How to Know When it is Time to Change Careers & Turn Your Passion into Purpose with Baby2Baby Co-CEOs｜On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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We talk about diapers perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

So if you don't have six to eight diapers to drop your child off at daycare, you can't go to work and you can't go to a job interview.

So they're stopping. It's really like a block for women and parents being able to go to work.

So it's really this symbol of poverty.

That's how we look at diapers.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.

Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow.

Now you know one of the things I'm fascinated about is people who find a passion and are able to turn it into a purpose.

People who have a cause that they care about and they're able to get organized around it to make a change in impact in the world.

And today's guests have done exactly that.

Nora Weinstein and Kelly Sawyer Patrickov are the co-CEO's of Baby to Baby.

Baby to Baby is a national nonprofit organization that serves more than one million children living in poverty every year.

Serving children across all 50 states, Baby to Baby distributes diapers, formula, clothing and basic necessities that every child deserves.

The organization has distributed over 450 million essential items to children in homeless shelters, domestic violence programs, foster care, hospitals, underserved schools and families who have lost everything in the wake of disasters.

This last year, Baby to Baby has delivered more than 1.5 million emergency supplies to children affected by the Maui wildfires.

Please welcome to the show Nora and Kelly.

Thank you both for being here.

Thanks for having us. I'm so grateful to have you both here.

And honestly when my team and I met you both last year, we got to come and join your volunteer program, which was a service day for our team.

We made a commitment at the company that we wanted to find programs that meant of some importance to the team, causes that people were passionate about on the team.

And yours was right up there and the team wanted to get right behind it.

And getting to be there that day and learn about the incredible work you were doing, I was totally blown away.

Very much an admiration of both of you and your stories and journeys.

And then of course I got to attend your Gala, which was phenomenal and spectacular.

I don't know, I can't even remember how much you raised.

Was it 12 million in that Gala that you raised?

We remember 12.6. 12.6.

12.6 to be it. I love that Kelly.

Good, be exact. It was just incredible to see just two people who are so passionate about a cause, active on it every day and creating amazing value from it.

So congratulations first of all and thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you. All right. Well, let's dive straight in.

Lauren Kelly, I want to talk to you both individually and collectively about your respective journeys.

This is not what you've done forever.

I believe it's 12 years now that you've been building baby to baby.

We just hit 13. Just hit 13.

Amazing. Congratulations.

So let's talk about your individual journeys.

And I want to find out when you were in your previous lives, was this a passion of yours?

Was this something you were aware of or were you lost in a completely different world?

Whoever wants to go first?

I will. I looking back, I think this makes so much sense that this is where I've ended up.

As a kid, I was giving back.

I think it's really important when parents instill that in their children.

I went to Hebrew school and giving back was a core part of what we learned.

We had something called Sedaka, which was bringing change every week to school and whatever you could collect in your house and that money was going to go toward helping others.

We also had a food pantry that was attached to our temple and we would go on the weekends and my parents would bring me and we would give food to people who were less fortunate.

Fast forward, I became a lawyer.

And in my law firm, Scadenarb's, which I love dearly, it's a big corporate law firm doing giant securities cases.

But there's an option to do pro bono work and pro bono work is obviously helping people who are less fortunate without charging them.

And that's what I gravitated to immediately because it was just to me that was so obvious.

Why would you want to work on a big automotive or oil case when you got to help a low-income woman get housing?

So it was a no brainer to me.

I was so thrilled to have the opportunity to do that from the law firm and that's just all I wanted to do.

So looking back, I was going toward this direction of giving back and baby-to-baby is certainly a huge extension of that.

But I do think it was always there.

And I do think it's important to teach your children about giving back from a young age.

I think a lot of the people we meet on this journey that care, they started caring as a child.

I love that. Thank you so much.

Kelly, it was the same question.

Well, I was a model. So you wouldn't think of that probably as a giving back career.

But it was a career that took me all over the world.

But also when I was home in my home base of New York, I would volunteer at a head start center in Harlem that I knew people who worked there.

And so I would work with kids in my free time.

I always loved being with kids.

I wanted to be a teacher when I was younger.

And so I was in the classroom with these children.

And they had no shoes that fit clothes that were too small.

They would wear the same clothes to school every day.

They wouldn't come to school because they didn't have these basic things.

And so that sort of instilled in me this need to help children with basic essentials.

Like I saw what could happen if they didn't have them.

They couldn't get an education.

They wouldn't show up to school.

So that was something that was part of my free time.

But I loved it so much. I was really passionate about it.

And when I moved to LA and Nora and I met, my father-in-law happened to introduce us because he knew I had a passion for giving back to children and need and Nora did as well.

So he set us up on a blind date.

And that was how we met. And so it all sort of happened from there.

That's genius. Yeah. I'm sure he's taking all the credit now.

He definitely has trust me.

That's amazing. No, what I love about both of those stories independently, and I love what you're saying, Nora, this idea of how giving back has been a part of your culture ever since you were young.

And I can definitely identify that and recognize that.

I remember my parents didn't have a lot growing up.

Giving back was always part of their life.

And I think even when I was growing up, there were times in my mind where I thought, when I have more, I'll give more.

But I found that that was the wrong mindset, it was the wrong mentality, whatever I have, whatever I can give is a great place to start, whether it's time or energy or money or whatever else it may be.

And I guess, did you feel like in your career, Nora, when you were going down that path and you were choosing pro bono work, did that positively or negatively affect your career?

And how did that impact, you know, being a lawyer and navigating that world?

Well, it was positive in every way because, again, the big firms do take on this pro bono commitment and they owe the hours.

And so they need some of their associates and partners to be people who love it.

And so that was lucky. And then you get so much legal experience because at a big firm, big, complex cases as a junior lawyer, you're having a very minor role in a big, complex case.

And pro bono cases, you work directly with individuals.

And so you advance that much more quickly.

You're in court, you're in front of judges, you're with a client.

And so I actually think it's a win-win for the law firms because you're gaining experience and also giving back.

Yeah, the reason I ask is I feel like people are always feeling, I wonder whether you come across this.

But I feel a lot of people always feel like if I give back, I'm going to slip behind.

We're going to fall behind.

If I focus on that, and I remember I was at a consulting firm Accenture and giving back was a big part of their culture as well.

And we had service days in the company and we had something called ADP, which was Accenture's area of doing pro bono work.

And it was encouraged. But I find that that's newer and growing now.

Whereas, you know, I imagine like 10, 20 years ago, that wasn't the norm.

So Kelly, how have you felt about that in terms of like this identity of giving back?

Do you feel like it's kind of seen positively or is it always something that people think, oh yeah, I'll think about that later.

How do people approach that?

I think what we do at Baby to Baby is we try and make giving back fun and interesting.

And we try and make it for whether you're an individual, a company.

You want to come with your whole class from your school and your teacher.

So we try and make it fun and trendy.

And we've tried to like, you know, bring some excitement into giving back.

And as you saw when you came for your team building day, I think it's really working.

And I think we get so many great different organizations from, you know, your team or the girl scouts come in or we'll have classrooms full of kids.

But we also have big studios come in and different companies come in for their give back day.

And we've been able to really make that part of Baby to Baby from day one.

I love it. People, I agree that it's changed.

But I think, and I think for reasons, for all kinds of reasons, I think a lot of individuals are just love it and love giving back.

I think children organically like to give back.

I think companies have to give back.

And so there are companies that have it in their culture because it's organic and the leaders want it.

And there are companies that just have to have it because I think employees demand it.

So what we're finding is that when we, you know, we're obviously a national organization, but even in our headquarters, our volunteer sessions where we have the most, they fill up in seconds after we put up.

And we have two of them, we have sessions twice a day.

And the minute they open up about a month ahead of time and they are, they fill up immediately and people are calling to get, you know, can they come later at night?

And they come on the weekends, people want to teach, they, people, I think, are desperate to teach their kids to give back.

And I think actually the more they have, a lot of times people, you know, people are, they recognize how much they have.

And I think they really think it's a responsibility, especially if they didn't grow up that way.

I think we talked to a lot of people who didn't grow up with as much, now find themselves in situations where they have so much.

And they don't know how to teach their kids the way that they were taught.

And how could someone in a privileged situation teach their kids that that is not how the world lives?

And so I think people are just dying for, dying for, I think people are really craving opportunities to give back.

And I don't think there are that many.

So we have found that it's often expensive to have people volunteer or there's nonprofits that are on a smaller scale where I'm sure they would want help, but they can't always afford to have people come in.

It's messy. It's time consuming.

And so there aren't as many programs as they're actually used to be.

And that's why I think when people identify a place that can really use them in a way where they know that they're being used in a purposeful manner and not just doing busy work.

And when they're at baby to baby, they're seeing they are folding outfits for children and putting together.

We try to make it very specific so that people understand how they're giving back.

And even though we talk a lot about big numbers and 450 million items were giving out and a million kids, people want to focus on individuals.

So when they're folding an outfit and choosing what outfit to give a two-year-old who's in foster care, who they know is coming in such a horrific circumstance and they're going to get to choose the outfit that goes to this child who's in such need, people feel a lot of pride and want those opportunities.

Absolutely. I remember when we were there that day, I felt your team did a phenomenal job.

Obviously, we met, but I felt you and your team did a great job of educating us in what we were actually doing and where it was going and how it works.

And I found that to be, you're so right, as a volunteer, you felt so much more closely connected to the work that was going on.

So when you both meet, was it love at first sight?

I love this person. We're in sync.

We should do something together.

What was that energy like?

Because obviously this was a warm intro, yes.

It was from someone you trust and respect.

But what came out of that initial meeting?

So we had dinner with our husbands just down the street.

And we were probably 10 minutes of the conversation was about I was giving back.

I was modeling, living in New York, just moved here and giving back at the Head Start Center and Nora told me about her pro bono work with women and children.

So we sort of connected on that and then went on a merry way.

And that was kind of it. And then I think we reached out to each other later on, but it wasn't like the next day.

It was a little while later and we had coffee and we were talking about like, how could we start something?

What could we do to help women and children?

That was both of our passion.

And what we decided to do was go and meet with different nonprofits in Los Angeles at the time and see what was missing.

So we went to homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters, Head Start Centers, schools, and we asked what was missing, what was the need.

And across the board, no matter who we talked to, it was, we're doing the programming, but what's missing is families are struggling to afford diapers, food, these basic essentials.

And sort of a light bulb back to the Head Start Center where I saw the children who couldn't come to school because their shoes were three sizes too small or they had an eaten breakfast or all of these basic things that their needs weren't being met.

And it all came together.

And what happened was we talked about what we wanted to do.

Dipper need was one of the things that every single person said.

And at the time, there was this statistic that one in three families were struggling to afford diapers.

And obviously now, 13 years later, unfortunately, that statistic is that one in two families now struggle to afford diapers.

So we kept hearing this theme of like, diaper need, diaper need, and what could we do about it.

And so it was a problem that we kept seeing that we wanted to solve.

And so day one, that was sort of like, okay, how could we make this work?

What could we do together to fix this?

So that was sort of like the light bulb moment for both of us.

I love that process and I want our audience to take note of that.

Because I think one of the biggest things I hear from my community is, yeah, care about so many things.

How do I choose what to focus on?

Like, there are so many challenges in the world.

And I don't know how I fit in.

And I think often those questions are very sincere and genuine, but they stop us from making change and having an impact because we kind of get lost in decision making and choosing.

And I love that approach that you both had of, let's actually go and research, let's go and learn.

And let's listen to say, where's the gap?

What's missing? How can we solve that?

And sorry, go on, Noria.

I can see you like it. It's also because it is all of that, but it's asking the people who need the help.

And I think that was like the key that we discovered, which was that we, and this has helped us for 13 years, is that we can't assume what someone needs.

You have to go to the community and ask.

And that helped us on day one when we were asking what is the basic need so that you'd understand, because I don't think it's what we were expecting.

We weren't expecting that they were going to say the whole need is diaper need.

But then it made sense when we listened.

Well, no one's going to come to our parent in class.

No one's going to come for a well visit.

No one's going to file their insurance claim.

We can't get to these people, specifically moms, if they have a baby in a dirty diaper.

It just logically doesn't make sense.

But then today, when we're dealing with our disaster relief program, and we talked to we're talking to our team is talking to families or the social service agency that serves the families in a disaster.

Again, you're saying don't assume what someone needs in this particular hurricane.

Ask them because maybe they'll say, well, in this case, the water has been contaminated and we need water before we need anything else to make formula.

Early on when we knew people needed gear like cribs and strollers, we thought, we worked with companies that had big fancy strollers.

And we thought, let's try to get those donated.

And then we went to the community and they said, no, we don't want a big fancy stroller.

We want a full-depth $20 stroller.

We're getting on the bus.

We have multiple children.

We're walking to school and work.

And so again, our assumption would have been, let's get the highest tech stroller out there.

The reality was, no, we actually need a practical stroller.

I feel like we learn that lesson over and over and everything we do.

Listen to the community you're serving and let them tell you what they need.

That's such a great insight.

I feel like it's such a privileged position to think you can predict what someone needs and what someone wants.

And I think even when I came and you're doing my diapers, I was like, really?

I couldn't believe it. I was somewhat mind blown by the fact that that was the missing link.

And then when you start learning about it and how much more it affects, as opposed to you think it's just the diaper.

And I know we can go into just the extent of impact that has.

And all the other supplies that you both focus on providing, you almost think, wow, I would never have known that.

Like I wouldn't have come to that off my own accord.

And I think sometimes a lot of us are trying to figure out what people need.

In a silo, isolated from the problem, from the situation, from people.

And we're rarely going to get to the right answer.

What did it feel like? You know, you're both having successful careers, you're happy doing service work on top of that.

Like you're doing the pro bono work, you're going to head start like in one sense, it's almost like, well, this is great.

I serve, I work, I have a good career.

What makes you both go, okay, no, we need to do this full time.

Like this needs to be our primary focus because that feels like a genuinely big leap and commitment and taking away from two great career parts.

I actually say, no, no, no, this is enough of a priority.

Was it something you were building while you were working?

Or did you both go, no, we're going to stop working and start building?

Which way around did it go?

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It all happened very fast.

So I think we were slowing down on our other careers and projects.

But once we started, it took off very quickly.

So there was immediately no room to do anything else.

We actually had an event very early on where we wanted to kind of announce this that we had taken over baby to baby and that we wanted to make a really big impact.

We wanted to work quickly.

We both have very big ideas and dreams.

We put together a small event to just make this announcement.

We didn't want to spend any money, so we went to friends and had a publicist help, got a photographer there, and a friend who had a hotel space to donate and some alcohol.

So if case we were asking for money, we wanted to make sure people were in good mood.

And does that work? Yes.

It's one of our big secrets.

As you probably saw at the gallon.

Yes. Yeah. We had this event talk a little bit about the mission of baby to baby and where we wanted to go with it.

And two of our day one board members, Jessica, Alba and Nicole Richie both came to the event and had their picture taken by the pro bono photographer.

And the picture showed up a few days later in S Magazine.

Kelly and I at the time had one intern and we had a very small 600 square foot storefront space.

And we got a phone call a few days later from a big publicity company that represented Kimberly Clark who owned Huggies diapers.

And they said we answered the phone and they said they had seen the picture and they wanted to know if they could donate $100,000 and $100,000 diapers.

Again this is week two on the job.

We have like four boxes of diapers sitting next to us and we were like, yeah, we'll take 100,000 diapers.

Thank you. Please send them over right now.

And then they said, well, do you guys accept pallets?

And we're googling like, what is a pallet?

We're like, yes, we take that.

A lawyer and a model. Not a lot of pallets.

And then they're like, do you guys have forklifts?

I'm like, of course, we have forklifts.

Yes. And I'm like, where do you rent a forklift?

And we're trying to figure it out.

And we're like, sure, no problem, no problem.

And then the truck shows up.

The biggest truck we've ever seen.

Did we were wearing these shoes?

What are heels in case they're listening?

And we got on the truck and our intern popped onto and a very nice driver and we learned quickly what it meant that they were on pallets, which made them difficult.

We were there with the exact toenails, getting the plastic off and the crates open and trying to unload them ourselves with the truck driver and the intern, the four of us.

But we did it. Yeah. And we filled our small storefront space and spilled out a little bit.

And the moral of the story is, well, there are two morals of the story.

But we gave them out in one day.

So we called this 100,000 diapers.

It's a lot of diapers. And we called contacts at homeless shelters, some schools, some local hospitals and said, we have diapers for free to give out.

Would you like to come get them?

And it was astonishing to see.

They were truly, we say they were truly like gold that people were picking up and how what it meant to people and the relief that it was showing.

Again, this was not, you know, we don't serve individuals directly because it's in general because it's, has been more efficient for us to scale to give to other organizations that can give them out to their clients and fill the whole shelter or school or know who's in the most need, which is important to us.

But they, they went out the door in one day.

Now we can talk later that that was 100,000 diapers.

Now to date, we've given out 200 million.

But at that time, it was so many.

And I think it taught us probably our two most important lessons.

One, diaper need was enormous and not going anywhere.

And two, the power of these celebrity endorsements and sponsorships.

So just from two women getting behind us, a company wanted to give us that and we have created that into a playbook where with dozens and dozens and dozens of amazing women, actresses, celebrities, entrepreneurs, CEOs, we've been able to take advantage of their platforms and that has what is catapulted us to be able to give away hundreds of millions of items.

Yeah, absolutely. What a first week at the job.

That's pretty interesting.

And I can totally resonate with that.

I remember I was 16 years old and I used to work at a grocery store and I remember I did you do it.

I remember unloading my first ever truck of pallets of water and I had one of those manual forklifts.

I was the checkout girl.

Right. Yeah. And so they were like, you're 16 years old.

And literally I remember putting this manual forklift in putting it in a pallet and then pulling it out and it was one of the heaviest, most arduous tasks ever.

And now that I've been to your warehouse and seen just how many not only diapers you have, it supplies you have and just the scale at which you're dealing with this.

I wanted to read out, you know, I was looking at some of these statistics because I just want people to understand the problem statement or the level of challenge.

It's just blew my mind and I want to share it because yeah, it's super important.

Listen to this everyone.

So Kelly already said this one.

One in two families struggling the US to have four diapers for their children.

I just would never think of that.

Dipers cost $80 to $100 per month per baby and the average low income family pays nearly a thousand dollars a year for diapers.

This part I think was just to enter on.

Oh, yeah, please. Those days are all true.

But getting worse so with inflation, we're finding that our the families we serve are saying the prices are 30% up from that in the last few years.

So the problem is getting worse.

And then this one diapers are the fourth highest household expense after rent food and utilities for families with diaper need.

Child care centers often require six day diapers per day for children to enroll and attend daily.

That's the one we want people to know about.

Yeah, we talk about diapers perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

So if you don't have six to eight diapers to drop your child off at daycare, you can't go to work and you can't go to a job interview.

So they're stopping. It's really like a block for women and parents being able to go to work.

So if you don't have the money to afford diapers and you can't drop your child off at daycare, how can you go to work?

So it's really this symbol of poverty.

That's how we look at diapers.

Yeah, let's yeah, let's talk about that a little bit more because that's what we're talking about.

That's what I meant earlier when I was talking about how like diapers is almost like the central point of all these other issues that the work actually affects.

So poverty is one of them.

That's a core one. What are the others that you feel are massively affected?

We know that when we give families diapers that they're paying their rent, putting food on the table and keeping their lights on.

And as you already said, by reading our follow our favorite stats, that that is something that a diaper is stopping people from doing anything.

It's really, you can't leave your house if you don't have diapers.

Families are using newspapers or towels as substitutes.

So if you don't have a diaper, how can you go and take your baby to the grocery store to even buy food for your other children?

It's just diapers are this symbol of poverty to us that that's why every day diaper need is the number one thing we're focused on.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm going to go on because these.

Yeah, please. I'm just, these were huge.

These were some amazing stats about the incredible work you've done around it.

So in 2021, baby to baby developed your own diaper manufacturing system, producing diapers at 80% less than the retail cost in order to help meet the exponentially increasing demand.

Walk me through that direction because now that's like you're going from having 100,000 diapers sent to you.

Right. Then figuring out that it's too expensive.

Well, we've been getting diapers donated from companies like huggies, for example, with the Jessica Nicole event and the story norah just told.

But also corporate partners have been a huge part of baby to baby's growth using Jessica's another example with honest company.

They donated 10 million items to us.

A lot of those being diapers, but diapers are just the number one thing we're trying to get and we're doing it in every which way.

So we're trying to get corporate sponsors to donate to us.

And we've gone to Sacramento to testify to have the sales tax removed from diapers.

That was something we were able to do.

Then we did a goop campaign with Gwyneth Paltrow where we launched a fake luxury diaper that was intended to make people angry.

And it was a spoof. And Gwyneth was like, I'll take the heat for this.

And she launched a diaper and it had diamonds and fur and it was made of like alpaca fur.

And it was $120 for a pack of 10, but it was meant to show that $120 is what you need to diaper your baby for a month.

And once she did the grand reveal, it was like, yeah, this is meant to piss you off because diapers are taxed like a luxury item.

How insane is that? And what can we do about it?

So then you were able to go on to goop and baby to baby's shared platform and reach out to your state senator and say, like, this is ridiculous.

How can we still tax diapers like a luxury item?

And since we did that, seven states followed suit.

There are still 26 states left the tax diapers, but we're still working on that.

That's more to come on that.

But manufacturing the diapers was something we started because we were able to buy diapers for cost from our manufacturer.

So they were giving us low cost diapers.

But at some point, the manufacturer who we were working with understood our mission, knew what we did.

And we talked to them about like, OK, what if we stripped off the cartoons and made these diapers plain and white?

And we just used one color for the packaging.

How low would you make them for us?

How, you know, what could we get the cost down to?

So 80% less than retail is how much they're we're making them for now.

They're baby to baby diapers.

They're plain white, but they work just as well as any.

And we've been able to distribute 200 million diapers because of this relationship and because of manufacturing.

So it was something innovative we came up with during COVID because the need was so great, but it's really been able to stretch our donor dollar so much further and been able to diaper a lot more babies.

I think we had really kind of hit rock bottom with the desperation for diapers during COVID.

So it was already, I mean, we're saying it's one out of two families in the United States.

It's just an impossible statistic to digest, but it was seeing and hearing one by one the alternatives that the families were taking like using a newspaper to diaper their child, like using a towel, like taking a diaper off a baby, cleaning it, hanging it to dry and putting it back on their baby.

And there was a point during COVID where the diapers were also off the shelves.

If we, you know, you can remember, most people were talking about the toilet paper shortage, the diapers were right there with them and it was just so upsetting to everyone a baby-to-baby that our team really made this, really had this idea to say we have to do something about this.

Our need had gone up 500% just at baby-to-baby alone in the weeks when COVID started.

And so we, that was when we kind of in desperation went to these manufacturing partners and said, we know we're doing a lot, it's not enough.

And we talked about scratching surfaces earlier.

You know, we're even now, we're proud that we've given out 200 million diapers.

It's more than any organization like ours in the country, but it's not enough.

We have this year alone just from the families we serve, we have requests for 1.5 billion diapers.

So we just had to do more and it was manufacturing and the manufacturing system that allowed us to really take the leap because now when we get donations, we know they can go so much further.

So we're making packs, families in our program are buying packs for an average of $20.

We're making packs for $350 and of course not charging them and donating them and it's something that manufacturing is allowing us to move the needle.

Still scratch the surface but move the needle.

Absolutely no, definitely moving the needle.

And I mean, I'm blown away because it's like, it's incredible marketing, mixed with incredible systems, incredible management.

You know, the campaign that you were just mentioning with Gwyneth and Goop, like that is something out of like a movie, like to be able to pull something like that off and to actually think about it in that innovative way and to then build a system that's manufacturing your own diapers because you see the value of cost.

I mean, you're operating like an incredibly innovative fast forward, fast forward thinking company and you're applying it all to doing good in the world.

Like has that always, as this strategic marketing brain always been between you two, like how have you, you know, how have you been able to think about changing the world in this way because I think that like you said, I think change can often feel boring, it can feel like slow, it can feel like it has to be done in a certain way, but you are willing to like push boundaries

and maybe some people get upset in the beginning to get them to make a point.

Like that's a really original unique way of thinking about change.

I think we're not scared to push boundaries and I think both of us, you know, people say to us all the time, like, oh, did you ever think baby to baby would be this big?

And we say, yes, we did because we saw the need.

We saw, you know, what we needed to do and we went for it and we do that every day.

And so being innovative and coming up with fun, you know, exciting marketing things or whatever we're doing, I think bringing the community together and collaborating with whether it's celebrity or corporate partners is something that we love doing and that we will continue to do and we've done it in so many ways.

Like this year, you know, we talk about all the time.

We partnered with the White House and HHS in 2023 last year.

And we launched a pilot program that was creating maternal newborn supply kits.

And we did it for the three states with the highest maternal mortality rates and the highest child poverty rates.

And so it was a pilot program for these three states, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana and in partnership with the White House and HHS and the vice president came to baby to baby to launch it with us.

This year, we're now able to go to 10 states with Huggies back to Huggies.

Huggies came back in and their partnership with a multimillion dollar pledge, we're now going to take it to 10 states.

So that pilot program, you know, it's public private partnerships, it's corporate partners, it's using, you know, celebrity like we did from day one.

We just had Olivia Wilde, Kelly Rilland and Sierra came to help spread the word that we're now in 10 states and we're bringing this pilot program to 10 states this year and just being able to do things like that, I think definitely keeps our days exciting and you know, makes it interesting and innovative and I think nonprofit can be.

So I think we're trying to like make that part of nonprofit.

It doesn't have to be boring.

It doesn't have to be status quo, you know.

And I think everyone won in that example that Kelly just gave about our maternal mortality initiative in that the celebrity ambassadors who are so amazing, the three women that came to get attention for the program, they care deeply about maternal mortality.

I'm obviously your audience is familiar with how in the United States, the maternal mortality rates are worse than they were 20 years ago and that black women are dying at three times or four times up to four times the rate of other women and I think everyone wants to come up with a solution I hope.

And so in that example, it really was a real public private partnership with again, we had the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on that end needing to give it legitimacy and the platform that they bring to the table.

Huggies was such an important partner on the corporate end because these programs need money and they need supplies and so they had the diapers, they had the breastfeeding supplies and they were able to donate those women like Olivia Wilde and Sierra and Kelly Rowlan, they care deeply about maternal mortality and wanted to use their platforms, use their enormous

social media numbers and bring attention to a problem and show that they were coming up with a solution.

Baby to Baby has this incredible team that is there to have worked for 13 years to identify which states and which organizations in which states have the most vulnerable mothers who could get to the right hospitals, these items that they so desperately need.

So I think it's really attacking.

I think one of the things that Kelly and I really love about it is attacking these problems from multiple angles.

So yes, we bring in the, like we understand and can explain to people why we need the help of the corporation, what the government can do to help, what part the celebrity or ambassador can play and I think they all appreciate that and again it's led to this great program.

What I'm hearing is like a very deep understanding of the problem is what's allowing you to engage with all these stakeholders.

The reason you're able to get the government involved or get corporations involved or get celebrities involved is because you deeply understand the intricacies of the challenge.

And I think often when we want to do good in the world or when we're trying to do good in the world, we're hoping that that good intention is enough or we're hoping that that passion is enough and actually deeply understanding the challenge and the stresses that people are experiencing, the problems people go through on a daily basis is at the heart of that.

One of my favorite thoughts is from Martin Luther King where he said that people who love peace need to learn to organize themselves as well as those who love war.

And I love that statement because I often feel that those of us who want peace in the world or goodness in the world can be kind of a bit woo-woo about it or we can be a bit like, you know, peace and love and it can be kind of like this really nice idea or nice ideal but it doesn't have systems, organization, strategy and it seems like you've both been able to take your passion and intention and bring

that in so wonderfully, which is such an incredible example for so many not-for-profits.

Thank you and I think we really don't differentiate between nonprofit and for-profit in that way and so that's something that we care about reminding people that again the work is different but the way that you run a company in our minds should be the same and that's kind of who we model ourselves after.

Unfortunately, I-I-we have seen a lot of well-intentioned people not give back in the right way.

So to your point, I think in disaster relief in particular is an area I know we talked about on your tour and we see a lot of people trying to be helpful in disasters and doing it in an actively unhelpful way and that is the place that I think the most.

We've watched people and it's hard to watch and we're trying to kind of correct people's behaviors in how they react to disasters because the public I think and I'm sure your listeners care deeply about disasters and by disasters I'm mainly talking about natural disasters.

So hurricanes, fires, floods, mudslides, people feel so helpless in those moments.

I think people watch them on the news, they get so much attention, they see horrible things happening and they don't know how to help and what we've done a baby to baby is try to very specifically help children and help families in those instances because a lot of great organizations are helping.

They're typically focused on adults and we focus on children.

But in terms of people helping in sometimes a misguided way, we often go to the spots where the disasters are occurring and we'll watch people and they show up with bags of used clothing and used coloring books or unsized things or half opened games and toys and things.

Again, I think that people care so deeply and they're wonderful and they're seeing a child on the news and thinking, I need to go I want to go give that child my blanket or this game or a toothbrush.

But what we've learned is that you have to listen and understand what these families need and tied for as important as that is what the organization who's helping them needs.

Because in a disaster, everyone is spread then.

Often the people who are helping an disaster, their own families are suffering from that same hurricane or fire or flood.

The organizations are often small, they're not always large skill organizations.

Often they're small, volunteer based groups that are trying to do their best to give out supplies.

So when you inundate them with things that they don't need at that time, they don't have room, they don't have the man or woman power to accept the items, people fly planes into places without having the right destination.

And so we talk to partners who are on the ground saying these donations are blocking the roads.

So they're not just not helpful.

They are actively unhelpful, they are blocking our roads.

We are trying to find missing people.

We are trying to get emergency services out and people are in their very, very well intentioned ways really hurting the system.

So what we have learned organizationally is to listen so carefully and not just understand you need blankets, you need diapers.

What size diapers do you need?

How many do you need? Because if your space can only accommodate three pallets, you cannot send them six in the middle of disaster.

You have to send them three at a time.

And I think for people listening, you have to listen to organizations you trust in how to help.

It might be money. It might be the most helpful thing would be to send $10 to an organization.

It might be an organization that allows you to say, we need toothbrushes, but you can't guess what people need.

You have to step back, listen, and then try to help people in the way that they need to be helped.