Yes, Operation Smile is a Canadian registered charity (Registration Number 84064 3605 RR0001) which means your donation is tax-deductible.

Operation Smile is a leading global nonprofit bridging the gap in access to essential surgeries and healthcare, starting with cleft surgery and comprehensive care. We provide medical expertise, training, mentorship, research, and care through our dedicated staff and volunteers around the world, working alongside local governments, nonprofits, and local health systems, and supported by our generous donors and corporate partners.

What started as a family-led, surgical-program based organization has grown into a global network of passionate individuals united under the belief that access to healthcare is not a privilege, but a universal human right. Through our expertise in treating cleft lip and cleft palate, we create sustainable solutions that deliver safe cleft care to people where it’s needed most.

Patient care and safety have always been, and will always be, Operation Smile’s highest priority. We are passionately committed to treating every child as if they were our own – settling for nothing less than the highest standard of medical care. Operation Smile does not cut corners or put our patients at risk for the sake of efficiency. We provide long-term, comprehensive care to children born with cleft conditions including surgery, nutrition, psychosocial support, speech therapy, and oral health treatment to give them the best life possible.

We were the first cleft surgical organization to support the World Health Organization’s Safe Surgery Saves Lives initiative. Our Medical Global Standards© are our commitment to ensuring that every patient cared for by Operation Smile will benefit from the same sophisticated equipment, procedures and highly trained, credentialed medical professionals, no matter where they live.

To learn how we create health that lasts, visit the Our Work section of our website.

Operation Smile was founded in 1982 by Dr. Bill Magee, a plastic surgeon, and his wife Kathy Magee, a nurse and clinical social worker. They traveled to the Philippines with a group of volunteers to repair children’s cleft lips and palates.

The need was far greater than their capacity to perform surgery. Out of 300 families that arrived hoping their children would receive life-changing surgery, the team could only treat 40 children. “People pushed their babies at us,” Kathy recalls.

The Magee’s couldn’t bear to leave children behind and promised to return. They began raising donations of surgical equipment and supplies from manufacturers, threw themselves into grassroots fundraising, and assembled a volunteer team of 18 doctors, nurses and technicians for their own medical mission to the Philippines. They helped about 100 more patients, but hundreds remained.

That experience sparked the beginning of a global movement that includes 6,000+ medical volunteers operating in over 30 countries – providing surgery, nutrition, psychosocial care, speech therapy, and oral health support. We continue to build medical capacity to care for more children, in more places, closer to where they live by investing in the education and training of local medical professionals and strengthening healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries.

Our financial statements and impact reports are made public on the Financial Accountability section of our website as a step of accountability to our donors. Transparency is one of our organizational values and we take the stewardship of charitable gifts seriously.

Operation Smile currently provides world-class cleft care in 37 countries supported by more than 6,000 volunteers from 60 countries and has a presence in more than 40 countries. Operation Smile Canada’s main office is located at 375 University Ave., Suite 204, Toronto ON, M5G 2J5.

Thank you for creating smiles with your gift! You can mail your donation directly to our main office in Toronto:

375 University Ave., Suite 204,
Toronto ON, M5G 2J5

You can also make your donation, toll-free, over the phone at 1-844-376-4530 or complete your gift online.

Our University Avenue address in Toronto is our head office, and the Markham address is where most of our mail is processed. You can send your donation to either address, both are secure.

Please make your generous donation out to Operation Smile Canada Foundation.

Yes! We love connecting with you on social media. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Yes, Operation Smile is proud to be a volunteer-driven organization that builds cleft care capacity through the education and training of local professionals during each surgery. We invite volunteers from the following medical fields to apply for opportunities: Surgery, Nursing, Anesthesiology, Biomedical Technology, and Pediatrics. For more information on volunteering, please visit the Get Involved section of our website.

The global Operation Smile family operates in over 30 low- and middle-income countries around the world. View our interactive map to learn what countries we are in.

We are a non-denominational organization that respects the faiths of all our patients. We welcome and credential medical volunteers without regard to race, religion, gender, or nationality, and we provide care to all patients, regardless of their background.