2025 Wrapped: What Last Year Taught Indiana Women—and Why 2026 Is the Year of the Changemaker

If Indiana women had a 2025 Wrapped, it wouldn’t be a highlight reel.

It would be a year defined by holding things together—families, workplaces, classrooms, communities—often without the support systems keeping pace. It would reflect the quiet reality many women experienced: decisions were made, policies shifted, costs rose, and expectations increased, all while women were already carrying more than their fair share.

As we close the book on 2025, it’s worth pausing, not to relive frustration, but to name it. Because understanding what didn’t work is how we decide what must change.

And it’s why Women4Change Indiana is naming 2026 the Year of the Changemaker.

What 2025 Asked of Women—and Why It Felt So Heavy

For many women across Indiana, last year was marked by little margin. Caregiving responsibilities expanded. Economic pressure didn’t ease. Healthcare, safety, and education concerns felt more complex, not less. Burnout wasn’t a buzzword; it was a lived experience.

Staying informed felt harder when time and energy were already stretched thin. Civic engagement felt like something reserved for people with more capacity, more certainty, or louder voices. That wasn’t a personal shortcoming; it was a signal.

When systems aren’t built with women fully in mind, women feel the strain first.

Why 2026 Is the Year of the Changemaker

When Women4Change Indiana talks about changemakers, we are not talking about adding another role to women’s already full lives. We are talking about recognition.

Changemaker is not a title. It’s not an identity reserved for politicians or activists. It’s a way to recognize the influence women already have and to inspire each woman to use it intentionally.

Change doesn’t happen only through legislation or headlines. It happens through the people who shape culture, pass on values, share information, and steady systems long before anything reaches the public stage.

Changemakers Are Already Everywhere

Women inspire change every day, often without calling it civic engagement.

They do it as employees who shape workplace culture and advocate for fairness. As PTO leaders who ensure schools reflect the needs of real families. As Sunday School teachers who model compassion, inclusion, and responsibility. As mentors who help others navigate systems with confidence. As friends who share information and perspective. As caregivers who understand exactly where systems work and where they fall short. These roles don’t require a microphone, but they do create impact.

This is civic engagement as it actually exists: lived, relational, and grounded in care for others.

Staying Informed Is Where Change Begins

In the Year of the Changemaker, staying informed is not about being constantly plugged in or opinionated. It’s about understanding what’s happening well enough to recognize when something matters to you, your family, or your community. You don’t have to engage in every issue to engage meaningfully.

Knowing what’s being debated at the Statehouse helps women anticipate change rather than react to it. It creates clarity where there might otherwise be confusion. It allows women to decide when to lean in, when to ask questions, and when to act—on their own terms.

Staying informed is not passive; it’s protective.

Changemaking Doesn’t Require Being Loud

There is a persistent myth that civic engagement only counts if it is public, visible, or bold.

But some of the most powerful changemakers are steady, thoughtful, and rooted in everyday life. They don’t engage for attention. They engage because they understand that what happens in policy eventually shows up at the dinner table, in classrooms, at work, and in community spaces.

2025 showed us what happens when women are asked to carry too much with too little support. 2026 is about changing that through knowledge, connection, and collective intention.

You don’t have to change everything. You don’t have to change all at once. You just have to recognize where you already lead and how that leadership shapes the world around you.

That is the heart of the Year of the Changemaker.