funds in local budgets, which are necessary for them to create a comfortable living environment, develop infrastructure and provide the necessary public services, etc. An important prerequisite for this is the issue of increasing the social capital of the local community. But working with grants requires some training, understanding of the process, and grant management skills. In addition to the development of tools that strengthen ties in local communities, the success of grant activities largely determines its methodological and scientific support. Therefore, the development of theoretical provisions of the methodology for supporting grant activities at the level of local communities is an important area of research for the science and practice of public administration. The article is aimed at developing the main provisions of the general theory for assessing the effectiveness of grant projects developed and implemented by local communities and practical issues regarding the methodology of its application. The paper shows that the modern process of writing projects has become a practice that combines "art" and adherence to "generally accepted standards", which are presented in the "application form" and "manuals" in the documents of the announced competition. However, the lack of a theoretical basis in the preparation of projects for a grant led to certain problems. First of all, it is an assessment of their effectiveness, which requires a certain methodological approach generally accepted by society. Based on the thesis that between the goal and the results of any activity there are always changes in the state of the target group or society, a number of researchers propose to use the provisions of the theory of change to assess the effectiveness of grant projects. The paper shows that the application of the provisions of the theory of change can provide not only the basis for the conclusion that the result of the intervention corresponds to the previous forecast, but also justify the conclusion made taking into account all external factors of influence. As a methodology for this approach, an approach is proposed, which is based on determining the causal relationship between the components of the grant project. Generalization of the above allows us to propose an algorithm for applying the provisions of the theory of change to assess the effectiveness of the grant project.