North Dakota Dental Foundation

On September 28-29, 2018, the North Dakota Dental Foundation and the North Dakota Dental Association sponsored a dental Mission of Mercy at the Bismarck Event Center. We served 916 patients.

570 volunteers (110 dentists, 48 hygienists, 105 assistants, and 4 lab techs) were supported by 120 cash and in-kind donors to provide urgently needed care, valued at $565,000, to 916 low-income patients.

Bright Futures in Dentistry is focused on building a vibrant dental workforce in North Dakota. Specifically we aim to increase the number of licensed dental assistants in ND. We've helped drive a 23% increase in licensed dental assistants in ND since 2017. We've also helped increased applications to NDSCS dental assisting program by 55% from 2018 - 2019!

We know dental assistants are vital to a dental practice. They may take patient vitals, clean prosthesis, take impressions, apply meds, take patient history, and do impressions. To be able to take radiographs, dental assistants need to become qualified. To practice even more expanded functions dental assistants need to become registered.

Currently, there is a significant shortage of dental assistants in North Dakota. In 2017, 70% of North Dakota dentists tried to hire a dental assistant and 40% were unsuccessful.

The North Dakota Dental Foundation is here to help. In partnership with the North Dakota Dental Association and the North Dakota State College of Science we created a program Dental Assistant Workforce Initiative.

Bright Futures in Dentistry takes three actions::

1) Connect local dental assistants with high school students
2) Advertise to high school students
3) Pay for chair-side trained dental assistants to become DANB certified.

Dental Rental propels passionate providers to provide charitable dental care in their communities.

We know you became a dentist to care for others. You do this every day in your own practice, making a difference and helping your patients.

We know you also want to help patients outside of your practice through outreach activities, but there are some very real challenges such as the cost of purchasing portable dental equipment.

The North Dakota Dental Foundation is here to help. We have the following equipment available to support your charitable outreach :
1) Compressors
2) X-rays
3) Chairs
4) Stools
5) Trays

If you want to participate specifically in a school sealant program, we run all coordination through the ND Department of Health's Seal!ND program. Simply contact Seal! ND Prevention Coordinator Toni Hruby at [email protected]

We collect both cash and in-kind donations to supply low-income & education-based child care centers, schools and organizations with oral health kits (toothbrushes, floss, paste, and education). We've partnered with the Great Plains Food Bank to distribute oral health kits through their school backpack program and food pantries across ND. They serve over 36,000 kids every year. If each of those kids received an oral health kit at least once a quarter, over the next 10 years that's over 1 million brushes.