RESULTS NOW®
Strategic, Operating, and Governance Planning

I sing its praises to our funders.
Ann Granger, CEO, Buckeye Trails Girl Scouts Council

As a direct result of this remarkable process,
our United Way is posting stunning gains in a highly competitive fundraising and community investment arena where everything is measured and outcomes matter!
Alan Perez, President/Chief Professional Officer, United Way of Erie County

Results Now is the quick and practical process for strategic, operations, and governance planning. Put simply, Results Now builds capacity, which the Alliance for Nonprofit Management defines as the organization’s ability “to achieve its mission effectively and to sustain itself over the long term.”

Capacity building can be a challenge given the seven realities of nonprofit leadership. Board members are part-timers with limited time, which can lead to inadequate knowledge and flawed decisionmaking. The size and composition of the board often has more to do with “affluence and influence” than governance. There are few good or bad consequences for performance, which along with term limits and brief officer tenures, works against continuity of leadership meeting-to-meeting and year-to-year. Finally, key staff support usually comes from inexperienced once-is-enough executive directors. Not all organizations experience these realities at the same time, but it is a rare one that doesn’t encounter a handful simultaneously.

Results Now addresses these difficulties by beginning with the belief that leadership should focus its energy on making sure that the job gets done, that the organization accomplishes its mission. For an organization using Results Now, the right answers come from the right questions:

    -    Where to go tomorrow?
    -    What gets done today?
    -    Who does what?
    -    Did it happen?

To address these questions, Results Now creates a unified framework - a master plan - to guide the work of the organization. Most methods focus only on strategic planning, with implementation and governance ignored, but Results Now is different. Using a lightning-fast and highly participative process, it puts strategic, operating, and governance planning in one package that the board can pass in a single vote and the organization maintains as a regular part of its yearly work.

Results Now can deliver many benefits including fostering a welcome climate for give-and-take strategic thinking instead of the usual show-and-tell monotony of rubber-stamping. Results Now can build capacity, clarify the organization’s story for the community, and keep people on point about what’s important. Making Results Now worth its weight in gold is the evidence that funders reward nonprofits that plan according to experts Melissa Stone, Barbara Bigelow, and William Crittenden.

Noted expert Henry Mintzberg advises, “All viable strategies have emergent and deliberate qualities.” The trick is to find a process that offers enough structure to be purposeful, but not so much that the organization loses its adaptability. Results Now strikes just the right balance by keeping things quick, basic, and practical - not too much, not too little. Form follows function in the Results Now Plan with the focus on the critical few rather than the trivial many; those issues that will deliver the greatest results are the center of attention. Results Now does not insist upon predetermined responses, as each organization is unique. It does build a dynamic, flexible, and durable framework for asking and then answering the questions.

Relying on the rule of “What you measure is what you get,” Results Now has a strong bias for accountability including Success Measures with qualitative Values and quantitative Benchmarks, Duties about jobs and Guidelines about behaviors, and Objectives for both board and staff:

Not all organizations do the full Results Now Master Plan, however. Some large organizations craft the Master Plan and then divisions complete abbreviated versions typically minus the Governance Plan. Some organizations will do just the Strategic Plan or Governance Plan.

Unlike traditional methods, Results Now becomes an ongoing way of doing things, an essential part of day-to-day organizational life. According to experts Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the conventional practice creates “a strategic plan articulating where the company expects (or hopes or prays) to be in three, five and ten years [that sits] on executives’ bookshelves for the next 12 months.” In contrast, the Results Now Plan is refreshed “A-Z” annually, throughout the year. The first half of the fiscal year is a time for thinking about the future with the focus on building next year's Strategic Plan. The second half of the year changes the focus to next year’s Operating Plan. Throughout the year, the Governance Plan’s Vigilance Schedule ensures a base of timely information and you fine tune its Duties and Guidelines on an as-needed basis.

Building your first Results Now Master Plan usually takes less than seven hours of workshop time plus pre- and post-workshop tasks. Although quickness is a fundamental principle of Results Now, the amount of time required for these tasks varies as does the typical agenda, which is customized to meet your unique needs. Should time not be a factor, you can easily enhance the process by adding more time for deeper exploration. Most organizations go for the quick approach, knowing that the deeper discussions can come as you maintain the Results Now Master Plan during the regular course of business throughout the year.

The Results Now workshop is highly inclusive and very energetic; everyone has a voice. Consequently, the workshop itself has great value, typically boosting team cohesion, orienting newer team members and recharging seasoned ones. Because wordsmithing is done outside of the workshop setting, sessions move along quickly. Adding extra value is that the Master Plan is typically part of a Board Meeting Advance Information document containing the meeting agenda, minutes of the most recent meeting, selected elements of the Results Now Master Plan normally with an updated executive summary and financials, and a meeting self-assessment to help improve future meetings.

Participant feedback from a Results Now workshop is typically upbeat: “Dynamic, open - encouraged conversation. A great by-product is that it brought the group closer together.” “Well organized - we did a lot in a very short time.” “Fast paced, no wasted time, very interesting, focused.” “One of the best strategic planning sessions I have attended.” Specific references are available upon request.

Governance expert John Carver argues that the job of leadership is to ensure that “the organization produces what it should . . . while avoiding situations and conduct that should not occur.” William Bowen, President of the Mellon Foundation, says, “Perhaps the overriding obligation . . . is to require that a sensible plan of some kind be in place and that it be monitored carefully.” For Carver, accomplishing the mission is the end; for Bowman, the plan is the means. For organizations looking for a quick and practical way to do both, Results Now is the answer.

We are full of confidence in ourselves and ready for a great future.
Phillip L. Parker, President, Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce

It is inclusive, focused, and efficient. It is thought-provoking and results-oriented.
Ronald L. Turpin, Former Executive Director, Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority