In 2025, the nonpartisan grassroots group Better Wyoming, which brings volunteers together to work on key issues that impact the lives of hardworking Wyomingites, bears little resemblance to the loose-knit organization that began eight years ago.
What’s changed? Pretty much everything, from the size of our staff to what Better Wyoming has been able to accomplish and plans to do in the future.
Documenting what happened at the Legislature, often in irreverent fashion, seemed like a good idea in 2017 for two guys with journalism experience. Executive Director Nate Martin, a Rock Springs native, had worked for newspapers and magazines. Kerry Drake was a former reporter and editor at newspapers in Casper and Cheyenne.
But other news organizations were already fulfilling the role we originally tried to carve out, often on the fly. Better Wyoming’s name pointed to what should be our focus, which is advocacy through grassroots organizing to improve the lives of Equality State residents.
With the addition of two field organizers, we were on our way. COVID-19 slowed us down a bit, with most meetings limited to Zoom calls, but it didn’t stop what Martin decided should be our initial goal: Medicaid expansion.
It wasn’t exactly fertile ground for change in a Legislature that had already rejected adding 19,000 low-income workers to the Medicaid insurance program for seven years straight. But we persevered, working with the Healthy Wyoming coalition.
While Medicaid expansion is still not a reality, Better Wyoming and its partners have had success in this uphill battle through our public awareness campaigns.
In 2021, the House passed a Medicaid expansion bill for the first time as our coalition organized rallies at the Capitol and helped train volunteers to testify at committee meetings. We were integral in persuading former legislative opponents to support the measure, though we were not able to reach the finish line in the Senate.
Still, there were important victories. In 2023, the Legislature passed a bill to extend Medicaid postpartum benefits for mothers from two months to a year.
In 2023 we also conducted a statewide online survey and hosted healthcare summits in Casper, Cheyenne and Lander. The consensus on the top issues people want to see addressed are the lack of healthcare providers, affordability, and lack of mental healthcare. Better Wyoming led a successful grassroots campaign during the legislature’s 2024 budget session to increase funding for the state Department of Health.
We are still actively focused on healthcare issues, but we are also working on the state’s lack of affordable housing, education funding and other issues. Better Wyoming’s advocacy work has helped fight off dozens of policies that would have been detrimental to residents of the state.
We’ve broadened our base by hiring more field organizers in Albany, Converse, Fremont, Laramie and Natrona counties. We’re also helping volunteers join us as they explore the issues that resonate in Campbell and Sheridan counties.
To help develop community and state leaders, this summer we relaunched an earlier effort called the Grassroots Institute. Forty people signed up for the eight-week series, which is conducted with our partners at the Wyoming Civic Engagement Network. Through a combination of expert input and collaborative discussion, participants are guided in the creation of their own projects.
Through our work over the past nine years, we’ve discovered a failure in the state’s elections and educational system: Few people actually know who represents them in the Legislature, much less how they vote.
In spring Better Wyoming completed our first Grassroots Accountability report, which tracks how legislators voted on key issues we’ve identified in addition to the ones that regularly make headlines around the state. We issued a comprehensive report in each county.
The biggest lesson we have learned is that we can’t do this work alone. We need people who want a Better Wyoming for their kids and grandkids to get involved; one that gives them a reason to stay here and improve the quality of lives in their communities.