Calling Care Storytellers: New Reporting Grants to Amplify Caregiving Stories

Care touches everyone. Whether it’s raising children, supporting a family member through an illness, or providing comfort to a loved one at the end of life, care is a universal experience that shapes how we work, live, and connect. And yet the care infrastructure in the United States is deeply broken.

At New America’s Better Life Lab, we believe in the power of stories to move policy, shape practices, and chart solutions—so we can create systems where all of us have time for care and connection. And we want you to join us.

The Better Life Lab invites journalists and storytellers to apply for our 2026 multimedia reporting grants. We’re looking for (and funding) stories on solutions to the care crisis—from child care innovations to investments in family, disability, elder, and end-of-life care.

The Better Life Lab is now accepting applications for our 2026–2027 multimedia reporting grants. Apply for a grant here.

Stories will be commissioned on a rolling basis beginning in October 2026. Journalists chosen for this program will also be invited to participate in the Better Life Lab’s reporting cohort and receive editorial guidance and placement assistance.

New and experienced reporters are welcome to apply. We especially encourage people with traditionally underrepresented perspectives in the media to apply.

See FAQs about reporting grants here.

What We’re Looking For

The Better Life Lab at New America offers reporting grants on various topics related to work-family justice, gender equity, and the value of care.

For this reporting grant series, the Lab is looking for stories that explore two pillars of the care crisis:

1. Innovations in child care: Through reporting on real-world efforts already underway, we’re looking for stories that shed light on bright spots and help paint a vision for the future of an equitable, universal child care system that offers families the choices they need and provides living wages for child care educators and providers. The reporting grant initiative is supported by the Bainum Family Foundation and other funders. Pieces should explore child care solutions or address one of the core shifts in care outlined by Bainum’s WeVision EarlyEd program by rethinking when learning begins, who is served, the quality of care, or what it costs and how to pay for it. (You can read more about WeVision here.)
2. Investments in care infrastructure: With an aging population, expectations that care is a private, family matter, often falling on the shoulders of women, and a country that spends among the least among peer nations on care infrastructure, we’re looking for multimedia stories on the challenges and solutions for caregivers across the life cycle, from infant and child care, through disability, elder, and end of life care, that could help unlock investments that bolster gender equality and that help all families thrive.  

We want solutions-oriented stories on how and why care issues matter to families and children, our communities, and a thriving economy. We’re open to all mediums, including print and online stories, photojournalism, graphic stories, podcasts, audio stories, multimedia projects, and videography. We’re excited by new and creative storytelling methods that can reach broad and diverse audiences and help them understand why care matters. Stories should paint a vision of what’s possible in the future, and explore whether innovations could scale.

Research shows that solutions journalism—which elevates stories that emphasize not just what’s broken but how to fix it—can make people feel empowered to take action. That’s why Better Life Lab’s reporting grants seek to focus on stories spotlighting solutions that build the energy and will necessary to fuel public demand.

Learn more about our reporting grants in the webinar below.

Interested in how Better Life Lab’s storyteller grantees are telling care stories? Watch this video from a care reporter.

And check out our tips for reporters who want to create their own videos, everything from how to write a script to the best colors to wear on camera.

Also, follow us on social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, or X/Twitter. And sign up for Better Life Lab’s newsletter to stay up to date on all things care!