Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF)
As the leading global type 1 diabetes (T1D) research and advocacy organization, Breakthrough T1D helps make everyday life with T1D better while driving toward cures. We do this by investing in the most promising research, advocating for progress by working with government to address issues that impact the T1D community, and helping educate and empower individuals facing this condition.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that strikes both children and adults suddenly. It has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. There is nothing you can do to prevent it. And, at present, there is no cure.
When you have T1D, your pancreas stops producing insulin—a hormone the body needs to get energy from food. This means a process your body should do naturally and automatically becomes something that now requires your daily attention and manual intervention. If you have T1D, you must constantly monitor your blood-sugar levels, inject or infuse insulin through a pump, and carefully balance these insulin doses with your eating and activity throughout the day and night.
However, insulin is not a cure for diabetes. Even with the most vigilant disease management, a significant portion of your day will be spent with either high or low blood-sugar levels. These fluctuations place people with T1D at risk for potentially life-threatening hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) and hyperglycemic (high blood sugar) episodes as well as devastating long-term complications such as kidney failure, heart attack, stroke, blindness, and amputation.
Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) works every day to change the reality of this disease for the nearly 9 million people living with it around the world. By funding research, advocating for government support of research and new therapies, ensuring that new therapies come to market, and connecting and engaging the T1D community, we hope to one day prevent anyone from ever knowing the reality of life with T1D.
Founded by parents determined to find a cure for their children with T1D, Breakthrough T1D expanded through grassroots fundraising and advocacy efforts to become a powerhouse in the scientific community with dozens of U.S. locations and five international affiliates. We’ve funded more than $2 billion in research to date and have made significant progress in understanding and fighting the disease. We must keep up the pace of funding so progress doesn’t slow or stop entirely.
Breakthrough T1D’s research goal is to discover, develop, and deliver advances that progressively remove the impact of T1D from people’s lives until we have cures. We are driving research across the entire scientific spectrum, from discovery in the laboratory to delivery of new technologies and treatments to people with T1D.
The full impact of our research investment extends well beyond our direct funding. Now more than ever, we see the value in leveraging partnerships with academia, industry, and clinicians to ensure that the most promising research opportunities are funded and accelerated and eventually brought to market.
Our investments are supporting the development of next-generation therapies including artificial pancreas technology, beta cell encapsulation, smart insulin that can turn on and off in response to blood sugar levels and, ultimately, methods for curing and preventing T1D.
Breakthrough T1D is the only global organization with a strategic plan to bring those living with T1D a continuous flow of life-changing therapies and, ultimately, cures for the disease.
Our highest priority remains funding research to deliver cures for T1D and its complications. At the same time, Breakthrough T1D is focused on developing treatments to better manage T1D today, so that people living with it have healthier lives now and in the future. Finally, we also seek to prevent T1D, to keep future generations from developing the disease.
This is all part of our promise of “less until none”: to progressively remove the impact of T1D from the lives of those living with the disease until it is no longer a threat to them or their families.
In our 50+ years of existence, we have awarded more than $2 billion to T1D research. Our mission is the same today as it was when we were founded in 1970: to cure fT1D and its complications through the support of research. Ultimately, what that means is finding ways to completely restore normal physiology, and Breakthrough T1D will not rest until that end is achieved.
Our unrelenting passion and commitment to work to remove the impact of T1D from people’s lives is driven by our staff and volunteers at more than 29 chapters across the nation and our five international affiliates around the world. Whether it’s providing funding for a late-stage clinical trial, advocating for faster regulatory approval of new devices, or partnering with a company on innovative research that might not otherwise receive funding, every decision we make is driven by our commitment to making T1D a thing of the past.
Breakthrough T1D commits to using donations responsibly when allocating time, resources, and dollars in our organization. As the leading global funder of T1D research, we know we achieve the greatest impact on the lives of people with T1D only when we steward funds efficiently.
We are a Charity Navigator four-star charity, Platinum Level Guide Star participant, and a Better Business Bureau (BBB) Accredited Charity.
Our most recent audited financial statements can be found on the financials page on our website.
The most recent audited financial statements for JDRF can be found in our annual report at jdrf.org/about/financials/.