Impact Report

A simple thank you is hardly enough to convey our gratitude for all you have done for children with clefts around the world. The stories in this Impact Report showcase not only resilience and hope, they are also a tribute to the lifesaving difference your generosity makes possible around the world every single day. 

Smile Train was founded in 1999 with a simple idea: Local healthcare workers could provide better, timelier, and more personalized cleft care to children in need than outside doctors flying in on mission trips.
Twenty-five years later, we are celebrating our 2 millionth cleft surgery. That’s more than every other charity combined, and it owes entirely to your faithful support.

Yet those 2 million+ cleft surgeries we’ve sponsored are only scratching the surface of the impact your donations make each day across five continents. As the stories you’re about to read make clear, when a child receives cleft care, it brings healing and hope not only to themselves, but also their parents, siblings, extended families, communities, classmates, and countless others. And by training and equipping local healthcare workers, you are uplifting all healthcare in the places that need it most.

In fact, an economic impact report we commissioned this spring found that, since 2000, your support for Smile Train has added an additional $69 billion to the global economy.

Thanks to you, we have so much to celebrate this milestone year. But as we look back, we must also look ahead. Another child is born with a cleft every three minutes, and hundreds of thousands of people are still living without the cleft care they need to thrive.

We have so much work left to do, and we know we're still just getting started. With you by our side, Smile Train will keep moving, keep innovating, keep healing, until the day comes when we’ve fully realized our vision: "A world where every person has access to high-quality, comprehensive cleft care and is able to live a full and healthy life."

On behalf of our healthcare partners, staff, and patients and their families around the world, thank you. Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for believing in us and our model. And most importantly, thank you for helping us light up the world with smiles for 25 years and beyond.

With gratitude,

Susannah Schaefer