At Beta Cell Action, we firmly believe that diabetes nonprofits should be transparent in their finances so that the community can ensure that they are representing the interests of diabetics first and are using donations responsibly.

When diabetes nonprofits accept donations from pharmaceutical corporations, it creates a conflict of interest between their funders and people who are struggling to afford insulin—the people they claim to represent. Inevitably, these nonprofits end up putting pharma's interests ahead of people with diabetes.

Nonprofits are not required to disclose money they receive from corporate donors. Some nonprofits list corporate donors in sponsorship “levels,” but even less disclose the range of money those levels represent. Unfortunately, very few diabetes nonprofits have signed the No Pharma Pledge to never accept pharmaceutical corporation money.

We’re tracking the finances of well-known nonprofits whose mission is to educate, research, or advocate for people with type 1 diabetes and see which are accepting money from the “Big 3” insulin manufacturers (Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi).

We believe it’s important to understand where these organizations get their funding to see potential conflicts of interest in how they educate, research, and advocate for people with diabetes. Our hope is that by compiling all of this information in one place, people can choose support the ones that actually help diabetics and appeal to the others to change.