A special message from Laci Naber and AnnElise Walsh, JDRF Nebraska and Iowa Chapter leaders.

In light of recent organizational changes, we wanted to share news from our chapter.

This year, amid great mission progress came a global pandemic, which disrupted our event-based fundraising model and forced us to reimagine many of our annual fundraisers to keep our community safe. During this time, it became clear that to continue funding critical, life-changing research, we would have to make some significant changes to our organization. JDRF is now fast-tracking new strategies to drive mission momentum in the current challenging fundraising environment.

As part of these efforts, we’ve realigned our chapter footprint to support broader geographies more efficiently and become a more “volunteer-powered” organization. Moving forward, we will be a leaner organization with fewer staff and chapters sharing resources across larger geographic areas. As a result, the Greater Iowa Chapter, the Nebraska-Southeast Iowa Chapter and Eastern Iowa Chapter, will join together to form the Nebraska-Iowa Chapter.

The staff dedicated to the newly formed chapter are as follows:

• Laci Naber, Executive Director
• AnnElise Walsh, Iowa Market Director
• Jeanette Steinfeldt, Development Director
• Chris Dunn, Development Manager
• Anna Raur, Senior Outreach Manager
• McKenzie Robinson, Development Manager
• Ashley Rusch, Office Manager

In the coming weeks, you will see updated website content and social media pages. We invite you to read more about JDRF’s vision for the future and should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly.

Our vision to drive cures to the greatest number of people, as fast as possible remains unchanged. Thank you for your support of our T1D community and JDRF.

With gratitude,