How Two Leaders Use Results Count Skills to Help Others — Even as They Change Jobs

Results Count^®, the Casey Foundation’s unique approach to lead­er­ship devel­op­ment, pro­vides indi­vid­u­als with skills and tools they can apply not only to their cur­rent work on behalf of chil­dren and fam­i­lies but also to future posi­tions with new orga­ni­za­tions. Jes­si­ca Mind­nich and MacArthur Antigua — both intro­duced to the skills and tools through one of Casey’s lead­er­ship engage­ments — are exam­ples of social sec­tor lead­ers who have deep­ened their exper­tise to become advanced prac­ti­tion­ers of Results Count as they’ve moved on in their careers. To become more advanced prac­ti­tion­ers, they par­tic­i­pat­ed in Casey offer­ings that dove deep­er into the framework’s com­pe­ten­cies and skills, includ­ing how to share the frame­work with others.

“Once a leader has inter­nal­ized Results Count, they see the world through an equi­table results lens that is hard to unsee,” says Jen­nifer Gross, a senior asso­ciate with the Foun­da­tion. ​“When these lead­ers tran­si­tion to new roles, they look for effec­tive ways to incor­po­rate that way of see­ing, think­ing and being with­in their new systems.”

Becom­ing A Dif­fer­ent Leader

Mind­nich first learned Results Count skills in 2014, at Casey’s Lead­er­ship Insti­tute for State-Based Advo­cates. Then direc­tor of research at Chil­dren Now, the Cal­i­for­nia grantee in the Foundation’s KIDS COUNT^® Net­work, she learned about ways of accel­er­at­ing mea­sur­able change for chil­dren, youth and fam­i­lies, includ­ing Results Count’s five core com­pe­ten­cies and two foun­da­tion­al frame­works.

She enhanced her appli­ca­tion of Results Count as direc­tor of strate­gic learn­ing and eval­u­a­tion at the San Fran­cis­co Foun­da­tion, a Results Count hub. While there, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Results Count Advanced Prac­ti­tion­ers Pro­gram, which gave her more expe­ri­ence with the frame­work. Her work at the San Fran­cis­co Foun­da­tion includ­ed col­lect­ing data and ana­lyz­ing it by race and eth­nic­i­ty to ensure that the foun­da­tion was advanc­ing its over­all goal of pro­mot­ing equi­ty and eco­nom­ic inclu­sion in the Bay area.

Mind­nich reg­u­lar­ly guid­ed col­leagues through a fac­tor analy­sis to under­stand the sto­ry behind the num­bers to help iden­ti­fy what spe­cif­ic areas to tar­get in their strate­gies, includ­ing what to do more of, do less of or do dif­fer­ent­ly. She also helped staff mem­bers build their Results Count skills and capac­i­ties to ful­fill the foundation’s mission.

In 2020, Mind­nich joined the Ewing Mar­i­on Kauff­man Foun­da­tion as the senior direc­tor of eval­u­a­tion, learn­ing and impact sto­ries. Work­ing close­ly with senior lead­ers to imple­ment Kauffman’s Inclu­sive Pros­per­i­ty Frame­work — which is based on racial equi­ty, a pre­pared work­force and entre­pre­neur-focused eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment — she has devel­oped tools that mea­sure the pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence the Kauff­man Foun­da­tion is mak­ing and pro­vide it with data for adjust­ing strategy.

Mind­nich also reg­u­lar­ly employs and mod­els Results-Based Facil­i­ta­tion™, which helps social-sec­tor lead­ers design and con­tribute to meet­ings that move groups to action and hold par­tic­i­pants account­able for their com­mit­ments. For exam­ple, she worked with the Kauff­man Foundation’s Entre­pre­neur­ship team to design a two-day retreat that focused the atten­dees on a shared goal and how to achieve it. She also reg­u­lar­ly uses the Per­son-Role-Sys­tem frame­work and the con­cept of B/ART (Bound­aries of Author­i­ty, Role and Task) to help pin­point her con­tri­bu­tions to the work while clar­i­fy­ing the con­tri­bu­tions oth­ers have to offer.

“Because of Results Count, I am fun­da­men­tal­ly a dif­fer­ent leader and a dif­fer­ent human being,” says Mind­nich. ​“I have a lev­el of self-aware­ness now that I think allows me to be more effective.”

Shar­ing Lead­er­ship Tools and Skills With Others

MacArthur Antigua was intro­duced to the Casey Foun­da­tion and its ideas about lead­er­ship devel­op­ment about 10 years ago, when he was direc­tor of alum­ni engage­ment at Pub­lic Allies, a social jus­tice orga­ni­za­tion com­mit­ted to recruit­ing and train­ing diverse lead­ers. Casey pro­vid­ed fund­ing for the Pipeline Project, which Antigua devel­oped to move Pub­lic Allies’ Black and Lati­no alum­ni into senior lead­er­ship roles in non­prof­it organizations.

In 2015, Antigua immersed him­self in Results Count learn­ing as a par­tic­i­pant in the Foundation’s Social Sec­tor Tal­ent Pipelines Strat­e­gy and Learn­ing Lab. This year­long pro­gram engaged five orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing Pub­lic Allies, in devel­op­ing the results and data ori­en­ta­tion of emerg­ing social sec­tor lead­ers and help­ing them con­sis­tent­ly advance racial equi­ty in their work.

At the con­clu­sion of the lab, Antigua and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Ameri­Corps Alums and ProIn­spire sought to accel­er­ate their col­lec­tive efforts to increase the num­ber of peo­ple of col­or in lead­er­ship roles in the non­prof­it sec­tor. The result was the cre­ation of Equi­ty in the Cen­ter, an ini­tia­tive sup­port­ed by Casey and oth­er foun­da­tions to shift mind­sets, prac­tices and sys­tems and focus on racial equi­ty in non­prof­its’ inter­nal oper­a­tions and exter­nal pro­grams. While at Pub­lic Allies, Antigua par­tic­i­pat­ed in the first class of the Results Count Advanced Prac­ti­tion­ers Pro­gram, which deep­ens lead­ers’ capac­i­ty to achieve results. 

In 2019, Antigua was appoint­ed senior direc­tor of col­lec­tive impact at Imag­ine MKE, a com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tion that advances arts and cul­ture as a cat­a­lyst for improv­ing social and eco­nom­ic out­comes in Mil­wau­kee. Dur­ing his tenure at Imag­ine MKE, Antigua helped work group mem­bers align their artis­tic and cul­tur­al con­tri­bu­tions with a region­al pub­lic health issue. One par­tic­i­pant, for exam­ple, worked to pro­vide safe, sup­port­ive and col­lab­o­ra­tive envi­ron­ments for chil­dren with autism to learn, cre­ate and connect. 

To sup­port the mem­bers’ work, Antigua shared Results Count tools and skills with the par­tic­i­pat­ing lead­ers from the arts and cul­ture sec­tor. The Account­abil­i­ty Path­way, Per­son-Role-Sys­tem and Results-Based Facil­i­ta­tion frame­works enabled par­tic­i­pants to have hon­est con­ver­sa­tions about the state of their plans and focus their efforts to get the results they seek. 

Antigua has recent­ly assumed a new role at a nation­al net­work that’s advanc­ing results for young men and boys of col­or. Once again, he plans to bring his arse­nal of Results Count tools and skills to his work.

Said Casey’s Gross: ​“Casey invests in lead­ers’ Results Count pro­fi­cien­cy because it pays ongo­ing div­i­dends as those lead­ers move to new orga­ni­za­tions and new roles of increas­ing influ­ence and impact.”