What is the march of dimes?
The March of Dimes Foundation is a United States nonprofit organization that was established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) on January 3, 1938, to combat Polio. Following the discovery of the polio vaccine, it adopted a new mission, “fighting birth defects”, which was recently changed to a broader goal of, improving the health of mothers and babies.
The March of Dimes is a not-for-profit organization with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The foundation is headquartered in White Plains, NY and has 51 chapters across the U.S., including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, which provide public health education, advocacy for mothers and babies, and community service grants and outreach programs.
In 2009, gross contributions to the March of Dimes totaled $214.6 million. Of this amount, 75.4 percent was allocated to program services. Contributions to the March of Dimes are voluntary and include corporate and personal gifts, endowments and bequests. The mission of the March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. With its original goal of eliminating polio accomplished, the March of Dimes faced a choice: to either disband or dedicate its resources to a new mission. Basil O’Connor, president of the March of Dimes at the time, directed his staff to identify strengths and weaknesses of the organization and reformulate its mission. In 1958, the NFIP shortened its name to the National Foundation (NF) and launched its “Expanded Program” against birth defects, arthritis, and virus diseases, seeking to become a “flexible force” in the field of public health.
The March of Dimes provides mothers, pregnant women and women of childbearing age with educational resources on baby health, pregnancy, preconception and new motherhood, as well as supplying information and support to families affected by prematurity, birth defects, or other infant health problems. It really is a great charity and while I was working at an internet company that specialized in the hcg diet we did a fundraiser with the march of dimes that went really well because everyone knows who they are.
The March of Dimes was founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) on January 3, 1938, as a response to epidemics of poliomyelitis (polio) sweeping the country. Roosevelt was himself paralyzed as a result of polio. From those earliest days, the foundation was an alliance between scientists working in their laboratories and volunteers, who raised money to support research, education and help polio victims and their families. Basil O’Connor, an attorney and a close associate of President Roosevelt, helped establish the foundation. He became its president in 1938, a position he held for more than three decades. His first task was to create a network of local chapters that could raise money and deliver aid—more than 3,100 county chapters were established during his tenure.
The Salk polio vaccine trial of 1954, initiated and funded by the March of Dimes, showed statistical evidence that Salk’s killed virus vaccine was up to 90percent effective in preventing polio. Almost 624,000 American children were injected with either vaccine or placebo, and more than a million others served as observed control subjects.