Where the possibilities lie
The ThirdStory team at Maraeroa marae, Porirua, Aotearoa
A reflection on 2025 and a quiet hope for 2026, from ThirdStory Chief Executive Officer Keren Caple.
As 2025 draws to a close, it would be easy to describe the year as heavy.
Across the world, many of the systems we work alongside in education, health, care, housing, justice are under strain. Communities are feeling the weight of uncertainty, inequality and loss. For many people, this has not been an easy year.
And yet.
When we look back at 2025 through the lens of our work at ThirdStory, what stands out most clearly is not the difficulty, but the people who chose to keep showing up anyway, and the quiet, determined possibility that lives in that choice.
Becoming ThirdStory
One of the most significant moments of the year was becoming ThirdStory.
In March, we consciously stepped into a new chapter by separating from our Innovation Unit family with care and respect, and building a name, identity and story that better reflected who we are now and how we work across places. The process was rigorous, imperfect, and at times uncomfortable, and it felt right.
We built the ThirdStory identity from our values: humility, curiosity, courage, trust and care. A friend told us the brand “feels like how we’ve always experienced you,” which remains one of the most generous pieces of feedback we’ve received.
We are deeply grateful to the many people who walked alongside us in that transition - from Streamer Strategy, to For Purpose, to partners and friends who joined us in Melbourne and Perth to celebrate, and to our Board and team who carried the work while the ground was shifting beneath us.
Work that mattered because people mattered
This year reminded us, again and again, that meaningful change prioritises relationships.
We saw that in This is an Influencer, the second chapter of our Award winning This is Manly campaign, where men and boys across Western Australia showed up with honesty, humour and humility to explore what it means to be a positive influence in everyday life. In a world grappling with family and domestic violence, the work offered something rare: not slogans, but real people reflecting on how they show up for others.
We saw it in our Social Design Academy through the graduation of our third SoDA cohort in Australia, and the seeds planted for new cohorts in Aotearoa and Bermuda. Participants spoke not about “fixing” problems, but about learning to sit with complexity, to listen deeply, and to feel their way into better questions. That shift, from certainty to curiosity, gives us enormous hope.
We saw it in our partnerships across health, education and social systems:
gathering insights and ideas with and from those addressing racism and health inequities, youth eating disorders and mental health, and respectful relationships in schools and communities;
growing the potential of family violence hubs, mental health services, homelessness initiatives, and education reform efforts across Australia and Bermuda through taking action on what people say they want and need; and
walking with individuals and organisations as they do the messy work of change with integrity in complex environments.
None of this work belonged to us alone. It was shaped, and often led, by communities, practitioners, researchers, advocates and public servants who trusted us enough to think together.
Place matters
2025 also reminded us that place matters.
We were privileged to gather kanohi ki te kanohi in Aotearoa, spending time together at Maraeroa Marae, grounding our work in relationships, allyship and shared learning. Those days strengthened connections across geographies and deepened our understanding that allyship looks different in different places, but always requires humility and action.
Across Australia, our work stretched from vibrant metropolitan centres to regional and remote communities, each context demanding its own pace, language and way of listening.
In Bermuda, we continued to walk alongside ambitious education reform efforts, learning firsthand how history, politics and hope intersect in small island systems.
ThirdStory is a global organisation with local hearts. We are held together by shared values, and shaped by the places that invite us in.
Gratitude for the people who make this possible
At the centre of everything we do is our team.
Across Australia, Aotearoa and Bermuda, our people held complexity with care this year, supporting each other through change, loss, growth and uncertainty. They brought discipline and creativity, seriousness and humour, and a deep respect for the communities they work alongside.
We are also grateful to our partners, collaborators, associates, board members and funders - many of whom choose the slower, harder path of doing change with people, not to them. When the world is moving very fast, that's when it’s so hard to do the slower work of systems change.
Members of the team at the 2025 Good Design Awards
Looking toward 2026
We enter 2026 without illusions. We know the world will not suddenly become simpler. Systems will not magically align. Funding environments will remain challenging. The work will stay hard. But we also enter the year with conviction.
Conviction that the Third Story, the space between what has been and what could be, is still where the possibilities lie.
Conviction that when people come together with honesty, courage and care, something new can emerge.
Conviction that humility, relationship and shared learning are not soft options, they are the foundations of lasting change.
In 2026, we will continue to deepen our practice, strengthen our allyships, and support the people and places doing the quiet work of transformation. We will keep listening. Keep learning. Keep walking alongside.
Thank you for being part of this story with us.
Here’s to the work ahead …. and to creating the Third Story together.
Keren Caple
Chief Executive Officer