The Impact and Reach of Better Life Lab in 2025

Despite a year marked by political uncertainty and ongoing challenges for working families, the Better Life Lab has remained steadfast and committed toward social change through storytelling and narrative transformation. Together, our small staff and various partners have made extraordinary strides toward transforming the landscape of care storytelling and policy.

Created and directly supported the creation of focused, high-impact, original journalism and storytelling:

• Our team published 54 articles in publications ranging from The Guardian, Forbes and Fast Company, to Bethesda Magazine and Kiowa County Press
• Our signature report, A Glimpse of Stability, won the silver prize in the Anthem Awards
• One of our reported Opinion pieces challenging poverty narratives won a prestigious Society of Professional Journalists award
• Built a care innovation database to define, centralize, and amplify a growing movement

Strengthened and grown the network of care and work storytellers, far beyond our core staff:

• Awarded 11 grants to support 12 writers covering innovations in child care
• Supported and trained five new Story Fellows in care storytelling aimed at increasing investment in care infrastructure
• With the Bainum Family Foundation, we co-hosted the first-ever, in-person gathering of nearly 40 multi-media child care journalists at a Reporting for Change convening

Disseminated our work to the widest possible and most diverse audiences:

And we continued to strategically focus our efforts in places and communities most ripe for change, with:

• On the ground reporting in New Mexico and Vermont, where publicly funded child care for all has become an ever more realistic possibility
• Responsive reporting on the federal government, where key data sources and programs like the American Time Use Survey and Women’s Bureau have been threatened