The March Of Dimes: A Revolutionary Charity

June 14, 2024

In 1952 Polio Was Americans’ Second Greatest Fear (nuclear attack was #1)

"My mother gave us all a 'polio test' each day: Could we touch our toes and put our chins to our chest? Every stomach ache or stiffness caused a panic. Was it polio? I remember the awful photos of children on crutches, in wheelchairs and iron lungs. And coming back to school in September to see the empty desks where the children hadn't returned.”

- David Oshinsky,

The worst polio outbreak In America was in 1952. There were:

  • 57,000 recorded cases

  • 21,000 people became paralysed

  • 3,000 deaths

The March Of Dimes Is Born

Franklin D. Roosevelt helped create the March of the Dimes to help fight polio. Its job was to raise money to help people with polio and to fund research for a cure.

It changed the fight against polio, and how non-profits work. Here’s how.

1. They Asked for smaller donations

Most charities at the time focused on asking wealthy people to donate big sums of money.

March of Dimes asked a lot of people to donate a little.

It was during the Great Depression and times were tight, but everyone could donate a dime to help a child recover from polio. In one of the first advertising campaigns they asked everyone to donate a dime and send it to the White House

In just 1 month, people sent 2,680,000 dimes to the White House!

White House manager Ira T. Smith explains what those days were like

“...the roof fell in on me. We kept on getting incredible numbers and the government of the United States darned near stopped functioning because we couldn’t clear away enough dimes…it was four months before we had cleaned up the debris.”

The March Of Dimes was the most revolutionary philanthropic in US history. They were the first organisation to:

2. The First To Use Poster Children

3. The First to Use Celebrities

Including Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley

By 1945, March of Dimes had raised $19 million. Apart from the Red Cross, no charity had raised more money.

Polio Cases Plummet

Thanks to funding from the March Of Dimes, on April 12 1955, the Salk vaccine was declared safe and effective.

This moment has been called one of the greatest celebrations in modern American history.

"...church bells were ringing across the country, factories were observing moments of silence, synagogues and churches were holding prayer meetings, and parents and teachers were weeping. One shopkeeper painted a sign on his window: Thank you, Dr. Salk. 'It was as if a war had ended', one observer recalled."

- Paul Offit

The vaccine was amazing.

In just 7 years polio cases in the US dropped to under 1000 and in 1979 the US was declared polio-free.

Incredible.

This graph shows how fast cases fell (look between 1955 - 1960)

And of course, that vaccine, and the Sabin vaccine (which March of Dimes also funded) was used to tackle polio around the world.

Today, polio is close to becoming just the second disease to be eradicated (it’s only found in Afghanistan and Pakistan), and a big part of that we can thank The March of Dimes

Lesson:

  • Small things add up: Sometimes we need a lot of people to do a little. One dime. That’s all people were asked to donate. But it added up.