RestoringVision
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
According to the World Health Organization, at least 1 billion people have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed. Of that, 826 million have age-related near vision loss (presbyopia) and only need non-prescription reading glasses to correct their vision impairment immediately. What's more, people living in low and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected by this vision loss— 90% of the people with vision impairments reside in those countries. They thus continue to suffer from vision impairments that eyeglasses can solve needlessly. Eyeglasses restore not only a person's vision but their ability to increase productivity, continue working, earn an income, learn, and remain productive members of society. RestoringVision works to create equitable access to vision services and eyeglasses for people living in poverty worldwide.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Vision Programs: Vision Screenings and glasses for people living in poverty worldwide.
Global Access Program (GAP) is implemented in collaboration with leading global health and humanitarian NGOs and governments in low- and middle-income countries. GAP spans several continents, with its largest markets in Latin America, Africa, and SE Asia.
Community Outreach Program (COP) is implemented in partnership with small and medium-size non-profits, primarily based in the US, who conduct outreach and medical mission trips to less developed countries. These projects serve smaller communities and reach people in some of the world's most remote and rural areas.
Economic Empowerment Program (EEP) aims to increase the earning potential of low-income workers in impoverished communities. EEP currently leverages Community Health Workers in rural Kenya and Uganda to deliver vision screenings and glasses to grow their income.
In 2024, GAP will reach 4.375 million people through four delivery models, COP will reach 750,000 people in 100+ countries, and EEP will reach 100,000 people.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of people helped
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Economically disadvantaged people, People with vision impairments
Related Program
Vision Programs: Vision Screenings and glasses for people living in poverty worldwide.
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Number of people who have received a new pair of glasses (i.e., reading glasses and sunglasses) each year.
Increasing our impact in certain countries (and thereby, regions) of the world
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Economically disadvantaged people, People with vision impairments
Related Program
Vision Programs: Vision Screenings and glasses for people living in poverty worldwide.
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
These numbers represent the cumulative number of countries impacted since 2003 to date.
Improving our performance as a supplier (as measured by percent satisfied overall)
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Economically disadvantaged people, People with vision impairments
Related Program
Vision Programs: Vision Screenings and glasses for people living in poverty worldwide.
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We ask all partners who have returned from the field to complete a RestoringVision Post Mission Survey that enables us to assess how well we are performing.
Number of new organizations signing on as collaborators
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Seniors, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Vision Programs: Vision Screenings and glasses for people living in poverty worldwide.
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
RestoringVision relies on US based nonprofit organizations and international NGOs to add glasses to their programs in order to expand its reach to serve millions of people in need.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
RestoringVision is committed to creating equitable access to vision screenings and eyeglasses for people living in impoverished communities worldwide. We primarily focus on reaching extremely impoverished people living outside the US. More recently, we expanded our programs to serve refugee populations, Indigenous communities, and people living at or below 300% of the federal poverty line in the United States.
Our programs focus mainly on addressing near vision loss (presbyopia) and the delivery of reading glasses. In 2019, we added single vision minus eyeglasses in smaller volumes to address nearsightedness (myopia).
We have an established program pipeline that can reach 10 million people annually, and our goal is to satisfy as much of this delivery pipeline as possible. As such, we are actively fundraising to ensure we can fulfill this demand.
Aligned with our three-year strategic plan, over the next three years, we will reach approximately 10.3 million people or more:
• 2021 – 2.3 million
• 2022 – 3.5 million
• 2023 – 4.5 million
Our long-term goal is to reach 10 million people annually. Our ultimate goal is to create sustainable and permanent channels for impoverished people to access the vision services and eyeglasses they need. This means transitioning our programs to local ownership, including governments, local organizations, and/or social enterprises building emerging markets. Over the next 5-10 years, we will track the number of people who have access to sustainable vision programs and services due to local ownership of our programs and through other efforts we initiate.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Guided by our three-year strategic plan (2021-2023) our strategies for attaining our goals are as follows: (Note: we updated our plan in August 2022 to reflect new programming)
- Goal 1: Accelerate fundraising to accelerate impact - RestoringVision is in a unique position compared to other nonprofits. While many nonprofits are fundraising to build new programs, RestoringVision has an established large program pipeline (we can reach seven million) through our Global Access Program. Our focus is to accelerate fundraising to serve this program's capacity.
- Goal 2: Expand the Global Access Program: Scale existing programs to reach 250,000 to 500,000 people per year per program Add 1-3 new programs per year to create more access channels for vision services and eyeglasses in communities where these do not yet exist 1) Expand programs in Africa, 2) Grow refugee programming , 3) Build and strengthen local partnerships to move toward local ownership and sustainability
- Goal 3: Rebuild and expand our Community Outreach Program - Restore the Community Outreach Program to pre-pandemic levels and build new partnerships and projects
-Goal 4: Launch the Economic Empowerment Program: Pilot and build economic empowerment programs that leverage social enterprises and NGOs to reach significant numbers of low-income workers in impoverished communities with the goal of increasing their earning potential and bringing vision services and eyeglasses to the communities they serve.
- Goal 5: Invest in Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning - As RestoringVision grows to serve millions of people, the organization recognizes the importance of utilizing data to evaluate our progress towards goals, to ensure we reach people in our target markets, and to inform strategy and program.
- Goal 6: Increase the visibility of our work and impact - RestoringVision has a rich 19-year history of impacting millions of lives by creating access to glasses and providing clear vision to people living in impoverished communities around the world. Our model is unique, and we hold a distinctive space within the optical, global health, and social impact ecosystems. Today, we seek to increase our impact and advance our mission to restore vision for millions of people in need. To do so, RestoringVision must become more visible to our target audience of funders who can help to advance our mission.
- Goal 7: Build an organization of excellence - As RestoringVision's model evolves and our capacity increases both in terms of staff and output, the organization needs to invest in building itself to be able to serve 10 million people annually, to compete and be awarded large multi-year grants, and to become an organization that recruits and retains top talent.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Established in 2003, RestoringVision has grown to be the nonprofit leader in providing new eyeglasses to people living in poverty at no cost to the beneficiary to combat the vision crisis. Our programs focus primarily on addressing near vision loss (presbyopia) and the delivery of reading glasses. More recently, we've added in smaller volumes single vision minus eyeglasses to address nearsightedness (myopia).
Our organization has built an unparalleled network of more than 2,500 US-based nonprofit organizations and international NGOs who integrate our vision program into their existing work. Our core competencies are 1) finding and engaging globally-focused and international development project partners to integrate our program into their work, 2) raising awareness about the lack of access to vision care and eyeglasses in low-income countries and impoverished communities, 3) elevating the impact acquiring clear vision has on peoples lives, 4) and training our partners how to incorporate our vision program into their work. We also provide them with the resources needed to add our vision program to their existing work or programming and with technical assistance during program implementation.
We have built robust operations and a supply chain that enables us to receive and process millions of in-kind brand new, high-quality eyeglasses from our leading for-profit optical partners. Some of these partners also support us through a philanthropic purchasing program, which allows us to manufacture new RestoringVision branded eyeglasses at just over cost. This enables us to have the supply of eyeglasses we need for our programs when in-kind donations run low or are depleted
To date, our programs have reached 25 million people living in poverty in over 147 countries.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Since inception, RestoringVision has reached 25 million people in over 147 countries. In 2022, we reached 3,398,112 million people living in poverty worldwide.
Since implementing our three-year plan, we have advanced several critical strategic goals. We strengthened our leadership team and increased our capabilities in many necessary parts of our business, including programs, operations, logistics, and IT. We grew our existing programs, launched a new program-the Economic Empowerment Program- and engaged in new partnerships to expand to new countries. We also saw a 200% increase in corporate and foundation support from existing and new donors. Of note, to increase the visibility of our work, we rebranded our organization and launched our new brand identity and a new website in September 2022. This was a key goal in our three-year plan.
What's next
We have set an ambitious plan to serve 10 million people annually before the end of the decade through our programs. We are also focusing on solving the vision crisis by working to create sustainable and permanent channels for people living in poverty to access the vision services and eyeglasses they need. To support this effort, we are building local capacity in five countries: Mexico, Peru, India, Nepal, and Uganda. Our ambition is to transition our program to local ownership through these efforts. In addition, we are working with our local partners to define the pathways to sustainability, including identifying the payer for programs and the glasses supplier. In Mexico and Peru, we have already leveraged government agencies to support this effort over the long term.
Finally, we conducted an evaluation study in 2019 to better understand the communities in which our programs operate. The study revealed that over 80% of our beneficiaries in Zacatecas State, Mexico, and 90% in Imo State, Nigeria, would not have obtained a pair of glasses if it were not for RV's vision programs. It also highlighted the barriers to getting a pair of reading glasses, most notable affordability in Mexico and access and affordability in Nigeria. In 2023, RestoringVision will embark on its second evaluation study to further assess barriers and report on outcomes.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
RestoringVision
Board of directorsas of 02/07/2024
Mr. Kevin Hassey
RestoringVision
Term: 2020 -
Reade Fahs
National Vision
Chris Harris
Friedman Fleischer & Lowe
Erwin Cho
Kaiser Permanente
Myles Lewis
General Vision Services
Kevin Hassey
Retired Senior Vice President, National Vision Inc.
Mary Ann Peters
Retired Executive Director, the Carter Center, and Former US Ambassador to Bangladesh
Jayanth Bhuvaraghan
Former Chief Mission Officer for EssilorLuxottica and Essilor International o
Pelin Munis
CEO, RestoringVision
Katrina Posey
RestoringVision
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 10/17/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.