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

Kelly Sawyer and Norah Weinstein discuss the origins and expansion of Baby2Baby, an organization that has made a considerable impact in providing for children's basic needs.

Nora and Kelly discovered a critical unmet need for children's basic essentials like diapers and clothing after speaking with various nonprofits and community organizations.

Kelly Sawyer and Nora Weinstein joined forces due to a shared passion for helping women and children. They had meetings with various nonprofits across Los Angeles to pinpoint the gaps in support for families. Consistently, they found families struggled with affording basic essentials like diapers and food. Weinstein's early engagement in giving back was nurtured through her childhood and extended into her legal career, where she focused on pro bono work. Similarly, Sawyer's experience volunteering at a Head Start Center in Harlem confronted her with children's lack of basic essentials, influencing her commitment to address these needs.

Nora's background in pro bono legal work and Kelly's experience volunteering at a Head Start center in Harlem motivated them to address this gap.

Together, they took control of Baby2Baby, aiming for swift and significant impact. An early event announced their new direction and, thanks to board members Jessica Alba and Nicole Richie, attracted attention and donations. A photo in US Magazine led to a massive donation of diapers from Kimberly Clark, despite having minimal resources at the time.

The founders launched Baby2Baby with a small team and were quickly able to gain significant donations and celebrity endorsements, rapidly expanding the organization's reach.

Starting with just an intern, the founders served 500 children. Now, Baby2Baby serves a million children across the country, with warehouses nationwide. There's a sense of urgency in their approach to growth, solving problems on the fly like learning to manage large shipments of donations with little initial expertise. The organization has involved celebrities and corporate partners, such as their partnership with the White House, HHS, and Huggies to distribute maternal and newborn supply kits.

Baby2Baby's ability to listen to the community and respond to their specific needs, rather ...

Baby2Baby's extensive outreach and distribution efforts have made a significant difference in the lives of children across the United States, highlighting the importance of basic necessities in supporting vulnerable families.

Baby2Baby has distributed over 450 million essential items to children in need across all 50 states in the US.

Kelly Sawyer states that Baby2Baby reaches a million children each year, providing insight into the breadth of the organization's impact. With over 450 million essential items distributed, Baby2Baby is a key player in delivering assistance to children in homeless shelters, domestic violence programs, foster care, hospitals, underserved schools, and those affected by disasters.

The organization serves over 1 million children living in poverty annually, providing them with diapers, formula, clothing, and other basic necessities.

Baby2Baby addresses a critical need by distributing 200 million diapers, helping to alleviate some of the stress faced by families struggling to afford basic items. Sawyer and Weinstein both emphasize that such contributions, including a recent addition of a million more bottles of formula due to nationwide shortages, are crucial to supporting those most in need.

Baby2Baby's work has had a profound impact on families, enabling them to afford necessities like diapers that are crucial for employment and accessing services.

Underlining the importance of their work, Baby2Baby’s leaders share that the provision of diapers—a clear symbol of poverty—enables parents to work or look for employment, as daycare services often require children to be supplied with diapers. This support allows families to redirect their finances to other critical areas such as food, rent, and utilities. The connection between volunteers and families is also highlighted, as volunteers help to prepare items for children in foster care, directly impacting the ...

As the need for essential child-care products rises, organizations like Baby2Baby face the challenge of scaling their operations efficiently and innovatively to meet the growing demand.

Shift in Donation Strategy for Efficiency and Quality

Baby2Baby, traditionally known for passing on gently used items from one baby to another, encountered sustainability issues as they scaled operations. The process of sorting through used donations was both expensive and time-consuming because it required checking every single item to ensure it was complete and in good condition. Realizing that only about one-third of these donations were usable, the organization made a strategic decision.

Instead of continuing with gently used items, Kelly Sawyer and Norah Weinstein emphasized the importance of giving with dignity and pride, ensuring children received new, high-quality items. By shifting to new, corporate donations, Baby2Baby could provide pristine and perfect products to children who deserve them. This operational shift resulted in the efficient distribution of $63 million worth of goods in one year. Despite the focus on new and corporate donations, Baby2Baby still values individual contributions, tailoring requests to specific current needs, such as toothbrushes and toothpaste.

Their dedication to quality was further highlighted by their partnership with Jessica Alba in writing a book emphasizing the provision of new items to children in need, reflecting the shift in their operational approach that ensures quality in the items they distribute.

Innovation in Diaper Manufacturing to Combat Supply Shortages

To address the exponentially growing demand for diapers, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when families faced dire shortages, Baby2Baby developed its own diaper manufacturing system. This innovation allowed them to create diapers at an impressive 80% less than retail costs. Simplifying the design to plain white diapers and one-color packaging, the organization entered a corporate partn ...