It Gets Better 2025 Impact Report

In a year in which LGBTQ+ youth were treated like talking points in everyone else’s culture war, It Gets Better stayed focused on The Bigger Picture: making things better for LGBTQ+ youth. Scroll any headline and you’ll see what’s stacked against LGBTQ+ youth. Scroll this page and you’ll see what they’re building anyway.

From classrooms and queer proms to Twitch streams and mental health tools, these numbers represent countless of individual moments where a young person felt less alone and better equipped to navigate the world around them. Behind every program, livestream, workshop, and grant is a young person who deserves a future they can actually see themselves in. 

Here’s what that looked like in 2025 and beyond, by the numbers.

More than two million people engaged with stories that remind LGBTQ+ youth that they’re worthy, seen, and not alone, including 655,000 youth ages 13–24 who found messages of hope during a time of rising anti-LGBTQ+ hostility.

Since 2022, we’ve invested $1.6 million in 172 youth-led projects across 48 states, D.C., and 9 Canadian provinces. It Gets Better: Changemakers is giving young people the resources to build safer schools, spark creativity, and support each other in ways adults often can’t.This year alone, we funded nine queer probms, eight LGBTQ+ pride events, eight LGBTQ+-inclusive media projects and five gender-affirming closets, among other projects.

Our digital mental health resource imi has supported 205,000 people since 2022, including 35,000 just this year, giving LGBTQ+ youth a safe space to explore identity, cope with stress, and build resilience when in-person support isn’t always an option.

Nearly one million people, including 8,526 educators, accessed It Gets Better EDU resources and engaged with Youth Voices-generated content in 2025. From resources designed to make classrooms and campuses safer for LGBTQ+ youth to videos, speeches, blog posts and more centering LGBTQ+ youth perspectives, these tools helped better prepare educators and other adults to be the allies young people deserve.

This year, 130 LGBTQ+ streamers went live on Twitch for 350 hours as part of It Gets Better: A Digital Pride Experience, turning gaming spaces into unapologetically queer spaces. Together, they raised visibility, built community, and showed young viewers that Pride doesn’t just live in big city parades. It lives wherever our community gathers.

Our annual Global Summit brought together participants from 13 countries, connecting members of It Gets Better’s Global Affiliate Network, activists, and changemakers from around the globe. Our dual-language global summits offer participants opportunities to gain insights from their peers on advocacy, mental health, storytelling, and youth-centered program design. These gatherings are often launchpads for new ideas and for collaborative activism across borders.

For our 15th-anniversary quinceañera celebration, nearly 2,000 people joined us live on Twitch as we teamed up with The Sims to celebrate a decade and a half of queer storytelling. It wasn’t just a party; it was a global check-in where LGBTQ+ youth and allies showed up to honor how far we’ve come and how far we still plan to go.

Eighteen LGBTQ+ authors joined our inaugural Summer Reading Challenge, rallying readers to celebrate queer stories and the young people who see themselves in them. As book bans sweep schools and libraries around the nation, these authors rallied readers to celebrate queer stories and the young people who see themselves in them.

When you support It Gets Better, you’re supporting programs like these — youth-led and informed programs designed to uplift, empower and connect LGBTQ+ youth around the globe.