Theme of 2022 Annual Report is ‘Expanding Our Mission’

2022 brought new challenges and opportunities to Lost&Found, and the organization responded by expanding its mission in several ways. This expansion is highlighted in Lost&Found’s 2022 Annual Report.

“We’ve never worked harder to make a difference than we did in 2022,” CEO/Executive Director Erik Muckey wrote in the report’s introductory letter. “Whenever we encountered a challenge, we found a way—because this work matters and is needed now as much as it ever will be.”

One of the key ways in which Lost&Found responded to current needs was by taking on the work and mission of the former Sioux Falls-based nonprofit Survivors Joining for Hope. Lost&Found now has a Postvention services department, along with the prevention work that it is at the core of its mission. In just four months, Lost&Found had already served eight families that had lost a loved one to suicide as part of Lost&Found’s Survivors Joining for Hope program. Staff members also provided postvention policy support to an institution that had suffered several losses by suicide.

Lost&Found also expanded its mission in other areas:

• Responding to suicide statistics showing that suicide is the leading cause of death for children as young as 10 in South Dakota, Lost&Found expanded its target demographic to ages 10 to 34.
• Lost&Found expanded the number of post-secondary institutions served by its programs to 12 and the number of students served to more than 150.
• The Campus Resilience Index, an assessment tool developed by Lost&Found, was implemented at two campuses.
• Lost&Found completed its second year of the 30 Days, 30 Stories project for National Suicide Prevention Month in September and added a comprehensive advertising campaign promoting the 30 Stories project as well as the message that “Suicide Is Preventable.”
• Lost&Found added several staff members in 2022, including a senior prevention specialist based in the Black Hills, which facilitated the expansion of student programs to three Black Hills-area campuses.
• The addition of new staff members in the Sioux Falls area prompted the relocation of Lost&Found’s office to a larger space in downtown Sioux Falls (319 N. Main Ave.).

Read more about Lost&Found’s work in the 2022 Annual Report. Also take note of the 570 donors that made that work possible. The report ends with a vision for 2023.