Intervention Prioritisation

What the framework is

Intervention prioritisation compares possible actions, programmes or initiatives to find the ones most likely to make a real difference with the resources available. The template starts with five criteria: Potential Impact, Feasibility, Cost Effectiveness, Stakeholder Support and Scalability. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

What the result looks like

When it earns its place

Use it when a team, council or charity has more possible actions than it can fund: a sustainability plan, a public-health programme, an organisational change. It is most useful when the options are concrete enough to judge, not slogans.

The trap is that the most visible intervention wins on impact while nobody asks whether it can be delivered. Comparing every option on feasibility and cost effectiveness as well keeps the ambitious ones honest.

How to run it with a group

1. Describe each intervention in one sentence: what would be done, and for whom.
2. Agree the weights. If funding is the tightest constraint, weight Cost Effectiveness more heavily.
3. Participants compare the interventions two at a time on each criterion. Participants do not need an account to respond. Include people who would deliver the work, not only those who would fund it.
4. Read the overall ranking, then the ranking per criterion. An intervention that ranks high on impact and low on stakeholder support needs an engagement plan before it starts.

More templates like this

• Participatory Budget

  Let a group allocate a shared budget across competing priorities. Each participant distributes a real total (e.g. €100,000,000) across the areas — seeing both the amount and the percentage as they go — and the results show where the group would collectively spend.

• Policy Option Assessment

  Compare policy choices, interventions, or strategic responses across multiple decision criteria. Useful for government, public policy, sustainability, and organisational strategy. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• Community Needs Prioritisation

  Compare community issues, challenges, and opportunities to determine where support or intervention is most needed. Useful for local government, nonprofits, healthcare, and community development. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.