Results First
Hal Williams, Outcome Guide
August 23, 2016
Results First
Results First Manatee
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The Challenge: What difference have we made?
Funder vs. Investor
Three questions for non-profits
Results First Language
2016 Prototyping groups
2017 Full implementation
Funder vs. Investor Mindset
The Funder
The Investor
• Invites submissions and selects from those
applying.
• Seeks to uncover all possible promising
opportunities.
• Uses multiple criteria—including need, work
plan, quality of proposal writing, evaluation
design, etc., to select. May offer points for
proposal sections.
• Answers three questions of each opportunity.
• Funds direct services, capacity-building,
technology, etc. using the same approach.
• Clearly distinguishes among investment in
programs, innovations, and organizational growth.
• Spends most of the time at “front end”
making new grants
• Reserves considerable time for “back end”
understanding results from past grants
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What are we buying?
What are the chances we will get it?
Is this the best possible use of our money?
How Non-Profits Approach Outcomes
• How do you define success – meaning results from your
services?
• How do you know for sure when success has been achieved?
• Throughout your program, how do you know that you have
enough time and money left to get to the success you have
defined?
Results First Language
1. Investor and investing. We are investors in results. Nonprofits receive investments
that have an expectation so return in human gain. We are no longer “funders” who
“fund programs”.
2. Results. The specific intended accomplishment to be made by individuals or groups
served by a program. They are the gains that come from services. We do not equate
the delivery of services or the availability of services as equivalent to human gain.
3. Targets. The specific level of result that nonprofits commit to achieving with a given
program in a given time. They are verifiable without high cost and set at a level to
make a significant difference. We do not use other terms such as goals and
objectives or anything that is “aspirational” rather than an actual commitment.
4. Milestones. What must be accomplished on a quarterly basis to forecast that a
program will hit its targets with the time and money remaining? We do not call
these benchmarks, indictors, or anything else.
Results First Language
5. Impacts. These are broader gains (or losses) which come from achieving a
result. Some happen simultaneously in other areas of gain while others come
later. Impacts increase return on investment when a result keeps on giving.
6. Verification. This is what nonprofits do to count and show evidence of success
and what Manatee County uses to show return on money spent. With some
exceptions we are not evaluating programs. We are validating accomplishment
within programs.
7. Learning. These are changes in behavior and approach by both investor and
nonprofits based on experience and new knowledge. Learning is not what we
know—it is what we do with what we know to improve investing in and
implementing of programs.
2016 Prototyping Groups
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AMFM Enterprises
Boys and Girls Clubs
D.L. Randall Foundation
Early Learning Coalition
Family Network on Disabilities
Family Partnership Center
• Foundation for Dreams
• Hope Family Services
• Manatee Community Action
Agency
• Turning Points
• Whole Child Manatee
2017 Full Implementation
1. Result-based applications and review process
2. Contracts anchored by what is to be achieved
3. “Tracking to success” formats and tools to be used by agencies
and county staff
4. End of grant knowledge bank, including level of return on
investment and learning for both agencies and Manatee County
5. Co-investing strategies with other funders (prototyped in 2017)
6. Shared targets for agencies in a given investment priority area
(prototyped in 2017)