Our History

Founded by type 1 patient Kelly Close, The diaTribe Foundation was created as a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit in 2013; its goal is to improve the lives of people with diabetes, prediabetes and obesity, and to advocate for action. Its origins date back to 2006 with the creation of our diaTribe newsletter. Beginning as a fully volunteer effort, diaTribe was and continues to be a mission driven by compassion and empathy. Its purpose is to provide content that helps people touched by diabetes live healthier, happier, or more hopeful lives. We’ve always believed that our work helps people make sense of the complex world of diabetes – a world many of us know personally, either living with the disease or having friends or loved ones with it.  But it wasn’t until we began hearing directly from our readers about how diaTribe had helped them that we began realizing the impact we could have.

In 2012, Kelly decided to take diaTribe further by turning the patient newsletter into a non-profit organization. With generous support from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, The diaTribe Foundation was created to support diaTribe and further improve the lives of patients through advocacy and social change. Today, we serve over a million and a half people with diabetes each year.

Since diaTribe was started in 2006, over four million more people have been diagnosed with diabetes in the US. We spend $322 billion each year on diabetes and prediabetes. And A1cs aren’t any better now than they were 20 years ago. We have a crisis, and The diaTribe Foundation is committed to help bring about some much-needed change.