2025 in Review

Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” That feels important to remember at a moment when we have challenges in front of us that seem insurmountable. It was a difficult and challenging year by many measures.

And yet, two things can be true at the same time—thanks to our tremendous team and the support of our partners, 2025 was also a hugely productive year for the New Practice Lab and its work to help families thrive. While systems and programs many families rely on were shredded and shaken, we managed to make progress by making services more human-centered.

Since January of 2024, the New Practice Lab’s efforts have now strengthened public benefits programs that are expanding access to cash, childcare, and time with loved ones for more than 2.8 million Americans. More than 1 million of those beneficiaries fall squarely within our target population: economically excluded families with children aged zero to five.

Our Impact Report details our work last year, which has included collaborating with 19 state partners across our fields of early childhood, tax credits, and paid leave. Some highlights from this year include our work documenting and understanding intermittent leave use and administration, listening to doctors and families about gaps in early intervention services for NICU babies, and collaborating with the state of Colorado to improve tax credit access.

We also grew more rigorous about assessing the effects of our work on our government partners. For the first time, we launched a new survey on the experience of working with us and the usefulness of our engagements with our partners. We learned that 74% of our engagements are translating into real programmatic changes and improvements to the public programs on which families depend.

These numbers matter because they get at real, near-term improvements in people’s lives. More responsive institutions are better equipped to listen to families, and to deliver on what they need. Public institutions with whom we partner can then sustain these ‘new practices’ into the future, embedding them into the way that new policy is researched, designed, and delivered in the future.

Our team showed a remarkable ability to pivot, to reassess the landscape, and ultimately, to find a way to move the work forward in service of millions of Americans.

We can’t get out of where we are -- a time when too many families feel they do not have what they need to thrive -- the way we got in.

We continue to believe that listening to families with young kids, and putting their voices at the center of our work, ultimately offers a pathway to a nation where all families can thrive. We are launching more efforts this year to ground us in what families say they need.

I feel confident that the seeds of listening to families and centering on their needs – seeds we planted in 2025, will be part of how we tend to shape a future and a spring for families with young kids in the United States that is different from the one we are living today.

We invite you to explore our 2025 Impact Report.