Results Count: Helping Large Service Providers Get Results

Since fall 2015, the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has sup­port­ed three nation­al non­prof­its in Results Count™, a lead­er­ship pro­gram designed to pro­pel large-scale change with­in a results-based frame­work. Par­tic­i­pants report that the pro­gram has had a top-to-bot­tom impact on their orga­ni­za­tions, trans­form­ing every­thing from their dai­ly busi­ness to how they hold them­selves account­able to the com­bined 15 mil­lion peo­ple they serve each year.

Three lead­ers from these orga­ni­za­tions — the Alliance for Strong Fam­i­lies and Com­mu­ni­ties, Catholic Char­i­ties USA and Good­will Indus­tries Inter­na­tion­al — reflect on their Results Count expe­ri­ences below:

Poli­na Makievsky, senior vice pres­i­dent of knowl­edge, lead­er­ship, and innovation
Alliance for Strong Fam­i­lies and Communities

By par­tic­i­pat­ing in Results Count, which empha­sizes out­comes rather than out­puts, the Alliance has rede­fined what suc­cess looks like to become more effec­tive agents of change. ​“The work of social ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions is fun­da­men­tal­ly messy, which can be very over­whelm­ing,” says Makievsky. ​“Results Count gave us a set of tools to lean in to the com­plex­i­ty. It script­ed the moves for turn­ing some­thing com­plex into some­thing manageable.”

The pro­gram also helped the Alliance morph struc­tural­ly — from a trade mem­ber­ship asso­ci­a­tion to a uni­fied strate­gic net­work. Explains Makievsky: ​“Instead of see­ing our­selves as an umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion try­ing to cov­er the needs of many diverse indi­vid­ual mem­bers, we start­ed to ask, how can we use the col­lec­tive voice of this net­work to cre­ate real change and achieve a spe­cif­ic result? How can we sup­port the mem­bers of this net­work to make them agents of change toward that result?”

Jean Beil, senior vice pres­i­dent for pro­grams and services
Catholic Char­i­ties USA

Beil cred­its Results Count with help­ing her orga­ni­za­tion stream­line its efforts and view its work in a more inte­grat­ed way. ​“We came to the Results Count pro­gram with sev­en strate­gic pri­or­i­ties that we were able to bring togeth­er into one com­mon result — that all indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties in the Unit­ed States and its ter­ri­to­ries have the human, finan­cial and social cap­i­tal to reach their full poten­tial,” she says.

The pro­gram has also inspired the non­prof­it — which counts 165 catholic char­i­ties as mem­bers — to alter its annu­al sur­vey. Instead of cap­tur­ing key net­work activ­i­ties, the revamped tool is designed to describe the organization’s impact.

Wen­di Copeland, senior vice pres­i­dent of strat­e­gy and advancement
Good­will Indus­tries International

At Good­will, Results Count prompt­ed lead­ers to take time out­side of their dai­ly work to close­ly con­sid­er their use of data and accel­er­ate a data ana­lyt­ics ini­tia­tive to sup­port equi­ty with­in their organization’s net­work. ​“Through­out the pro­gram, we were chal­lenged and equipped to think more crit­i­cal­ly about our results and explore oppor­tu­ni­ties to refine and define direc­tion and strength­en equi­ty,” says Copeland.

Mov­ing for­ward, Good­will, the Alliance and Catholic Char­i­ties USA plan to work togeth­er to pur­sue a shared result — advanc­ing equi­ty in and through­out their orga­ni­za­tions. This sum­mer, the non­prof­its will jump­start their jour­ney by par­tic­i­pat­ing in calls to learn and explore how they can help ensure that peo­ple of col­or, and peo­ple from oth­er under­rep­re­sent­ed demo­graph­ic groups, have equi­table oppor­tu­ni­ties to advance.

“We won­dered how we could see to it that peo­ple who lead com­mu­ni­ties also rep­re­sent the com­mu­ni­ties they serve — not just in the nation­al office, but at local agen­cies, as well,” Copeland explains. The result­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion has far-reach­ing impli­ca­tions. As Copeland puts it, ​“These lead­ers would have a greater under­stand­ing of their community’s expe­ri­ence, which can only help in the deliv­ery of services.”

Watch a video on cre­at­ing high align­ment, high impact

Learn more about get­ting com­mu­ni­ties to work togeth­er for results