Learning & Improvement Offerings

Improvement Labs are learning-by-doing programs designed to build the capacity of network organizations to improve, together.

Each Lab focuses on a topic the Network has identified as critical to equitable student outcomes. Over several months, youth-serving staff and leaders engage in network gatherings, plan and test ideas with teams from their organization, gather data to learn what works, and receive coaching.

⭐️ Read about our 2024-25 Student-Adult Relationships Lab and Student Networks Lab.

⭐️ 2025-26 LABS

• Building Student Networks

  • The Building Student Networks Improvement Lab brings together community-based organizations to focus on designing, testing, and codifying practices that build students’ personal and professional networks. The lab aims to improve students’ access to, and ability to mobilize, relationships that help them further their potential and their goals. This improvement lab is guided by research from the Christensen Institute, which identifies a four-dimensional framework for measuring students’ social capital: the quantity, quality, and structure of relationships in students’ networks, as well as their ability to mobilize these relationships.

• Strong Plans

  • In the Strong Plans Improvement Lab, members of existing school Pathways teams, including community-based organizations, gather to improve towards our shared goal of strong plans for all graduates. Pathways teams may take different shapes, but are essentially cross-functional, school-based teams that focus on this goal. Using continuous improvement strategies and tools, we’ll explore:

    • What makes developing high quality plans challenging?

    • What can we do to help students build?

    • How will we know if our efforts worked?

Communities of Practice are rooted in shared goals and challenges and the belief that Network members can bring important insights and questions to each other.

⭐️ 2025-26 COPs

• Future9 Learning Collaborative

  • The Future9 Learning Collaborative is a cohort focused on embedding future-ready competencies into youth-facing work. This Learning Collaborative brings together community-based organizations that want to deepen their understanding of competencies, test new practices, and build shared language and alignment in their organization to support student growth.

• Data Pack

  • The Data Pack is a dynamic space where NYC’s nonprofit “data folks” connect, share insights, and explore solutions to common challenges. Through peer conversations and expert guidance, participants:

    • Gain practical strategies to improve our capacity for collecting, analyzing, and using data.

    • Build a supportive community of colleagues for ongoing collaboration and knowledge sharing.

    • Develop a clearer understanding of how data can drive impact.

    • Provide the broader network with valuable insights to strengthen and advance collective nonprofit work.