Smile Foundation

Smile Foundation is a national level development organization currently benefitting more than 200,000
underprivileged children & youth directly through 162 welfare projects through initiatives in education,
healthcare, livelihood, women empowerment, and advocacy across 25 states of India.

Smile Foundation believes in the spirit of partnership and has joined hands with community
organization, civic bodies, corporate, educational and development institutions, as well as government
to strengthen its cause and ameliorate the situation of underprivileged children and youths in India. The
entire management and operations of Smile Foundation is on compliance with the principal of “good
Governance” and thus sets itself apart with its set norms of sustainability, scalability, accountability,
transparency, credibility and effective leadership.

Brief History of the Organization

Smile Foundation formed in 2002 by a group of corporate professionals who, decided to finance, handhold
and support genuine grassroots' initiatives targeted at providing education and health to underprivileged
children. It is an Indian development agency registered as an Indian Charitable Trust and is working for the
holistic development of children, youth and women (in the areas of education, health, girl child
empowerment and livelihood). Children and youths are the prime focus and their welfare is at the centre
stage. Smile Foundation is helping the underprivileged children, youths and women to discover alternatives
leading to their socio-economic independence and better health. The aforesaid developmental aspects have
been aligned with organizations Vision. The Board of Trustees and Board of Advisors are the people who have
given structure to Smile Foundation and have also driven the organization in line with its vision, mission and
values.

Members of Board of Trustees

Smile Foundation is managed by a Board of Advisors which comprises of individuals from

diverse backgrounds and expertise. The body is formed for a period of one year and a few
independent members with eminence and reputation are nominated each year. Members of
this board meet once every quarter.

Mr. Santanu Mishra is an associate member of ICSI (Institute of Company Secretaries of India). He is
an Alumni of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad.

Mr. Yogesh Jagia, a lawyer by profession with specialization in economic laws, practices in Delhi
high Court & Supreme Court of India.

Mr. Praveen Gupta is a Masters in Business & Economics (MBE) from Delhi University. Mr
Gupta gives advices to the top corporate houses in India on various strategic issues.

Mr. Ashok Chaudhary is a qualified Chartered Accountant and is engaged in practice for more than
two decades.

Mr. Manish Marwah is a Chartered Accountant, cost accountant & company secretary and
specializes in business strategy and global operations.
 Mrs. Poonam Chopra is a graduate from St. Mary’s college and is involved in Social Activities for
more than a decade.

Members of Board of Advisors

Mr. Santanu Mishra an Associate Member of ICSI (Institute of Company Secretaries of India), is an
Alumni of Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A). Besides also holding a degree in law, Mr. Mishra
specializes in Enterprise Transformation, strategies and Scaling up.
Mr. Yogesh Jagia, a Lawyer by profession with specialization in economic laws, practices in Delhi
High Court & Supreme Court of India.

Mr. Praveen Gupta is a Masters in Business & Economics (MBE) from Delhi University. Mr
Gupta gives advices to the top corporate houses in India on various strategic issues.

Dr. Ira Dash Rajguru, a Doctorate in Social Sciences with specialization in HR and Women Issues,
has been working with HR dept of Unicorp and subsequently worked as a HR consultant to
Ingramico, Icons & V5 Global. Interested in writing, she has authored the book “Women and
Education in Rajasthan”.

Major Programmes
 Mission Education (ME): Mission Education is the flagship programme of Smile Foundation, providing
basic education and healthcare to underprivileged children. At present, Smile Foundation has 70 Mission
Education centers across 19 states of India. More than 16,500 children living in slums/ remote rural
areas are being directly benefitted from the intervention.

 Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (STeP): STeP is the livelihood programme for the underprivileged
youth, wherein the youth are given training on key employability skills like English proficiency, computer
operations, personality development, etc. with the objective of helping them get a job in the growing
retail and service sector. At present there are 54 STeP centers located in 19 states of India.
Approximately 11000 youth have been trained through STeP centres and more than 9000 youth have
been placed in companies like Café Coffee Day, Westside Stores, ICICI, HDFC, Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar,
Spencer, Croma etc.

 Smile on Wheels (SoW): Smile on Wheels is a multi- centric project with an objective of providing a
comprehensive range of health care services to under-privileged community in remote rural areas and
slums through an equipped mobile medical van. The programme is based on innovative concept of
“Community centric sustainable health delivery model”. Currently there are 19 SoW Mobile Medical Units
operational in 19 states in 265 villages of India directly benefitting more than 2,31,000 people in one
year.

 Swabhiman: Swabhiman is the project on girl child and women empowerment. The programme
comprises of sensitizing adolescent girls on gender issues, Life Skill Education (LSE) including
communication and negotiation skills. It also aims at providing reproductive and Child Health Services
through mobile health clinic for currently married women and adolescents and children. At present the
project reaches out to 10 communities which entail 1,50,000 beneficiaries.
Organizational Capacity
The Foundation diligently follows the principle of Good Governance and insists upon their implementation
across all activities. Smile’s day to day activities are handled directly by an Executive Committee, comprising
professionals, which reports to Board of Advisers. The latter is constituted once every year, and includes
professionals from rich technical background as well as persons of eminence. The Board of Advisors, in turn,
reports to the Board of Trustees who shapes the vision of the Foundation and lay down broad guidelines for
the organization to follow.

Also Smile encourages its NGO partners to follow all kinds of credibility norms, by itself adhering to these
first. This ensures Good Governance and complete accountability. Part of this endeavor is implementation of
the three-level audit system that helps monitor resource utilization and project impact on regular basis.
Introducing online monitoring, monthly MIS reports are some of the approaches to improve project
management efficiency at low cost.

The Foundation’s various Divisions are supervised by the Director-Operations who have wide experience of
development sectors- communication, project management, branding and CSR.

The Programme Division is headed by a vastly experienced professional having long working experience in
development sectors (Education and empowerment, reproductive and sexual health, Livelihood) in varied
organizational set-ups besides considerable social research experience under private sector/ academic
institutions.

Each Programme is managed directly by Programme Managers/ Senior Programme Officers posted centrally
at the Head Office and ably assisted by field officers across various locations assisting in site appraisals/
monitoring.

Project specific monitoring instruments are suitably drawn; monthly/quarterly reports are meticulously
examined, commented upon, suggestions getting complied with-the exercise of programme monitoring
entails all these. Financial monitoring is strictly done, first by Programme Division examining financial
statement and subsequently Accounts division auditing bills and vouchers and finally by external auditor.
Every effort is made to ensure that grant made is utilized for the purpose it was meant.

Achievements & Recognitions

There are hundreds and thousands of NGO’s in India and majority of them are doing good work for the
society. Smile Foundation is also one of those non-profit development organization which is trying to bring
change not only amongst the underprivileged communities but also generating awareness amongst the
privileged masses so that the burgeoning gap between rich and poor can be reduced in coming future. In last
8-9 years Smile Foundation has become one of the fastest growing non-profit organizations in terms of its
reach and quality work. The following points further highlight some of the key achievements of the
organization in the recent past.

 Smile Foundation has been awarded ‘Special Consultative Status’ in the ECOSOC (Economic
and Social Council) of United Nations in 2012.

 Smile Foundatiuon is empanelled with the ‘National CSR Hub’ of TISS (Tata Institute of Social
Scienece). TISS, a pioneer educational institution in social sciences with decades of experience
in teaching, research, publications, and field interventions.
 Smile Foundation is affiliated with international organizations such as Charities Aid
Foundation, Guidestar and United Ways Worldwide.

 Awarded for Quality Initiative Mission Award 2013 for the Education project- Mission Education.

 Awarded the Knowledge and Resource Development and Welfare Group Healthcare Leadership
Award 2012 for the Outstanding Contribution in Promoting Inclusive Healthcare.

 Smile Foundation is the first development organization in India which has conceptualized &
produced a full length parallel film called “ I am Kalam” focusing on Right to Education .The
film won the ‘National Award’ and ‘Filmfare Award’ along with 22 other international awards
across the globe.

 Smile Foundation has won the UNICEF Asia Pacific Child Rights Awards 2010 for its television
campaign ‘Choone Do Aasman (2009)’ that was broadcasted on NDTV India.

 Smile Foundation has been awarded the Barclays Bank Chairman’s Award 2010 for putting its best
efforts along with the bank’s Indian employees in helping disadvantaged communities.

 In the year 2011, NTR Memorial Trust felicitated Smile Foundation for its outstanding achievement
and high standards of excellence in educating underprivileged children.

 Choone Do Aasman (2009) – an initiative of Smile Foundation and NDTV to sensitize people about
the aspirations of underprivileged children has been awarded the best Hindi news documentary, for
the year by the third edition of the Indian News Broadcasting (INB) Awards 2010.

 Smile Foundation has been featured in Inventive Indians, an iconic book on ‘Great stories of change’.
The book from the publishers of Civil Society Magazine profiles individuals who have dedicated their
lives for bringing social change in various fields.

 Smile Foundation has been recognized with GE Health care Modern Medi Care Excellence Award as
"NGO of the year" for innovative contribution towards health care services for the poor & needy.

 Smile Foundation is the nominated national member from India for the Together4Change Alliance,
effective across 100 countries and aiming to work for the well being of children and youth in
alignment with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); effecting civic driven change. This has
been instituted by a consortium led by International Child Support (ICS) and three Dutch
organisations namely, Wilde Ganzen (Wild Geese), Wereldkideren (NICWO), and SOS Kinderdorpen
with support of the Dutch Government.

 The Women Empowerment Programme of Smile foundation called “Swabhiman” has been
showcased in the research publication on Women Empowerment by DASRA which is supported by
PIRAMAL Trust.

 The Foundation's health programme - Smile on Wheels was invited for a poster presentation at
World Health Care Congress in United States of America.

 Website of Smile Foundation,www.smilefoundationindia.org is adjudged among 10 best

organization websites by best indiansites.com alongside likes of corporate including Tech Mahindra
and Infosys. Smile Foundation is the only charity in the list.
  The Foundation along with two other development organizations organized a National Consultation
of Civil Society Organizations on ‘Adolescents’ Constituency for the 12th Five Year Plan’. As many as
50 organizations from 15 states of India participated in the consultation and the entire proceedings
took place in the presence of the Planning Commission’s representatives.

Few of our Corporate Partners

Jackie Chan spent time with

Smile Children while he was in
Delhi.