New Approaches, Extended Services: LSA Sees Success from Results Innovation Lab

The Results Innovation Lab from Lutheran Services in America (LSA) is equipping leaders to improve health, safety, stability and education for 20,000 at-risk youth by 2024. The lab employs a group-learning model in which participants develop new approaches for achieving results and engaging partners in their work.

“Through intense, interactive trainings with outside experts, Results Innovation Lab is providing participants with the skills to foster stakeholder relationships and create strategic partnerships,” said Charlotte Haberaecker, president and CEO of LSA.

Participating organizations, she added, “share best practices and progress examples,” which they can implement in their communities.

The participants—select members of LSA’s national network—identify a challenge facing the populations they serve and use data to measure their progress toward their lab goals. They combine what they learned in trainings with their knowledge of the needs in their areas to change their communities for the better.

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota helps youth who are homeless in Minneapolis and Duluth by working closely with stakeholders, said Peter Samuelson, its senior director of evaluation and impact.

Like LCFS, Samuelson said the organization had noticed fewer youth of color were finding stable housing.

“We knew that youth of color were disproportionately represented in the homeless youth population, so we examined our own rate of success with youth of color, only to discover that 57% of the youth of color were exiting to safe and stable housing,” he said.

Read the full report from Lutheran Services in America. (PDF)