570. JDRF’s Momentous Rebrand to Breakthrough T1D + Implementing a Rebrand - Pam Morrisroe

Meet Pam. She's the Chief Marketing Officer at Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF). She’s here to share the inside scoop on their nearly two-year rebranding journey, driven by deep research 📊 and community feedback🗣️ The new name, Breakthrough T1D, perfectly reflects their mission to deliver life-changing breakthroughs for the type 1 diabetes community. Tune in to hear all about the rebranding process and what it means for their mission moving forward.

💡 Learn

• How to know it's time for a rebrand
• What goes into a rebranding process
• The importance of research + community involvement in a rebrand

Today's Guest
Pam Morrisroe, Chief Marketing Officer, Breakthrough T1D

Episode Highlights

• Pam’s story and journey to where she is today (4:00)
• How Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) knew it needed a rebrand (7:15)
• How Breakthrough T1D got buy-in on the rebrand (11:30)
• Tentpole moments of the rebrand (15:50)
• How key information was gathered and with stakeholders (19:20)
• Challenges and lessons learned along the way (21:35)
• How this rebrand addresses misconceptions around type 1 diabetes (24:50)
• A powerful moment of philanthropy in Pam’s life (29:40)
• Pam’s One Good Thing: You’re only new once. (34:30)
• How to connect with Pam + Breakthrough T1D (35:45) 

For more information + episode details visit: weareforgood.com/episode/570.

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Chapters

• 0:53 Rebranding Breakthrough With Pam Morris-Rowe
• 12:26 Community-Centric Nonprofit Rebranding Process
• 23:22 Unveiling Breakthrough
• 37:08 Empowering Community Involvement for Breakthrough

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:53

Hey, I'm John.

Speaker 2: 0:54

And I'm Becky.

Speaker 1: 0:55

And this is the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 1: 1:07

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Speaker 2: 1:16

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Speaker 1: 1:26

So let's get started. Hey Becky, oh my gosh, are you so excited.

Speaker 2: 1:32

I am so excited. We have a legend in the house and before I introduce her, so exciting. We have a legend in the house and before I introduce her, I think I want to ask the community a question real quick. Who here has ever heard of Breakthrough T1D? Has anyone heard of that? Well, if you haven't, because you're about to get an indoctrination into an incredible rebrand, because we are so honored today that Pam Morris Rowe, the chief marketing officer at Breakthrough T1D, which was formerly a little name you definitely have heard of, which is JDRF, juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and I got to say John, I know we're going to talk about this incredible rebrand of a 50-year-old organization. How do you do that? When do you know it's time?

Speaker 2: 2:19

But I have to say this is a personal one to me, because I have a dear friend, blake, who we were at church camp one year I'm going into story already before I even start the intro and I remember him having a hypoglycemic event for the first time ever and we found out that Blake had type two diabetes when we were at church camp and it was such a moment for me as an 11 year old kid wondering what is this? How do how do I help my friend and all of a sudden they're literally in the house today and I feel like I have followed this nonprofit organization. I've taken part in their event in the past and I just think this is going to be such a great conversation. If you're a marketer, great. If you're a founder, great. There is so much to be learned here.

Speaker 2: 3:07

So let's dive in, because Pam Morris-Rowe is here to just help us break down what this rebrand looks like and what it meant for the future of T1D research, the treatment, and it's really going to ask this existential question of what can you learn from your own organization about their branding? And so JDRF is the leading global organization I guess I should say was because it's now Breakthrough T1D that's really funding type 1 diabetes research over the last 50 years, and it's commonly thought of that T1D affected only children, hence like the J in juvenile. But now we know, thanks to all these advanced screening techniques and decades of research, that T1D can develop at any age and most people living with T1D are actually adults. So already I'm learning so much here.

Speaker 2: 3:58

So this new name is going to aim to get rid of this misconception and it's going to better reflect the organization's mission to accelerate life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat T1D and its complications. So we're going to dive into this today with the Chief Marketing Officer, pam. We are so excited you're here. You're about to dispel all the myths for us and bring us into the modern era. Welcome.

Speaker 3: 4:21

Thank you. Thank you, becky, thank you John. It's great to be with you. What an intro, becky. I feel like you just explained it all in such a succinct way. But yeah, it was quite a process, a labor of love for almost two years. But we're really thrilled to be here and I'm thrilled to be with you guys.

Speaker 2: 4:39

Well, john and I are going to geek out about any rebranding, like any sort of like marketing tone on what actually tells your story, which I feel like you're doing now. You're breaking through. I love that name breakthrough, but before we get into this, it's really important for us that people get to know Pam. Pam is a human being. So take us back, take us to little Pam growing up. Where did she get heart for this work and how did you end up in?

Speaker 3: 5:04

this role. Well, it's interesting. I may be one of those few people who used their college major for my career. I don't know how that happened. Actually, I went to the University of Vermont, which I loved, and my major was actually consumer studies, and it was that studying consumer behavior and understanding what motivates people to act when it comes to marketing. So I actually used my major and I've been in the marketing advertising world my entire career.

Speaker 3: 5:38

Take you back, though you asked me about as a little girl. I didn't know people who had a huge impact on my life would come back around when I took this role. We had a very dear family friend who had type 1 diabetes. She was a dear family friend of my parents. She unfortunately passed away at a young age, in her forties, and I didn't understand at the time what was happening or what was going on or why she had complications, why her eyesight was challenging, why she had problems with her feet.

Speaker 3: 6:10

I didn't understand any of that, but it is now clear to me that she lived with type one diabetes. But it is now clear to me that she lived with type 1 diabetes. You know almost her entire life and there was no technology like there is now to be able to monitor her blood sugar and know how much insulin she should be taking. So I take great pride in being here now because I know this organization played a huge role but makes living with this condition more manageable now. So I said when I took this job that I did that in Karen Pittman's honor, so I think about her a lot. So I would say that's something from my childhood. But as a young adult, marketing certainly played a huge role in my life and you know my major was consumer studies and then I went into the ad agency world for almost all of my career before coming to what was JDRF.

Speaker 1: 7:05

I mean, gosh, thank you for threading your story like that. And we've left Karen and her memory too. I love that you can pay that forward and just how you show up in your work. I think it's so important too because, like Becky and I Becky said in the intro we're geeks for this. I mean we call ourselves marketers disguised as fundraisers. We love, we live for rebrands.

Speaker 1: 7:23

I mean these kinds of conversation is very core to to how we like to talk, but to be able to ground it in the humans that have impacted our lives and our families like makes it reminds us the meaningfulness of this. Yeah, I mean, it's not the nameless faceless, it's Blake for Becky, it's Karen for you, pam, and it centers us in our work and it makes this conversation not about marketing. It makes it about this movement to take care of our people. So we want to get into the rebrand, pam, and I want to hear, because a lot of organizations talk about the surface level, I will say, because I'm a designer by trade, I've worked with dozens of organizations as a designer over the years and people think they need a rebrand, probably for all the wrong reasons. Will you get to the core of why, in the early process, did you decide that y'all really needed a rebrand, a renaming of JDRF Like what was that initial conversations look like?

Speaker 3: 8:10

Yeah, so I will tell you before I got here. So I've been here. It'll be three years in October best three years of my life, I mean. This place is amazing and it's because of everything you guys are talking about. Doing good makes a huge difference in your everyday work life. So when I got here, it was very clear to me that, through the leadership from our board, that this was something aim. So obviously we know brand is so much bigger than name, but our name is something that the organization struggled with for a long time.

Speaker 3: 8:41

So we were the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, then the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and I think it was about 12 years ago or so. They shortened it and made it the acronym JDRF, for the very reason you all talked about at the beginning of our conversation, which was that the J was a misnomer Juvenile had a negative connotation to it and it was a misnomer. It's a medical misnomer because what we are working on is type 1 diabetes. So they turned it into the acronym and I think there was a belief that that just wasn't enough. Becky, you actually almost proved it at the beginning, at the top of our conversation, because you said JDRF the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. No matter who we talk to, for anyone to understand who we were, you needed to unpack that acronym. So there was a sense that it wasn't working in general, and I think that the board that Aaron, our CEO, aaron Kowalski knew this. So when they were interviewing for this role, I think it was really important to them that they hire somebody who had a more well rounded marketing experience maybe not just a communicate, not just communications, because communications is a big piece of what we do.

Speaker 3: 10:05

So I knew it was on the brain. But I also knew that after meeting people within this organization that this was not to be taken lightly. This was not going to be based on opinion. We needed to really go through a rigorous process and a data-led process. So that's why it took so long. That's why it took almost two years to do this. I wanted to make sure that we hired the right agency. Research you'll hear me talk about in this conversation was key to this process. We needed deep research, one, to make sure we were making the right decision, but two, it almost it served as proof to some of our supporters who maybe didn't believe this was the right move. We needed that research to show that it was the right move. So it was quite a process. It was something I think the organization knew they needed to do, but it needed to be with the right team in place and it needed to be with the right research and backing to make sure we did it the right way.

Speaker 2: 11:07

Well, I want to commend you because I think there's a fundamental difference in hiring an agency to go out and build your brand and there's an entirely different journey when you hire an agency to go out and listen and collect story and get raw feedback, and when you have something that rolls off the tongue as much as JDRF does, because, we all know it, there's going to be certainly some loyalty brand loyalty there, there's going to be affinity there, and so we want to know what people think.

Speaker 2: 11:41

And when you roll out alongside community, they see their voices in there, they see their story in there. My gosh, you get so much more than just a rebrand announcement. It goes, it travels, because people see themselves within the brand, and that's what I'm seeing that you've done, and I just really want to commend you and the team, because people are the thing. It's not a name, it's not an organization, it's about the people. So kind of talk to us about that mindset that you and the team grabbed onto as you approach this rebrand. How did you get buy-in from your team? How did you get buy-in from your team? How did you get buy-in from your community? And I would love to hear just about that process from you.

Speaker 3: 12:25

Sure. Well, I think one of the most important things we did and I would say for anyone who's about to go through the process or is considering this process, especially if they're part of a nonprofit organization that the smartest thing we did was form a MarCom advisory council out of the gate. So and that was made up of volunteers. So this is this is a really volunteer led organization, right? The people who are involved in this organization have a very deep and personal connection to type one diabetes and they're an incredibly powerful and dynamic group of people. And we have we happen to have some volunteers who are incredible marketers. So the first thing I did, in partnership with my team and with the help of Aaron Kowalski, was identify those folks within our ecosystem that had deep marketing expertise. So there's just some folks I'll throw out.

Speaker 3: 13:24

This is this is not everyone, but Nick Bryan, who has been in the advertising world for four years. Patty Winiger has done incredible branding, Someone named Ian Joyce, who had a strong analytics background, and Red Maxwell, who was most recently at Bigfoot as their CMO. So I brought these folks together and several others and said I'd really like you to help me in this process. And that did two things. One I valued their expertise, I valued their lived experiences. They all are touched by this disease and they guided us through every step of the process, guided and partnered with us through every step of the process Because, you know this, sometimes, when you're in something like this, you need that outside perspective, right?

Speaker 2: 14:15

So they helped us, You're so close to it, you're so close to it.

Speaker 3: 14:19

You're so close to it.

Speaker 3: 14:26

So, for instance, they were incredible in helping us build, I think, one of the strongest RFPs request for proposal, which most of your audience will know that I've ever seen. I used to receive RFPs on the agency side and what they helped us build was an RFP that was sort of grounded in the human aspect and emotion. You know, sometimes agencies are nervous to work on nonprofit because they don't think it's going to be a huge payout for them. But I actually think that RFP got so many incredible agencies to want to work on this business because of the human insights that were in it. So they helped us with that. We vetted all the research with them. We went through the visual identity with them, the naming and testing process, and that really gave the community confidence that we were doing this right too. That because they knew their own were involved in this process. They knew people who really deeply understood type one diabetes were involved in this process. So that that, of all the things we did, I think was one of the most important things we did.

Speaker 1: 15:28

I mean it just threads with some of the big conversations we track on the podcast, because, Becky, you shared about this on LinkedIn today. It's not just about money transacting anymore, Like yes, that's a great way to find generosity, but we see it in like man, the people around your movement had this expertise that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to build a tap that was available to you, that were passionate, that were aligned, that wanted to give their time.

Speaker 1: 15:52

And this is probably flying under the radar. Who in your circle are you listening to today that you could reach out to to help on this? There's people embedded in your organizations, at your volunteers, that have these skillsets. So I love that you went there and shout out to all those names that helped y'all.

Speaker 3: 16:06

It's. We call it skill-based volunteerism and finding what folks really can offer beyond money, which we certainly appreciate and need to drive research forward. But using those skills was was incredibly helpful to us.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Yeah Well, I think a lot of people listening, you know, are going to see this rebrand that feels larger than life. It's, it's incredible which I've accomplished. Would you break down this playbook for us? I mean we love to, to share, like what did it look like behind the scenes? And it was almost like a two-year process you shared. So what are some of the tentpole moments that could be replicated in other organizations as they're thinking through if this makes sense for them?

Speaker 3: 16:43

Right. So I talked about that council. I think that's important. Bring together experts who are tied to the mission and have them play a role, because it also gives confidence to others that you've got buy-in from people who really are living and breathing type 1 diabetes every day.

Speaker 3: 17:01

We picked a great partner, and I was lucky enough to have worked with Siegel and Gale in the past. American Express used to be one of my clients and I saw them do beautiful work, and what they stand for is simplicity, and we needed simplicity. Right, we? What we're talking about is complex, but people are bombarded. You guys know people are bombarded with messages every day, so we needed to take these sort of complex topics and themes and get them out into the world in a simple way, and that's what Siegel and Gale stands for. So we picked the right partner Siegel and Gale stands for.

Speaker 3: 17:40

So we picked the right partner, and I think one of the things that would be important for your listeners to know is we knew going into it. We needed someone with a dedicated naming department. Right, we knew the research needed to tell us if we needed to change our name. We had a hunch that was going to be the case, so we made sure they had a really strong naming department, a really strong strategy and analytics team, because the research was going to be key and incredible creative. Obviously, we wanted to bring this to life in a beautiful way that would resonate with the community. So picking the right partner was key. And I think, going back to the research, we tested every phase of the process and I think that was important too. We first tested do we need to change the name of this organization? The answer was obviously yes. We then tested our new strategic platform, visual identity, our names, the name the testing around names was intense and we did all of this globally. So the research I mean you need that.

Speaker 2: 18:45

You need that research to sort of validate what you believe, but you need that research for your community to understand why this decision made sense as well, yeah, and I, and I think research saves you in so many different ways, and data can, because for you, I don't think it's just about the brand, it's about the story that the brand is going to tell once it's launched.

Speaker 2: 19:10

And I think that that is the beauty of research. If you're only doing quantitative research, you're missing so much on those powerful words, on the stories, on the connection points, on the heroes. And to me, a rebrand is such an opportunity, not just to tell the story of where you're going, but the story of who's here and who's really fueling this movement. And so I want to know, pam, how did you get and involve your stakeholders in this process? Because you have such a responsibility. You want the people to feel seen, you want your board members to feel seen, you want your staff, who's in this every single day, to feel seen. Talk about what that involvement looked like and how you were able to sort of coalesce all of those messages between so many different audiences.

Speaker 3: 20:04

Well, I talked about the council. That was important and they were involved every step of the way. Those folks also happen to sit on different volunteer boards and leadership boards, in some cases on our organization, so in our organization. So every time we would have volunteer leadership meetings, I would be giving an update. I wouldn't be, we weren't disclosing the name, obviously, but we did make it clear to our most important and valued volunteers and community boards that this was happening. So we would bring people along for the ride, if you will, and let them know about different research findings, like, for instance, the biggest one, which is that globally, 36% of people had no idea who JDRF was. That was people with T1D and their caregivers. Oh my God, there was a belief and I think that that was eye opening because in this organization, if you're in it right, you believe everyone knows who JDRF is, if you have type one diabetes or if your family is affected by type one diabetes.

Speaker 3: 21:13

And we found that 36% of people globally had no idea who we were. That was sort of the number one stat. So we would bring those findings and where we were in the process to our volunteer leadership teams. That was really important and I think that helped develop significant buy-in. And then, becky, it goes to what you were talking about Our research was not just quantitative research. Our research was also very rigorous qualitative research. So we interviewed founding families, we interviewed partners. We've worked with researchers that we've worked with for years, government officials we've worked with, so we really made sure to understand what the sentiment was among our most valued stakeholders as part of the research and then made sure we brought those people along for the ride during the process as well off Wow.

Speaker 1: 22:11

It's a community approach. Love so much that you're showing this. I mean, would you take us into a couple of challenges too? I mean definitely involving this many people over a couple of years with things that are people have a lot of opinions of, I'm sure?

Speaker 2: 22:21

Oh my gosh, what are some challenges?

Speaker 1: 22:23

and lessons that you learned kind of along the way.

Speaker 3: 22:26

Well, there were some challenges. I will tell you. When people heard that we were doing this, when certain people would get wind of the fact that we were even considering this, I think there was a lot of fear. So a lesson learned is this balance of sharing without giving away confidential information. So that's why I talked a little bit about we would take folks through the research.

Speaker 3: 22:54

We brought a lot of folks under the hood and that made me very, very nervous, especially as we got close to launch, because I was fearful that it would leak in a way that we really didn't want it to leak, because we really wanted the launch to have impact. So, let's say, somehow we figured out a really nice balance of keeping people informed without disclosing all the information about the brand which really could have jeopardized us. The other thing we did that, I think, was so smart the name in the testing just rose to the top Breakthrough to you. Indeed, just rose to the top in the testing, but it was the one I always favored anyway, because that word is in our mission statement we're accelerating life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat type 1 diabetes and its complications. It makes sense for our organization. So the other thing we did was we started to tease the word breakthrough probably six months before the launch, so that when it happened it was almost like ah of course that makes perfect sense Total alignment.

Speaker 2: 24:04

I see you know our events.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Blowing these emails and these social posts.

Speaker 3: 24:08

Yes, yes, we had emails, what, what are? What is the latest in breakthroughs? You know we have a large research summit called the Mission Summit. Every year that was breakthroughs past, present and future. We were really starting to seed the name our annual report. The theme of our annual, most recent annual report, before we rebranded was around breakthroughs. So I think that was a really smart move too, because it was very clear how ownable this was to our organization and how closely tied it was to our mission.

Speaker 2: 24:39

Yeah, I just think that this entire process is so interesting to me. It feels like the way we talk about community building as a business and this idea that when you build with community, you can have much better aligned, synchronous outcomes, and it just feels like you have done this so beautifully and we are talking about tens of millions of people who have this disease. I don't know exactly the figure. You can probably tell us.

Speaker 3: 25:10

Yeah, it's about 1.45 in the United States, about 8 million globally, but on the rise.

Speaker 2: 25:17

Wow, wow. I mean, that is just a tremendous amount of the population, and I think the last thing we want to cover in this, because we're just so curious about it, is the misconceptions, and you talked about this just a little bit before. What does this new name and brand addressing your misconceptions, and what kind of clarity and long-term impact has this created for your org as a runway running forward?

Speaker 3: 25:44

Right. So part of that testing to see if we needed to change the name, we did a lot of research around the perceptions around JDRF, so there were two things that came out and that juvenile. When you unpack the name, that juvenile was obviously causing us some trouble because so many people from quant and qual standpoint. So many people thought we only focused on children.

Speaker 2: 26:14

Right, that's what people thought you were one of them.

Speaker 3: 26:17

We were only focused on children. So therefore, many people also believed that type 1 diabetes only affects children. Right, you know, I had an interesting experience. I was at the ADA scientific sessions when I first started and I was speaking to a chief medical officer this is a perfect example of one of the reasons why we needed to change the name. A chief medical officer at one of the device companies who said to me never would send any of my patients to you because I thought you only focused on how you only were supporting families with children and I thought, oh man, we are reaching, we are missing an opportunity. We're missing a big opportunity here.

Speaker 3: 26:58

So that came through in the research. Right, we knew it needed to focus on type one diabetes. We are an organization that is to reach the entire type 1 diabetes community. So by losing the J, which was causing misperceptions, that helped us tremendously. And there's a couple things we found.

Speaker 3: 27:33

So we have found that with this new name, social sentiment is really strong. We have found that we are attracting a lot of adults adults with T1D as followers. We're seeing that from a social media standpoint. That we're attracting more people who are joining our community summits more adults with T1D. We're seeing that happen, which isn't a surprise, right, because we get rid of the J and the name has T1D in it now.

Speaker 3: 27:55

But the other thing that this word breakthrough is doing and we knew this, but we're seeing it in the way people talk about the brand on social media and at events is that breakthrough is representative of every single thing we do in this organization. So it's representative of the research we're driving forward right, we're accelerating breakthroughs but it's representative of the work our advocacy team does to help make sure that therapies and technology and tools get into the hands of people with T1D, and it's also representative of what our community engagement team does. It's a real breakthrough when people are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and feel like that they have a community of support. That's a breakthrough too. So we're finding that that word is representing all components of our mission really well, while also reaching the entire type 1 diabetes community in the entire type 1 diabetes community.

Speaker 2: 28:56

I'm so glad that you brought that up because I wanted to geek out on that word just for a hot second, because you have the word breakthrough, it's an action verb.

Speaker 2: 29:01

And when I first heard it, it made me believe that I could be an active part of this mission, that me coming in was allowing for breakthroughs, coming in was allowing for breakthroughs, and so I saw myself immediately in it and I thought how brilliant that not necessarily your nonprofit, but your movement is talking about movement in its name. It is an actual call to get active in this. So I just wanted to compliment you on it, because it was the literal first thing I thought of when I heard it.

Speaker 3: 29:32

It's a noun and a verb right. It was the literal first thing I thought of when I heard it. It's a noun and a verb right, and we know that we are the organization that will drive cures of type 1 diabetes. But I think people hear the name and the way we talk about ourselves and use the name and content. You know we are breaking through. It is a verb in this case we're breaking through T1D. We're breaking through. It is. It is a verb in this case we're breaking through to you and D. So, um, it does have that movement and it does make people feel like they want to get involved in this organization.

Speaker 1: 30:03

Amazing, yeah, I mean, we're such fans. So I mean, Pam, you've given us a look at y'all's playbook. I think there's something here for everybody that listens today. I just wonder if you would take us back to the human piece of this story, because we talk about and celebrate philanthropy every day on this podcast. We feel like it informs a lot of the way we see the world and I wonder if you would take us back from your journey to a moment that philanthropy or an act of kindness really intersected and changed you as a person. It can be big or small We've heard it all on the podcast but take us back while we've heard it all on the podcast.

Speaker 3: 30:37

But take us back. Well, I mean, it happened here. I mean, the first thing I'll say is you all you heard me talk about Karen Pittman, but now I have hundreds of friends and people who are close to me with type one diabetes. You know that, that, that I have become very close to who I work with here at this organization. So this this has, this place, has a lot of meaning to me and what we're doing has a lot of meaning to me, and I I took this role and this rebrand very seriously because I wanted to do right by all of those people. So that's the first thing.

Speaker 3: 31:08

But if I think of a moment, one moment, one thing I try to do in this role is take part in as many events and activities. You know, becky, you mentioned that you've been to some of our events before, whether it be a walk or a cycling event walk. Well, that's what I'm going to talk about. I did last. I actually did, I didn't just go, I did the Burlington Vermont ride. So I did the ride, and Burlington Vermont is where I went to college, as I mentioned. It all comes full circle. So I said I don't know a more beautiful place to do this. I want to raise money for this organization and it just allows me the experience. I need to see, the experience as the chief marketing officer.

Speaker 3: 31:50

So I ended up riding with a woman who actually, who has type one diabetes and works in our DC chapter, and I probably hadn't trained as much as I should have, I needed to train more and we just started talking on on the, on the path and I and on the trail, and I said, how far are you going? And she said, well, I want to make it. I forget what she said. I want to make it 50. And I thought, okay, 50 miles. I thought I'll go. Maybe I'll go 30. I'll go 30. I'll go to the first pit stop and back.

Speaker 3: 32:25

But then I'm thinking she has type one diabetes and I was thinking, ok, she's going 50 miles, I'm going 50 miles. So she Danielle's her name and her her pump malfunctioned at the first stop and she started injecting insulin and I'm thinking this woman is incredible, this is incredible. I've got to go as far as she goes because she's the most incredible person I ever met. You know, it's moments like that. It's moments like that where you go and my friends, my colleagues. They're making I think the number is 180 more decisions a day than I'm making. So that just became super real to me, right what type one diabetes is and what it means when I saw that. And then it also made me feel like it's for people like Danielle, it's for people like Brian and Grace who are on my team that I wanted to make sure this was done right, because we knew we got this brand right. It would help move our mission forward faster, because we're going to get more people involved in this organization.

Speaker 2: 33:29

Pam, I like you so much, I think you are great. I just, I just see you out there in solidarity. I bet you could. I bet you were sore as hell.

Speaker 3: 33:41

I couldn't wait for that, that thatbrew beer at the end of the Right, right, I get it.

Speaker 2: 33:48

I just think that these events are not just events. We say it all the time on here your gala is not just a gala. Your bike ride is not just a bike ride, because when you can tether this community gathering with something that's bigger than all of us and you have a moment, like you did with Danielle, where you're watching in, amidst your pain, her overcoming so much and your understanding that that this is bigger than these 50 miles I mean, john, we've both run the Oklahoma city marathon before, and it is a different vibe when you run under the banners of 168 people who were killed in that terrorist attack and your pain feels diminished, in a way, because the idea is bigger. And so I thank you for bringing it back, because it is always about the Daniels, it's about the Blakes, it's about the Karens and it's about how do we find these people to walk with as we march toward our purpose.

Speaker 2: 34:50

Friends, whether that's your mission, whether you're a volunteer and you have a different passion that's outside of your day-to-day nonprofit work or your social enterprise, like find something to rally around, because these are the moments that light us up, they define us and they give us energy for the work that's ahead. And so, pam, we wrap up all of our conversations with a one good thing. This could be a piece of advice, maybe a life hack. What's something you'd like to keep with our community and share today?

Speaker 3: 35:22

Well, I think I think John said it earlier and it is a piece of advice that I got when I first started, which is you're only new once. And the point of that comment you're only new once is listen, listen before you act. And and I pretty decisive and I like to solve problems, but I thought, especially here and for the job we had to do, listening was really important. It was important to only be new once, to really listen, to go on a listening tour and understand how people felt, what the challenges were, what strengths were. So I love this idea of you're only new ones, which is sort of code for be sure to listen before you, before you act, and I think that has helped me tremendously A little. Morris.

Speaker 2: 36:14

Rowe wisdom bomb there at the end for you.

Speaker 1: 36:19

Seriously such a fan of just how you've entered this space today and how you've also centered this interview on the stories of so many people that have surrounded your work and your life, so thank you for that. I know our listeners are gonna wanna connect with you, your amazing team, your amazing mission. Where do y'all hang out online? How can we find y'all and how can people connect?

Speaker 3: 36:38

Well, we are everywhere on social and most recently on TikTok. So please look for us at Breakthrough T1D on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, on X and on TikTok. You can find me on LinkedIn, obviously, pam Morris-Rowe, and we're happy to connect because, quite frankly, we're trying to build awareness around type 1 diabetes, around those 180 decisions I just told you about. You know, an autoimmune disease is interesting because sometimes people don't know really what it takes and what it means. So the more people that learn about us and our organization, I think the better. It is, like I said, for us to move our mission forward. So please come find us, either me or our social handles for Breakthrough T1D.

Speaker 2: 37:30

Well, as someone with an autoimmune disease, I thank you on behalf of all of us for raising the veneer and lifting the veil on all of it and finding a way for people to get involved. So please go check out Breakthrough T1D. Please, if this conversation is speaking to you, get involved. Sounds like there's a ton of volunteer opportunities. You are in a community with someone who literally said we value all types of currency that come into our organization. Bring your stories, bring your friends, bring your energy. Pam, so great to know you. Keep going with your incredible work and please know we're absolutely rooting for every part of your breakthroughs that are coming.

Speaker 3: 38:10

Thank you, it was really a pleasure talking to both of you. Thanks so much.