March of Dimes

On January 3, 1938, then-President Franklin Roosevelt founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was later renamed the March of Dimes Foundation.  ²

Background

The March of Dimes is a nonprofit founded in 1938 by President Franklin Roosevelt that advocates for health of mothers and babies and funds research, education, and advocacy.  ^{3  2}

The group’s primary focus is on preventing premature births and expanding access to effective maternal care. The organization also provides resources for families who have experienced miscarriage and provides information and programs for families experiencing infertility.  ⁴

History

On January 3, 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was later renamed the March of Dimes Foundation, in response to outbreaks of polio during the Great Depression. The organization’s name refers to a remark made by singer Eddie Cantor at a fundraiser that the public should send dimes to the president. This sentiment was popular with the public, which sent 2.68 million dimes and thousands of dollars in other donations to the White House to help children with polio. ²

The March of Dimes named Jonas Salk as lead researcher for a polio vaccine in 1949. Salk developed and tested the first successful polio vaccine in 1955, 10 years after President Roosevelt’s death.  ²

After the development of the Salk polio vaccine, the March of Dimes shifted its mission in 1958 to preventing birth defects. ^{5  6} March of Dimes focuses on funding research to determine the causes and prevention of preterm birth, and helps more mothers have healthy, full-term pregnancies. ³

The March of Dimes wrote model legislation known as the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education Act for Mothers who deliver Infants Early (PREEMIE) Act. The U.S. Congress enacted this into law in 2006 to expand research, education, and services to reduce premature births. The group set a national goal of reducing preterm birth to 8.1 percent in every state.  ⁶

Programs

March of Dimes’ flagship fundraising event is “March for Babies,” which typically involves more than 45,000 participants from across the country.  ³

The organization sponsors five Prematurity Research Centers which are located at Stanford University, the Ohio Collaborative, University of Pennsylvania, Imperial College London, and University of California, San Francisco. In 2023, the group claimed these research centers had achieved “breakthroughs” that included the creation of predictive models for assessing the risk of preterm birth, preeclampsia, and other complications.  ³

The March of Dimes Innovation Fund is a venture philanthropy initiative to invest donated funds in early-stage companies working to address maternal and infant health challenges. It has engaged with more than 300 companies of interest.  ³

The Mom and Baby Action Network, or M-BAN, is a consortium of over 400 national, state, and local partners focused on inequities in mom and baby health.  ³

March of Dimes says it leads efforts to address racial disparities in maternal and infant health. The Research Center for Advancing Health Equity in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania works to mitigate bias and reduce disparities in maternal healthcare through training and education. The Professional Education team delivers implicit bias training to healthcare professionals.  ³

March of Dimes initiatives include the Mom and Baby Mobile Health Centers and NICU Family Support, which organizes the group’s largest annual fundraiser. ⁷

Report Card and Evaluations

The March of Dimes issues an annual report card that looks at the entire United States as well as individual states. The March of Dimes 2025 Report Card released in November 2025 gave the United States a grade of D+, noting that one out of 10 babies, or 10.4 percent, were born prematurely. The March of Dimes 2025 Report Card noted preterm birth rates among Black mothers were almost 50 percent higher than the overall rate; disparities exist among women covered by Medicaid, who have a preterm rate of nearly 12 percent compared to under 10 percent for women with private insurance; and fewer than 25 percent of pregnant women did not begin prenatal care in the first trimester.  ⁸

March of Dimes released a 2024 study asserting more than 35 percent of U.S. counties were “maternity care deserts,” meaning they had no birthing facility or obstetric provider. ^{9  10}

March of Dimes released “The Nowhere to Go: Maternity Care Deserts Across the U.S.” report in September 2020, finding 2.2 million women lived in maternity care deserts — counties with no hospitals offering obstetric care — and 7 million women of childbearing age live in counties without access or with limited access to maternity care. ⁴

Advocacy

March of Dimes has advocated for Medicaid expansion. ⁷

While much of the organization’s material still refers to moms or women, the organization has used left-of-center ideologically inflected terms such as “pregnant person” and “birthing people.”  ³

Shalese Clay was the family program coordinator for the March of Dimes from 2020 to 2021 before later becoming the CEO of Uzazi Village, a left-of-center maternal aid and activist organization. ¹¹

Grants

In 2024, the March of Dimes gave $1 million to the University of Pennsylvania for medical research. ¹²

In 2024, the March of Dimes donated $750,00 to Stanford University for Medical Research. ¹²

In 2024, the March of Dimes contributed $625,000 to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.  ¹²

Donors

In 2024, the Quest Diagnostics Foundation donated $929,128 to March of Dimes.  ¹²

In 2024, the Mercy Care Plan donated $850,000 to March of Dimes.  ¹²

In 2025, the American Online Giving Foundation contributed $786,458 to March of Dimes.  ¹²

Leadership

In February 2025, Cindy Rahman became the president and CEO of March of Dimes, after working as the interim president and CEO since August 2024. She previously had more than two decades of corporate and nonprofit experience. She was previously the organization’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer. ⁷

Elizabeth K Chero is the chief marketing officer.  ¹²

Alan Brogdon is the senior vice president and chief operating officer for March of Dimes.  ¹²

Michael Warren is the chief medical and health care officer of March of Dimes.  ¹³

Celebrity Advocate Council

The March of Dimes celebrity advocate council is made up of Tatyana Ali, a Broadway-trained actress, singer, producer, and activist; Shawn Johnson East and Andrew East, former athletes and entrepreneurs; Olympic athlete Allyson Felix; Porsha Williams, best-selling author, television host, media personality, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and actress; Ally Brooke, a singer, member of Fifth Harmony; Rob Huebel, an actor and comedian; Ana Isabelle, actress, singer-songwriter, and dancer; Nick Lachey, TV host, producer and singer; Whitney Port, TV personality, fashion designer and author; Jade Roper-Tolbert, season 19 contestant on “The Bachelor”; and Angelina Spicer, comedian, author, and founder of Spicey Moms. ¹⁴