About the project

When someone loses a job, faces eviction, or tries to figure out what benefits they qualify for, what actually happens? What decisions do they face, what guidance would have helped, and where do things go right or wrong?

The voices of people experiencing these challenges are often missing from the decisions that affect them most. NextLadder Ventures, a new fund investing in transformative technologies, and Cortico, a nonprofit, are partnering to listen — through recorded small-group conversations, hosted by trusted community organizations providing direct support and resources, with the people navigating these pivotal life moments firsthand.

What comes out of those conversations will shape where NextLadder invests — in tools and resources best designed to help people through those difficult moments. Participants — the people most directly navigating those moments — will have their voices included in a public Story Bank, a searchable public archive of real, lived experiences from a diversity of communities, for anyone working to understand and improve economic mobility.

Conversation participants will explore questions like:

• Tell us about a moment when you needed help navigating a job loss, benefits application, or financial crisis. What happened?
• What decisions did you face, and what guidance would have made a difference?
• How do you use technology — apps, online tools, AI — to help you navigate these moments, if at all?

Apply now

We’re looking for organizations already serving working-age adults at or below 200% of the federal poverty level: workforce development programs, libraries, legal aid and benefits-navigation organizations, social service agencies, and others doing this work on the ground. By joining this project, you’ll amplify and centralize the voices of your community as part of a public Story Bank — a living resource for the organizations, entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers building tools to help people navigate crises or moments of opportunity.

You’ll also join a national network of organizations doing this work, and keep access to your community’s conversations and insights long after the project ends, for your own advocacy and programming.

Beyond surfacing underheard voices in your community, here’s what your participation includes:

• A project stipend of $1,000-$2,000 tied to your conversation commitment (1 or 2 conversations), which you can use toward facilitator and participant compensation
• Facilitator training that gives your staff practical listening and facilitation skills they keep long after the project ends
• Full support from Cortico: Cortico handles the technology, transcription, and analysis so you don’t need any in-house infrastructure to participate
• Your community’s real voices and insights surfaced from conversations for your own advocacy and programming
• Named credit in the final report and public-facing outputs