Help and FAQs

Operation Smile accepts the following methods of payment:

Postal donations – Cheques, Debit/Credit Card donations, CAF Vouchers, Postal Orders & Direct Debit

Phone donations – One off and Regular Debit/Credit Card donations & Direct Debit

Online donations – One off and Regular Debit/Credit Card donations

For donation queries, please email info@operationsmile.org.uk.

We’re incredibly grateful for any donations we receive. All donations are optional, and we would never want our supporters to feel obliged to give what they are not comfortable with. We state specific asks to help us plan further with our work to ensure we can reach more patients throughout the year. We understand that it’s not always easy for everyone to support us financially, so we also provide a custom donation amount option on all our donation forms.

It depends on what goods you’d like to donate, as we are often restricted with what we can ship overseas. Email info@operationsmile.org.uk.

To ensure we deal with complaints about any of our fundraising activities efficiently and effectively, we follow guidance provided by the Fundraising Regulator as well as our complaints policy.

If you have a complaint about our fundraising, please call 020 3475 5126 or email info@operationsmile.org.uk.

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 3-5 working days. In most cases we will aim to respond to you sooner, but this period allows us to handle your complaint with accuracy in busier periods. We will then commit to investigating and responding to your complaint as quickly as possible which will include a written response. Following our response, if you are still not happy with the outcome of your complaint, you can contact Fundraising Regulator and make an official complaint here:

https://www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/complaints/make-complaint

Please note you will need a written response from Operation Smile before making a formal complaint to the Fundraising Regulator.

As a member of the Fundraising Regulator (FR), Operation Smile agrees to fundraise in accordance with Code of Fundraising Practice. We are committed to fundraising best practice, displaying the Fundraising Regulator logo on all fundraising materials. We also have a complaints system which follows the Fundraising Regulator’s guidelines.

Further information on the Code of Fundraising Practice can be found here: https://www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/code

Operation Smile’s goal is to provide life-changing surgery for children suffering from cleft lip and cleft palate and we have chosen to focus on the delivery of free surgery to children. The costs of administration when matching a donor with a child are high especially when tracking and following individuals over an extended period of time.

We are committed to helping as many children as possible and regularly take pictures and stories as part of our post-operative programme when we check on the progress of children in the year following their surgery. We will regularly share these stories and images with supporters so they can feel connected to the children whose lives they have helped transform.

If you’d like to receive these updates, please sign-up to Smile report and we will send you smiles every month.

While we are very grateful for any donations we receive, we prefer that funds are not restricted to an specific country or project. This enables us to send money to where it is needed the most and helps to keep administration costs low.

If you would like to donate to a specific project or country we can, of course, usually accommodate this. Please call us on 020 3475 5126 and we will happily discuss the options available with you.

We do not receive any government funding and our work is only made possible because of the support we get from our generous supporters.

Children around the world born with cleft lips and cleft palates have been waiting their whole lives for our help. Your support helps us make a lasting difference to the lives of children, families and communities around the world.

We have over 40 years’ experience in mobilising medical professionals from all over the world to treat children with cleft conditions. We bring together the latest, most effective practices and training to deliver safe surgery and the impact of our work is lasting. We leave behind a legacy of trained medical staff, surgical equipment and professional partnerships that work year-round to ensure more children are healed and more lives are changed.

Operation Smile CEO Dr. William P. Magee is the organisation’s Co-Founder, has a 40-year tenure and brings the skills of a tenured plastic surgeon to the position. Dr. Magee oversees a $100 million budget with a global network of offices and programmes in more than 35 countries and 600 full-time global employees. Our website contains the most up-to-date financial reports. He is not paid by Operation Smile UK but by the global organisation in the US. If you would like to discuss your concern further, a member of our Supporter care team would be glad to speak with you at 020 3475 5126.

During our last financial year, in the UK, for every £1 raised, £0.84 was spent on our charitable aims.

We work hard to ensure that all donations are used in the most efficient way and that funds are directed to programmes where they will have the biggest impact on children with cleft conditions. We deeply value the trust our supporters place in our work and are committed to making the most efficient use of our resources.

When you donate Operation Smile you can be confident that your money is funding surgical programmes, training healthcare professionals, and raising awareness of the plight of children with cleft conditions all over the world.

Operation Smile is a global non-profit dedicated to creating solutions that deliver safe surgery to people where it’s needed most through our expertise in treating cleft lip and cleft palate. 

Operation Smile is a registered charity with the Fundraising Regulator.

The current Board of Trustees of Operation Smile UK maintains responsibility for governance and administrative issues. They also provide leadership and open doors for new fundraising opportunities to accelerate the growth of Operation Smile. The Board of Trustee is also responsible for signing off our annual, independently audited accounts found in our Financial Information section. All trustees are volunteers, and do not receive compensation of any kind.

Operation Smile prides itself in our nearly four decades of experience as one of the largest surgical volunteer-based non-profits.

Operation Smile United Kingdom is a registered charity with the Fundraising Regulator. We have been operating in the UK since 2002.

Globally, Operation Smile has been a registered charity since 1998.

No, the UK’s National Health Service provides free surgery to children born with facial deformities born in the UK, including cleft lip and/or cleft palate.