A Smile for Kids

By building connections to social service networks in Oregon (schools, DHS, churches, after school programs and other family services), we encourage all professionals who are part of an under-resourced kid's life to refer them to us. On the back end, we fund our program in a few different ways. We seek grant funding through health and community-service oriented organization and from funds all around Oregon. This includes corporate giving and leverage through other non-profit organizations. We find individual sponsors who wish to help the kids by sponsoring the entire orthodontic process for that child and in return, we encourage sponsors and the child to communicate with each other. This has added a high level of accountability to the program and given the recipient a stronger sense that there are people out there who care about them. For some of our kids, this is the only place they get to feel that connectedness. We are launching individual giving campaigns to encourage work, family and school groups to crowdfund or peer2peer fund when one person wants to help but can't afford a full set of braces for a kid who desperately needs them. Finally, we work closely with all our orthodontic partners to ensure that the in-kind donation of their time and materials makes a difference in their community. Without their help, we would be hard-pressed to make our program happen.

Through the last 10 years, our Program Director, Michael has been developing the program to bring the most value to all stakeholders. This is accomplished through constant contact with orthodontists, social services professionals, families of the kids and sponsors. By keeping everyone in the loop when it comes to the treatment process and progress with school, health, and volunteering, we maintain a close-knit network of caring individuals who are all looking to help the kid feel successful. In addition, Michael takes great care to pre-screen kids for our three main factors; a strong aesthetic need, lack of resources and suffering from severe self-esteem issues. This, in turn, has given our organization a high level of credibility with the orthodontists who agree to take on the treatment at a financial loss to their practice. Executive Director, Christian, comes to A Smile for Kids with a strong background in Learning & Development, marketing, and sales in the private sector, as well as time working for the State of Oregon. This has provided a unique insight into marketing and fundraising on one side and working with government agencies on the other. Building a self-sustaining and growth strategy after a recent re-organization has made A Smile for Kids more agile and better able to adapt to market forces governing our fundraising efforts. In addition, our Board of Directors has been selected for expertise in orthodontics, fundraising, board governance, and community involvement. As such, we have a critically thinking board who is personally invested in making our program impact kids in Oregon in the most meaningful way.

In order for us to measure the validity of our program and progress for the kids, we have a few mechanisms in place. Before each patient is accepted into the program, we set a baseline on the application by asking ranking questions around self-esteem, career options, participation in group activities and other social indicators. We also speak with the child's school and get a copy of their latest grade report to ensure that they are at least at a "C" or above. If they are not, we incentivize the student by waiting to start treatment until after their GPA is lifted to a "C". Throughout the 2-year treatment, we conduct compliance calls to the orthodontist and family every 3 months to ensure that the child is attending their orthodontist appointments and completing their volunteer hours. This also entails an overall conversation about the wellbeing and engagement of the patient. Post-treatment, we return to the social determinant questions from the initial application and ask the same questions again. This second round of answers gives us great insight into the progress of each child. We have moved to electronic record-keeping to deduct more solid data from the answers.

Since "A Smile for Kids" was founded in 2004, our organization has gone through several development stages. Because we have filled a gap between public support for orthodontic services and lack of resources for each affected family, our program has grown tremendously. As an example, in 2010 we worked with 20 orthodontists and funded treatment for 14 kids. We had an operating budget of $70,000. We now work with 64 orthodontists, have facilitated treatment of 50 kids this year so far and looking to grow our scope to treat 60 kids next year with a budget of $400,000. This now means that our 94% graduation rate and community service hours affect more communities than ever before. We are looking into the future to grow our scope to cover more rural communities in Oregon where orthodontic services are often missing. We will also continue to grow funding streams in Oregon in order to serve more suffering kids in communities where we are already operating. As a follow up to requests from our sponsors out-of-state we will also look at funding options for our program is states where orthodontic services are not covered by public health systems.