2024 in Review
The New Practice Lab’s Annual Impact Report
Blog Post

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Feb. 3, 2025
In a year that brings change in the presidential administration and heightened national conversation about policies for our nation, the team at the New Practice Lab remains focused on delivering outcomes for families. As we move ahead, we’ve also taken time to look back, capturing the work we have accomplished with our partners, but also — critically — measuring our continued progress against our North Star of improving benefits outcomes for economically excluded families with kids under 6.
In 2024, our focus was clear: we worked to listen to families and build programs and policies that can help working class parents and kids to build thriving lives for themselves.
We helped leaders across the country, at all levels of government, to serve families better by engaging with them directly to understand the realities of their lives, and how critical services could work better for them.
We’ve heard from families that they need money in their pockets and time to care for their loved ones. We also learned how much strength families find in connection to others, and how much it matters for a thriving life to feel seen and understood.
Our new 2024 Impact Report invites others to explore what we’ve learned, as we strive to build this practice of listening to families and informing a tighter loop between policy and delivery. Over the course of 589 diary entries and 31 one-on-one interviews, we engaged 58 families and 75 civil servants to understand what’s working, what’s not, and what can be better, not only for existing programs, but for new ones as well.
The impact of this work adds up. In total, we are projecting that the work we did in 2024 will improve access to cash, childcare, and time with loved ones for more than 1.7 million Americans, about 40% of whom belong to our target of economically excluded families with young children.
Together with families, our team is building a new discipline of delivering by listening to what families need to thrive. When we really listen, we can use what we hear to move from pain points to real fixes. While many things are uncertain this year, one thing is clear: we need more institutions and leaders that can listen. This is an essential ingredient for building a future that really works for families.
We invite you to read more in our 2024 Impact Report.