🎉 New Year, New Leadership at RE!NSTITUTE
Dear RE!NSTITUTE Community,
As we step into 2025, and I transition into the role of CEO from my wonderful predecessor, Sean Whitten, I’d like to introduce myself and share my vision for our future. With over 25 years of experience in developing innovations and systems that drive meaningful change, I was drawn to RE!NSTITUTE because of its unique ability to turn community-based practices into tangible, effective methodologies for systems change—exactly what lies at the heart of our mission.
Many of you may know me from my role as RE!NSTITUTE’s Global MEL Director since 2021. In that time, I’ve worked to refine our theory of change, strengthen our approach to measuring outcomes, and lead the development of our systems change framework. This framework has allowed us to empower our Catalysts to work more effectively with communities to address barriers to transformation.
I’m most proud of our ability to foster cross-system collaboration that generates extraordinary results. By setting aside egos and co-creating with partners, we build equitable, tailored relationships that lead to impactful short-term outcomes and set the stage for sustainable change. Our work spans structural, relational, and behavioral dimensions to ensure lasting transformation.
Looking ahead, I’m excited about the innovative ways we’re developing to support communities in catalyzing and sustaining systems change. With my background in learning and evaluation, I’m committed to continuous improvement and sharing our insights to drive our mission forward.
Our future is full of promise. We’re eager to deepen existing partnerships and expand our network to advance systems change, particularly in practical application. While the challenges are complex, I am confident that, together, we can create the transformative change our communities need.
It’s an honor to lead RE!NSTITUTE into its next chapter, and I look forward to collaborating with all of you to create lasting, positive change in communities around the world.
Warmly,
Sarah Robens
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Sarah Robens becomes the new CEO of RE!NSTITUTE
We are delighted to share THIS REPORT which outlines how the 100-Day Challenge methodology has supported over 100 teams in 24 Mexican cities in 14 states in 7 years, as well as teams in the Dominican Republic and Honduras, to operationalize a people-centered approach to support the resolution of thousands of criminal cases, improve the quality of victims’ services, prevent femicides and build belief and momentum in change across Mexico and Latin America. We share people- driven innovations that have supported these results and how they were created. We analyze the lessons learned, including where we have fallen short and what the approach can teach us all about how we balance the inherent tension between the need for short-term results and the long hard journey to more accountable and fair justice systems everywhere.
A look back at our role as a founding partner of Nesta's People Power Results program as they reflect on 10 years of work.
Multi-sector approaches to homelessness response have been proven effective at more quickly and efficiently addressing homelessness in communities across the country. The research literature suggest ways of tackling the complexity of multi-sector coordination, and here we highlight examples from past 100-Day Challenges where communities have woven together expertise and services from their housing, healthcare, employment and education sectors.
Starting in October 2022 and ending in February 2023, Palm Beach County(PBC) Conducted a 100-Day Challenge® to both house and connect to service people experiencing homelessness and living with HIV.
That is our objective (to protect women and save lives). This innovation was born because we had a crisis on our hands of missing persons; It all started with a viral post through social media for a missing young woman.
Our 100-Day Challenges produce amazing ideas, innovations, and actions that create meaningful change, helping our teams achieve their unreasonable but believable goals. These innovations can be small or large, disruptive, or the start of a slight ripple; some are temporary, and others permanent. However they work, they all make things different, affecting systems in such a way that the changes we see as a result of a 100-Day Challenge last.
Treatment of wounds is a prerequisite for entering shelters and residential recovery programs. Most shelters have strict rules around substance use, which can be a barrier to entry for some; treating wounds is a first step toward recovery. Untreated wounds can lead to infection and, in extreme cases, amputation. This increases long-term health needs and can make permanent housing placement more difficult.
"Holy moly, it was, like, a pop!" - Christy McCammond, Program Manager at Merced County Human Services Agency
As a part of our journey to make equity a central part of what we do and an actionable part of our internal and external policies and practices, we hope to be transparent and share highlights of what we’ve learned and unlearned. We will be the first to own that this is a journey without a reachable destination, and we humbly acknowledge how far we still have to go but share these lessons in the hope that they will be helpful to others on their own equity journeys.
Catalyzing frontline staff to create successful, innovative solutions to complex challenges is a positive step in itself. But when those innovations are taken and adopted in a different area, the impacts are massively increased, and the possibility of wide-scale, systemic change starts to become a reality. This is what happened with one of the innovations generated through RE!NSTITUTE's 100-Day Challenge methodology.
Rapid Results Institute has now become RE!NSTITUTE, still offering the same impactful methodologies and partnerships.
Bringing together four California communities to discover new pathways to helping vulnerable populations move toward safe and stable housing.
“People deserve a seat at the table they’ll be discussed at.” – Sean Whitten, RE!NSTITUTE CEO
For the past two years, RE!NSTITUTE has been working in partnership with the California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (HCFC) on solutions to the myriad of issues facing the homeless population in California, including natural disasters, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
