Oral Health International Foundation

Oral Health International Foundation (OHIF, EIN 77-0120371, Reston, VA) is a small, trustee-driven operating foundation with roughly $10M in assets that funds direct dental-access projects rather than research, capital campaigns, or institutional overhead. Through July 2024 it operated as the Oral Health Foundation of the Pierre Fauchard Academy; it has since rebranded and formally split from that dental honor society, and in 2025 paused its scholarship line (over $2.5M given to third-year dental students from 1996-2024) to redirect resources toward its underserved-access grants program. That pivot matters strategically: applicants competing for scholarship dollars should look elsewhere in the near term, while charitable-clinic and mission-trip organizations are now the clear priority.

The grantee roster is dominated by small, community-based free/charity dental clinics (Hope Dental Clinic, Oasis Free Clinics, Moab Free Health Clinic), state dental association charitable foundations (Iowa, Florida, Minnesota, Virginia, Maryland), and international mission-style NGOs (Global Dental Relief, Angkor Hospital for Children, Haitian Health Foundation, Health Mission Outreach). This is not a funder for large academic medical centers or multi-million-dollar capital campaigns — grants fund tangible clinical inputs: instruments, disposable supplies, instrument rental, and lab fees.

The relationship model is a single annual application reviewed once a year by the all-volunteer Board of Trustees (led by Grants Chairman Joseph Harris DDS and President Steven Hedlund DDS, with Executive Director Jennifer Teale administering the program). There is no separate LOI stage, no site visit process disclosed, and no rolling deadlines — everything happens in one March 1-June 1 window with results in mid-November. Organizations can be funded for two consecutive years, then must sit out a year before reapplying, so first-time applicants should think of OHIF as a recurring-but-not-perpetual funding source to be paired with other grants. Because trustees are practicing dentists, proposals framed around concrete clinical need (units of care, patient volume, specific equipment gaps) will land better than broad programmatic narratives. Grant sizes are modest — typical awards run $250 to $10,000 (median $1,000) — so OHIF works best as gap/equipment funding within a larger budget, not as an organization's primary revenue source.

OHIF's giving has grown steadily but from a modest base. Total giving rose from $525,137 (FY2019) to $648,814 (FY2023), and grants paid climbed from $296,250 to $389,900 over the same period — a roughly 32% increase in grant dollars in four years. Assets have fluctuated between $8.6M and $10.7M (peaking at $10.7M in FY2021 on strong investment returns), sitting at $9.98M as of FY2023. Net investment income ($523,706 in FY2023) consistently dwarfs new contributions received ($65,013 in FY2023), confirming OHIF operates primarily off its endowment rather than active fundraising — a structurally stable but slow-growing funder.

At the individual-grant level, typical awards range from $250 to $10,000, with a median of $1,000 and an average of $3,093 across 105 tracked awards — these are supply/equipment-scale grants, not program-scale. Aggregated across the historical grantee file (320 grants totaling $964,512 in the sample, averaging $3,014 per grant), the largest cumulative recipients cluster around $15,000-$30,000 received over 2-3 separate grants: Pierre Fauchard Academy chapters in Canada ($30,000/3 grants) and Australia ($27,000/3 grants) for scholarships (legacy, pre-pause), Smile International Foundation ($30,000/3 grants), Angkor Hospital for Children and Health Mission Outreach ($24,500/3 grants each), and Hope Dental Clinic ($21,000/3 grants). State dental association foundations (Iowa, Florida, Virginia, Minnesota, Maryland) and disaster/mission-clinic operators (Global Dental Relief, Haitian Health Foundation) typically land in the $7,500-$15,000 cumulative range.

Geographically, funding concentrates in California (23 grantees), New York (21), Utah (14), Florida and North Carolina (11 each), Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Texas (10 each), and Kentucky (9) — a mix of large-population states with active charitable dental infrastructure plus a meaningful international mission-clinic component (Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Canada, Australia). By program, the most recent 990 shows Humanitarian Grants ($239,500 in program expense) roughly 2.8x the size of Student Scholarships ($85,262) — and the 2025 scholarship pause will push that ratio further toward humanitarian/access grants going forward.

OHIF sits in the smaller tier of dental-focused funders by both assets and annual giving — well below the ADA Foundation's national scale but larger in per-grant terms than most single-state dental society charitable arms. Unlike the ADA Foundation, which spans research, education, and dentist-relief programs, OHIF's mandate is narrowly direct patient-access equipment/supply funding, making it a better fit for frontline clinics than for research or systems-level initiatives. Its closest structural peer is the Dental Trade Alliance Foundation — similarly modest in size, similarly focused on funding tangible access-to-care projects rather than institutions.

OHIF's most recent documented activity centers on two funded clinics reported on its own news page. In January 2026, the foundation backed Footbridge, Inc.'s free dental clinic in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, supporting recovery efforts for communities affected by Hurricane Helene; Footbridge has run free clinics in the state since 2019 and appears in OHIF's grantee data with $15,000 across three grants. In December 2025, OHIF funded two week-long charitable clinics run by Global Dental Relief in Chimaltenango, Guatemala — consistent with Global Dental Relief's appearance in the grantee file ($10,000 across two grants).

Structurally, the foundation underwent two significant changes in this window. Effective July 31, 2024, it renamed from the Oral Health Foundation of the Pierre Fauchard Academy to the Oral Health International Foundation and ended its formal affiliation with the Pierre Fauchard Academy dental honor society — a rebrand toward a standalone international access-to-care identity. In 2025, it paused its third-year dental-student scholarship program, which had awarded over $2.5M from 1996-2024, in order to redirect capacity to the humanitarian grants line. The foundation opened its 2026 grant cycle on the standard March 1-June 1 timeline, with international partner organizations (including Turkish NGOs relaying the opportunity via STGM.org.tr) actively promoting the round; results are expected mid-November 2026. No leadership changes were identified in the available search results beyond the standing trustee roster (President Steven Hedlund DDS, Grants Chairman Joseph Harris DDS, Executive Director Jennifer Teale).

Apply within the single annual window: OHIF accepts applications only from March 1 through June 1 each year for projects to be implemented the following calendar year, with funding decisions announced in mid-November — there is no rolling or off-cycle review, so missing the window means waiting a full year. Submit the entire application as one combined PDF to oralhealthinternational@gmail.com; the foundation's own site states multiple files are not accepted, and incomplete packages are not reviewed at all.

Build a genuinely itemized budget. OHIF explicitly rejects lump-sum budget lines — list instruments, disposable supplies, instrument rental, and lab fees individually with unit costs, since these are the categories OHIF actually funds. Do not request salaries, travel, research, capital/construction, computers, real estate, insurance, volunteer support, fundraising-event costs, advertising, or general operating contributions to other organizations — all are explicitly excluded and a request that leans on these will likely be disqualified outright.

Include every required document: completed application form, IRS Letter of Determination (or, for non-US organizations, a foreign tax-exempt certificate — OHIF has actively worked with international partners like Turkish NGOs), an itemized project budget, an organization-wide budget, two current letters of endorsement, a board of directors list, and the principal applicant's CV. Limit the ask to one project per institution per cycle — OHIF does not accept multiple simultaneous proposals from the same organization.

Because the review board is composed of practicing dentists rather than professional program officers, frame the proposal in clinical terms: specific patient volumes served, specific equipment or supply gaps, and measurable service outcomes will resonate more than broad mission narratives. Prior recipients like Global Dental Relief and Footbridge, Inc. that run recurring, well-documented charity clinics illustrate the profile OHIF favors — established, focused, single-purpose dental service projects rather than new or diversified programs. Note the two-consecutive-years-then-skip-a-year funding cap when planning a multi-year budget, and build a bridge funding source for the mandatory gap year.