2025 Lifetime Achievement Award: Joanne Samuel Goldblum

2025 Lifetime Achievement Award

Joanne Samuel Goldblum

Founder and CEO
National Diaper Bank Network

Lasting change often begins with noticing what others overlook. For Joanne Samuel Goldblum, that moment came while working as a social worker serving mothers living in deep poverty. She realized that many families could not afford an adequate supply of diapers for their babies — a gap that put infants’ health at risk and blocked parents’ access to child care, work and education.

Goldblum, founder and CEO of the National Diaper Bank Network, is the co-recipient of this year’s NonProfit PRO Lifetime Achievement Award, recognized for building a national movement that has reshaped how communities across the country address basic needs, health and dignity.

What began as a small, home-based diaper bank in 2004 quickly grew into a national grassroots advocacy coalition. As Goldblum distributed diapers locally in Connecticut, she began receiving calls from people across the country who wanted to do similar work in their own communities. Seeing the opportunity to build something larger, she founded the National Diaper Bank Network in 2011 to connect these emerging organizations, help them share best practices and create collective purchasing power that could dramatically reduce the cost of essential products.

Today, the nonprofit has more than 300 member organizations serving families nationwide — a remarkable expansion from the roughly dozen diaper banks that existed when Goldblum founded the network almost 15 years ago. Through step-by-step guidance, technical assistance and training, National Diaper Bank Network has helped organizations scale their operations while delivering efficient, culturally competent service in their communities.

“Joanne Samuel Goldblum created a growing movement that is improving the health, happiness and prosperity of U.S. families every day,” her nominator told NonProfit PRO.

Recognizing that unmet basic needs extend beyond diapers, Goldblum expanded the network’s reach in 2019 by launching the Alliance for Period Supplies. The initiative addresses similar barriers to health, education and participation in daily life by supporting organizations that distribute menstrual products and advocate for policy change. Together, they have helped end the so-called “tampon tax” in multiple states and pushed school districts to provide free period supplies to students.

In a single year, the network distributes approximately 240 million diapers and 39 million period supplies. Under Goldblum’s leadership, many member organizations have also broadened their scope to include adult incontinence products and household supplies — addressing needs that often fall through the cracks of traditional social services.

Research has also played a central role in strengthening the movement. Goldblum has consistently encouraged collaboration between basic needs organizations and academic researchers, helping to build an evidence base for policy and practice.

She partnered with the Yale Child Study Center — where she worked prior to her founding what is now known as The Diaper Bank of Connecticut — on the first peer-reviewed study examining the effects of diaper need on maternal and child health. Subsequent research has documented the cost-effectiveness of diaper provision, the mental health impacts of diaper need and period poverty, and the links between diaper need and food insecurity.

More recently, Goldblum established the National Diaper Bank Network’s Department of Innovation and Impact to further advance research and evaluation across the field.

Her work is rooted in a deeply held belief that poverty is not a personal failure, but the result of systems that deny people access to resources, a philosophy that is reflected in her book, “Broke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty.”

“Joanne is an evangelist for a society where the causes of poverty are well recognized and rationally addressed,” her nominator said. “She is fond of saying, ‘Poverty is not gravity.’ It does not have to exist. Jo profoundly believes that poverty can be eliminated in the U.S. and works to achieve that goal every day.”