My team and I wrote the business plan for WonderWork when we were running Smile Train. After we reached 125,000+ cleft surgeries a year at Smile Train, our cleft surgeries started to decline, so we started searching for larger global health problems we could solve through simple, inexpensive surgeries.

My team and I did a lot of research and found many other miracle surgeries – like cleft surgery – that can change a child’s life for very little money.

 

 

 

 

With declining cleft surgeries, and a $135 million, burgeoning surplus of unused donations, I stepped down as President of Smile Train and left, with virtually my entire senior management team, to create a surgical new charity called WonderWork in 2011. We used a business plan we had developed at Smile Train.

We would never have been able to launch WonderWork without the help and support of the following people.

My dad, Joseph E. Mullaney, former Vice Chairman of Gillette, was WonderWork’s very first donor. Joe’s large donations and unwavering support helped us get WonderWork up and running during very difficult times. Joe and my Mom Rosemary were major donors of Smile Train and Joe was also a Founding member of the Smile Train Board of Governors. For $1 dollar a year Joe acted as a Smile Train Ambassador who travelled all over the world including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and China to thank our partner hospitals, meet hundreds of patients, and recognize our partner surgeons and nurses.

Martin and Marianne Haefner provided us with an extremely generous, large start-up grant to get WonderWork up and running. We knew both Martin and Marianne very well because they and Martin’s father were Smile Train’s largest donors. We would never have been able to start WonderWork – and keep it going – without their help and if we hadn’t, 250,000 blind, burned and crippled children and adults would still be waiting for surgery.

 

Bill and Joanne Conway gave us a very generous, large start-up grant that helped us launch WonderWork. We knew Bill and Joanne well because they too were major donors of Smile Train and Bill was also a Founding member of the Smile Train Board of Governors.

Clark Kokich and Lisa Strain gave us a very generous, large start-up grant at the very beginning of our efforts to launch WonderWork. They too were major Smile Train donors.

 

Ann Ziff gave WonderWork a very large donation and all kinds of additional support when we started out. She too was a major Smile Train donor and the first Chairman of The Smile Train.

Hundreds of major donors to Smile Train who knew me and my team very well, helped us launch WonderWork including: D’Ette Fowlkes, El and Betty Richard, Victor and Cynthia Mitchell, Alan Parker and his Oak Foundation, Bob Wishnew, Sharon McCollam, Ken and Vickie French, Karen and Ginny Hakansson, Steven and Janice Morford, Joe O’Donnell, Diana and Rafael Vinoly, Garret Moran, Robert Sanders, Renee Harbers, Adrea Heebe, Jack Teeters, Maurits Shouten, Glenn and Beryl Polin, Lisa Bertani, David and Dru Garcia, Larry and Judy Howard, Bob and Kathy Egbert, Dr. Major Shekar, Steve Levitt, Janet Carrus, Richard and Kat Price, Joe Cartolano, Frank and Jeanne Trainer, Paul and Mary Helmer, Gary and Joan Nickander, Chermaine Bell, Gene and Cathy Arthur, Jim Miller, Sherman and Pauline Jensen, Kevin MacDonald, Tom and Joan O’Connor, Patsy Pennington, Jeanine and Kevin O’Brien, Francine and Cees Boudewijn, William and Karen Collier, Matthew Steinmetz, Alex Trebek, Mike and Lauren Reese, Bette May, Rock and Amanda Rowse, Allen and Jennifer Gann, Madeline and Mike Hughes, Iris Detter, Dave and Edith Tully, Pam and Roy Lobenhofer, Dorothy Dweck, Wendy Palmer, Harvey and Roberta Chaplin, Mike and Joanne McMahon, Brian and Jennifer Bohling, Ross Perot, Martina and Andreas Regenauer, Ken and Barbara Melkus, Lionel Kaliff, Tom and Anita Veldman, Daniel Loeb, Candice Bergen, Michelle Jourdak, Dorothy Pauly, Nicole Burger and Mike Curtis, Sanjay and Sujatha Balan, RonnyJane Goldsmith, Roman Fuzaylov, Elizabeth Reeves, Beth Onosko, Piper and Norman Lind, Dickie Steele, Michele and Reese Bowan, Suzanne Bartolucci, Bob and Sally Weist, Teddy Howe, Jane Kaczmarek, Mel Selway, Jim and Doreen Cooney, John and Gaye Iorio, David Blachly, Sid and Neena Rieb, Ravi Varanasi, JJ Coneys, Ted and Susan Saraceno, Linda Reeves, Denis Cullen, Phillip and Holly Wagner, Peter Malkin, Geoff Dodge, Dave Masinick, Tom Darling, Chris Raleigh, Alan Ishac, Michaela Strain-Kokich, Dr. Drew Ordon, Sir Ben Kingsley, Bryan Cranston, Chris and Sherman Meloni, Ravi Kant, Dr. Anjali Sastry, Mark Atkinson, Dr. Atul Gawande, Howie Mandel, Eva Marie Bucher and Peter Widmer.

 WonderWork provided three life-changing and inexpensive surgeries through our special programs for burns, club foot and blindness. Our burn surgery program was called BurnRescue and it provided a 300 surgery that can can rebuild the face and or body of a child who has been severely burned.

Our club foot program was called First Step and it provided a $250 surgery/treatment that can cure club foot and help a crippled child stand, walk and run for the first time in their life.

 

Our blindness program was called 20/20/20 and it provided a $300 surgery that can give blind children their eyesight back in 15 minutes. The name 20/20/20 stood for 20/20 vision for 20 million blind children and adults.

 

My COO Delois Greenwood traveled tirelessly all over Asia and Africa and found us the best burn, blindness and orthopedic partner hospitals. Back in New York, we were busy building our fundraising program. Luckily, hundreds of major donors from The Smile Train followed us. Their start-up donations was critical to launching WonderWork and they helped us acquire almost 250,000 new donors through direct mail. Altogether we helped provide life-changing reconstructive surgery for thousands of severely burned children and adults. 5,000+ children who were born crippled with club foot. And we helped restore the eyesight of 200,000 blind children and adults.

We also created viral videos about blindness, club foot and burns that were viewed by more than 25 million people all around the world and generated donations from 92 countries, including Kazakhstan.

 

WonderWork surgeries were growing faster than Smile Train

when we were forced into bankruptcy and out of business.

WonderWork: highest surgeries-per-employee of any surgical charity in America.

Thanks to the hard work, dedication and experience of our management team, WonderWork was actually growing much faster than Smile Train did when it started. And it had the potential to become a much larger charity because burns, blindness and club foot were much larger problems than clefts.

In our first five years, we raised more than $50 million and we helped provide almost 250,000 surgeries. By June 2016, we had more than $21 million in the bank and an approved budget to fund 135,000+ surgeries in 2017. And we did all of this with a tiny team of less than 10 people working out of a tiny office in New York City.

2016 was our best year ever. It was also our last. In December, 2016, lawyers who worked for Smile Train, and HelpMeSee, forced WonderWork into bankruptcy.

This ended the 100,000+ free surgeries we were going to provide that year. (And every year after that.)