WorkLife Law has been selected as a Workplace Innovation Now (WIN) Challenge Awardee. The $2.5 million award will enable WorkLife Law to launch Expecting Change: Supporting Pregnant and Postpartum Workers. Over the next three years, WorkLife Law will train 10,000 women’s healthcare providers to help their patients access the workplace accommodations and leave they need to stay healthy and financially secure. The award will also double the capacity of WorkLife Law’s free legal helpline that offers direct support to workers.
“We are honored to have the WIN Challenge’s support for our proven intervention that prevents job loss and economic insecurity during pregnancy and early motherhood,” said Liz Morris, Co-Director of WorkLife Law. “Pregnant workers nationwide have a new right to workplace accommodations that protect their health while preserving their economic futures. By partnering with pregnant workers’ most trusted advisors, their healthcare providers, we will unlock these protections and safeguard up to a million pregnant patients’ jobs and health every year.”
This award comes at a critical moment: the 2023 Pregnant Workers Fairness Act fundamentally changed how workers with pregnancy-related needs should be treated in the workplace, requiring employers to provide reasonable accommodations in the form of job changes that allow them to keep working safely. This new law has the power to transform how workplaces treat pregnant workers and new mothers, but only if workers and employers are aware of the new protections and how to use them. WorkLife Law will close the existing information and access gaps by relying on trusted messengers – healthcare providers – to make flexibility and supportive accommodations routine.
“While few pregnant workers will ever contact an attorney about their workplace rights, nearly all will visit a healthcare provider,” said WorkLife Law Co-Director Jessica Lee. “When our program empowers providers, we also empower all the patients they serve to protect both their health and their economic security.”
By educating 10,000 healthcare providers, WorkLife Law will reach approximately a third of all U.S. births. We will equip providers with information on their patients’ legal rights and give them ready-to-use tools to help patients secure the workplace changes they need to stay healthy. Expecting Change will prepare healthcare providers to talk with patients about their rights and write the documentation patients need to use them.
The WIN Challenge award will also allow WorkLife Law to double the number of workers who receive our free direct services each year. For nearly 25 years, WorkLife Law’s free legal helpline has assisted pregnant workers, mothers, and other family caregivers facing challenges at work. With WorkLife Law attorney support, nine out of ten helpline callers get the pregnancy-related changes and leave that they are seeking, without resorting to litigation or other costly interventions.
About the WIN Challenge award:
Led by Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute, and supported by Pivotal, a group of social impact organizations founded by Melinda French Gates, the WIN Challenge was launched in fall 2025 to discover and scale transformative ideas across three key pillars: Culture & Practices, AI, and Narrative. The 18 awardees selected represent a new generation of workplace innovation, addressing challenges ranging from caregiving and workforce participation to the responsible deployment of artificial intelligence and the narratives that shape workplace culture.
The WIN Challenge received nearly 900 applications from organizations across the United States and U.S. territories with innovative approaches to help everyone succeed amid rapid economic and technological change. Each applicant underwent a comprehensive multiple step review-process, including a peer review, an external evaluation panel composed of corporate, philanthropic, academic, and nonprofit experts in workplace innovation, technology, and narrative, and a review from the WIN Council composed of distinguished workplace leaders and innovators.
More information about the WIN Challenge and the full list of awardees can be found at winchallenge.org.
About WorkLife Law:
WorkLife Law is a national advocacy and research organization at UC Law SF that advances gender and racial equity by strengthening legal rights for pregnant people and family caregivers. For over 25 years, WorkLife Law has secured victories to move the needle toward a reality where all people have the freedom to build and maintain economic security through employment and educational opportunities, without having to sacrifice their health or their loved ones’ care. Learn more about our approach and impact.
Visit WorkLife Law’s PregnantAtWork.org website to request a healthcare provider training, or to access resources for providers, workers, and employers.