DELTA DENTAL FOUNDATION
ANNUAL REPORT 2024
A LETTER FROM OUR
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The Delta Dental Foundation had an incredibly busy and productive 2024 as we launched new initiatives and continued to support our community partners—financially and otherwise.
We also began implementing our new strategic plan. When grantees applied for funding this year, we asked them to identify which of our strategic pillars—access to care, advocacy, education, emerging initiatives or workforce development—with which their program most closely aligned.
We found that 72% of the programs we funded most closely aligned with access to care, 15% with education, 11% with workforce development and 2% with advocacy and emerging initiatives. Those results are striking but not surprising. At the end of the day, access-to-care initiatives make up the lion’s share of our requests. Tens of thousands of people need help getting dental care, and many safety-net clinics need the training and equipment to offer those services.
But what that funding breakdown doesn’t show is how many of the grants overlap—at least when it comes to our strategic aims. A great example is the Victors for Veterans program, which we’ve supported since 2017.
Victors for Veterans (V4V) is a program at the University of School of Dentistry that provides free, comprehensive dental care to qualifying veterans. Although V4V is, at its core, an access-to-care program, that care is provided by third- and fourth-year dental interns. Those soon-to-be dentists gain invaluable learning opportunities in community health settings, which will, over time, strengthen and diversify the oral health workforce. They’re also providing oral hygiene education to their patients.
Still, as we move into 2025, we know that we have opportunities for growth, especially when it comes to fulfilling our aims related to advocacy and emerging initiatives. As the policy landscape shifts, so do the needs of our community partners. Our funding will evolve accordingly, ensuring that our grantees can continue to advance oral health equity and the well-being of the communities they serve. After all, at the heart of our work is the vision of a world where everyone has access to high-quality dental care that meets their comfort level and abilities across the lifespan. Yours in health, Holli Seabury, EdD
DELTA DENTAL FOUNDATION STAFF
- Holli Seabury, EdD | Executive Director
- Kimberly Garland | Manager
- Jen Anderson | Senior Communications and Strategy Officer
- Megan Schreier | Program Officer
- Emily Waldschmidt | Communications and Program Specialist
- Michelle Weinfeld-Geller | Program Coordinator
DELTA DENTAL FOUNDATION BOARD MEMBERS
- Kelly J. Scheiderer, RHIA, MHA | Chair
- Larry DeGroat, DDS | Board Member
- Stephen A. Eklund, DDS, MHSA, DrPH | Board Member
- Raymond Gist, DDS | Board Member
- Goran Jurkovic, CPA, CGMA | Board Member
- Elaine Loyack | Board Member
- Vinod Miriyala, BDS, MPH, CAGS, DDS | Board Member
- Faiyaz Syed, MD, MPH | Board Member
- Sunčica Travan, DDS, MS | Board Member
- Carole Watkins | Board Member
- Anthony Williams | Board Member
OUR COMMUNITIES
In 2024, we committed nearly $6.1 million in grants, scholarships, sponsorships and educational resources, impacting more than 4.3 million lives in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and beyond. For a full list of the grants the Delta Dental Foundation awarded in 2024, please visit our Recently Approved Grants and Funding Initiatives page.
$6.1 million
in contributions
Impacting
4.3 million lives
ORAL HEALTH BY THE NUMBERS
Brochures, flyers and posters distributed
Miles of floss donated
Toothbrushes donated
Organizations recieved more than $300,000 through the Community Mini-grants Program
FUNDING BREAKDOWN
Centers for Inclusive Dentistry locations
354,350
282,554
351
50
16
TeamSmile is changing the game when it comes to oral health care for children.
“TeamSmile was created with the mission of facilitating partnerships between dental professionals, pro sports teams and dental organizations,” says John McCarthy, executive director of TeamSmile.
Every year, thousands of kids nationwide get free dental care and empowering health education through dental clinics held at professional sports stadiums, arenas and practice halls.
When the event is done and the volunteers and mascots and players have gone home, TeamSmile is still working to find every one of those children a dental home, if they need it.
In 2024, TeamSmile hosted 25 dental care events throughout the country, five of which were funded in part by the Delta Dental Foundation.
When it comes to dental care, kids score big with TeamSmile
GRANTMAKING HIGHLIGHT:
Brush! is an interdisciplinary oral health education curriculum for children and their caregivers and adults, as well as adults with chronic health conditions, especially those recovering from substance use disorders.
In post-training surveys, 100% of participants rated the training as “very good” or “excellent,” and all surveyed participants reported feeling “very comfortable” or “somewhat comfortable” discussing oral health after the training.
In 2024, McMillen health provided Brush! training to more than 551 professionals who went on to serve more than 34,000 children and adults. All told, 43,648 people received Brush! resources in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.
Since 2013, Brush! has served 194,209 people in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana and more than 3 million people across 38 states.
More than a decade of oral health education
GRANTMAKING HIGHLIGHT:
DELTA DENTAL FOUNDATION | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
When you’re in the dental chair, you often have a lot of time to listen.
That’s the idea behind Hygienist Inspired, an innovative chairside recruitment program the Delta Dental Foundation launched with the American Dental Hygienists’ Association. The program is designed to increase diversity, address workforce shortages and improve access to care through meaningful patient interactions and outreach.
“Whenever I’d speak to a hygienist traditionally underrepresented in the profession about how they chose their career, I heard time and time again that they’d been recruited chairside,” says Holli Seabury, EdD, executive director of the Delta Dental Foundation. “That personal invitation and call to action held power, and I knew we could leverage the strength of hygienists’ influence and expertise to inspire new professionals.”
Hygienist Inspired is currently recruiting ambassadors and allies who will share their passion and expertise to help shape a more dynamic workforce. They’ll be supported by training and resources to help connect people to fulfilling careers in oral health.
New recruiting initiative aims to improve dental hygiene workforce shortages, access to care
GRANTMAKING HIGHLIGHT:
The Delta Dental Foundation and the Michigan Primary Care Association hosted the Third Annual Oral Health Workforce Development Summit in August.
More than 60 oral health advocates from across Michigan came, and professional facilitators guided the discussion about strengthening and diversifying the oral health safety net in Michigan.
During the summit, representatives from safety-net clinics detailed significant recruiting challenges, which, in some cases, has led to chronic understaffing. This, in turn, causes increased wait times and decreased patient capacities, a critical problem when many of these clinics are the only places where people can receive no- or low-cost dental care.
The Delta Dental Foundation uses the ideas and energy generated by the summit to power a variety of workforce development projects—such as Hygienist Inspired.
The Oral Health Workforce Development Initiative also convenes throughout the year, often in the form of subcommittee meetings, to continue focused program development related to recruitment, career pathways, and workforce environments and retention.
GRANTMAKING HIGHLIGHT:
Summit drives discussion on oral health safety net
The Institute for Exceptional Care (IEC) is a national nonprofit working to make health care better and safer for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The IEC partners with people with lived experience of IDD, family members, and health care professionals to change the way care is taught, delivered and paid for by creating tools, programs and campaigns.
With grant funding from the Delta Dental Foundation, the IEC formed an advisory committee composed of IDD self-advocates, clinical education experts and oral health professionals to determine how best to improve dental care delivery for people with IDD.
Collectively, the group decided to create a dental-office toolkit to support pre-visit preparations for patients with IDD. The toolkit will be piloted by dentists and hygienists who already use the disability-related payment codes under Delta Dental’s special health care needs benefit. The goal is twofold: test drive the toolkit and leverage peer-to-peer relationships to reach providers who may be unaware of the enhanced benefits, underconfident in their ability to serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities or skeptical about initiatives sponsored by an insurance plan.
The advisory committee has distilled a list of best practices for serving people with intellectual and developmental and/or communication disabilities and are adapting them to general dental care settings. This includes mapping practice workflows, designing downloadable collateral tied to online learning modules for continuing education and more.
Broader distribution is planned through dental societies and Delta Dental networks once the toolkit has been tested.
GRANTMAKING HIGHLIGHT:
Dental office toolkit to aid in communication, visit readiness for people with disabilities
DELTA DENTAL FOUNDATION | ANNUAL REPORT 2024
The Delta Dental Foundation approved a $71,500 grant to Northern Michigan University (NMU) to study the feasibility of developing and sustaining a dental hygiene education program at its campus in Marquette. Currently, the closest dental hygiene program is hundreds of miles away in Big Rapids.
The dental community in northern Michigan agrees: all Upper Peninsula dental societies joined in signing a letter of support.
Right now, people interested in dental hygiene careers must leave the area for training and may be less likely to return, worsening dental workforce shortages and access to care issues in the region. All 15 counties in the Upper Peninsula
have at least one dental health professional shortage area (HPSA). A dental HPSA is designated based on the ratio of full-time dentists to the population. More than 1.7 million Michiganders live in dental HPSAs.
The Delta Dental Foundation, which supports workforce development and access to care as key components of its strategic plan, sees this feasibility study as a chance for the Upper Peninsula to cultivate talent within local communities.
The study, which will be completed by fall 2025, is just the first step.