Protecting What Works - A Planning Partnership with You’re Just My Type

The Work Behind the Work

Laura Pavlakovich built You’re Just My Type (YJMT) from the ground up, creating deeply thoughtful, emotionally safe spaces and peer-to-peer mental health support for people living with Type 1 diabetes. Laura is the heart of YJMT. She is the face of the organization, the connective tissue across cities, and the reason so many people describe YJMT as the place where they finally felt understood. Over the years, she has cultivated a deeply engaged and supportive community rooted in trust, shared experience, and care.

As YJMT’s reputation and reach continued to grow, new possibilities emerged. Demand increased, and-partnerships and funding opportunities expanded. The question became how to thoughtfully project it forward, and how to ensure that as YJMT evolves, it remains sustainable, grounded, and true to its mission for years to come.

A Rare Moment to Pause and Plan

In summer 2025, with support from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, Laura received a seed grant that created something rare in the nonprofit world: time and space to step back.

The grant allowed Laura to do two important things at once:

• Continue running a beloved program that many people depend on
• Invest in external support to think carefully about YJMT’s next phase
  

This was not an easy tradeoff. Every hour spent planning was an hour not spent hosting an event, responding to a community member, or creating content. Naming and honoring that tension was essential to the work.

The Questions That Guided the Work

Laura did not come into this process looking to rewrite YJMT’s mission or long-term vision. Those had held true for a decade and continued to resonate deeply with the community.

What she needed instead was a way to answer a different set of questions:

• How can these experiences reach more people without losing their intimacy?
• How can leadership and responsibility be shared without diluting tone or trust?
• What does it actually take, in human and financial terms, to sustain this work?
• How can YJMT grow strategically without burning out the person at its center?
  

A Practical Planning Arc

The planning process followed a clear, intentional sequence designed to make big questions feel manageable and grounded.

First, visioning.

The work began with a three-year horizon. Rather than aspirational language, the team defined a concrete picture of YJMT in January 2029. What would be true across programs, community impact, partnerships, governance, and team structure, if growth were done well?

Second, planning.

With that future state defined, the focus shifted to how programs, systems, and leadership would need to evolve to support it. This included identifying where experimentation was appropriate and where consistency mattered most.

Third, resourcing.

Rather than treating capacity as an afterthought, the work surfaced what it would realistically take to sustain the organization, including staffing, systems, and operating costs.

Finally, revenue strategy.

Revenue planning followed vision and capacity. Growth would be paced intentionally, expanding when resources allowed and slowing when they did not.

Planning for Learning, Not Certainty

Instead of committing to a single path forward, the work explored different growth scenarios. Together, we looked at how YJMT might respond under varying conditions, where key decision points would arise, and how early pilots could inform next steps.

A fundamental goal for year one is to pilot and grow an ambassador-led approach to events and community leadership. This was intentionally framed as something to test and learn from, rather than a fully defined model to implement immediately.

This approach allowed Laura to move forward with clarity, while staying flexible as real-time decisions emerged.

Fundraising Alongside Planning

One important choice was to begin fundraising support alongside the planning work, rather than waiting until the plan was finalized.

As the picture of YJMT’s future became clearer, Two Five One delivered a practical, fast-tracked case for support to help jumpstart fundraising conversations. Early prospect research and coaching supported Laura in considering next steps with funders while the plan was still forming.

Focusing on What Matters 

YJMT is special because it is human. The challenge was never how to scale quickly, but how to grow without becoming unrecognizable.

This engagement helped translate 10 years of lived experience, intuition, and care into a form that others can understand, support, and invest in, while keeping Laura and the community at the center.

For Two Five One, the work reflects a core belief: the most effective planning honors the people doing the work, not just the outcomes they are trying to achieve.

The Broader Context Behind  You’re Just My Type

• 9.5 million people worldwide live with Type 1 diabetes today, including 1.85 million children and young people.
• Every person with T1D will face a diabetes-related mental health crisis at some point in their life.
• T1D requires constant, high-stakes decision-making with a lifesaving medication, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without direct medical supervision.
• Childhood-onset T1D carries more than double the risk of mood disorders.
• Living with T1D often involves $20,000+ per year in medical costs, alongside ongoing stress, stigma, and insurance barriers.
• Despite being one of the fastest-growing chronic diseases worldwide, mental health support for people with T1D remains profoundly limited.
  

You’re Just My Type exists to meet this gap through peer-led, emotionally safe community spaces grounded in lived experience. Its work reflects a simple truth: community is essential care.

Learn more at www.yourejustmytype.org and join the fast growing online community.

Laura's perspective on the work

"251 is made up of truly incredible people, and that shows in everything they do. Their kindness, care, and belief in our mission came through from day one, and because of that, the work felt organized, thoughtful, and deeply supportive. They helped alleviate so much for me and made an overwhelming process feel manageable." (Laura Pavlakovich)