In the 15 years since our founding, many strides have been made to improve the oral health of our nation's youth. In the second installment of this video interview series, our Executive Director, Jill Malmgren sits down with our distinguished Board member, Dr. Gordon Christensen, to talk about his philanthropic philosophy and why he supports the mission of America's ToothFairy.

Did you miss our first interview with Dr. Cherilyn Sheets? Find it here.

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Jill Malmgren:
Today, we will be talking with a longtime board member and one of the most recognizable names in dentistry, Dr. Gordon Christensen. Dr. Christensen is a founder and CEO of Practical Clinical Courses, and he's co-founder and CEO of Clinician's Report Foundation. He's also a practicing prosthodontist in Provo, Utah. He has presented over 45,000 hours of continuing education around the world and published many books and articles. Let's get started. Okay, Dr. Christensen, you are a very busy man. You have your training courses, write for various dental publications, speak at events around the world. Why do you make time for philanthropy?

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Excellent question, Jill. I grew up in a family that was a wonderful family, it was very blue collar, my father had a third-grade education, my mother had a high school education. And I worked my entire young life. Even when I went to dental school, I was working nights, I was teaching in a religious seminary early in the morning, and I felt the need of so many people. I've worked in almost every developing country of any size and donated courses there, and I've noted the inadequacy of oral care in these countries and I feel extremely blessed to be where I am. I have only one brother, and he's dead now, he died in his mid-90s, but Boyd was president of one of the largest insurance companies in the world and he had a Stanford MBA. So, you can see that the family had a great value for education.

But, in doing so, I have had the opportunity to visit all these countries where oral care is negligent or not present at all. Africa is an example, one dentist for millions of people. And I think we dentists, any health practitioner who is active and creative and somewhat entrepreneurial is making a significant chunk of money, far more than they really need, if we use that word. And therefore, I feel very strongly that it's our responsibility because of our education, because of our ability to influence people and because of our seeing them on a very constant basis, you and I already know that 70% of the adults in America see a dentist at least once a year, more than any other country, that we have a responsibility to help those who don't have the opportunity.

Jill Malmgren:
Mm-hmm, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. You have quite a story. I'm sure you've been asked to recommend good dental charities, how do you decide which are good investments?

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
I think as a personal bias, you have to be interested in the subject. With dental caries being the most significant and prominent disease of childhood, how much more important can that be? And because children have such a little opportunity to do anything themselves, they're under the control, we hope, of their parents, even past their teenage years. So that's a group that I feel a great responsibility for. I look at what percent of the moneys that are donated go to actual service and what percent go to administration. I look at the value reports that are on the internet of the various organizations. And I guess the most important thing is personal interest in the subject and the desire to help people and the desire and knowledge to know that we are definitely blessed and therefore we owe something back.

Jill Malmgren:
Wonderful. Well, I know we certainly appreciate your leadership on our board and certainly the input that you've provided with regards to how funds are spent and making sure that we are in line with maintaining the highest impact possible for the donors' investment in our organization. So we certainly appreciate you leading that charge and providing a great oversight.

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Well, thank you. I wish that I were not so busy. I do 70 to 100 programs somewhere in the Earth any given year and therefore it keeps me away so much that I'm not a real heavily active board member, but I do mention it in most of those courses.

Jill Malmgren:
We certainly appreciate that and appreciate you elevating awareness certainly of the cause and ways that folks can get involved with our organization and help. Thank you so much for that. Now, tell us a little bit about your foundation.

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Okay, Clinicians Report Foundation, has my name previously, Gordon J. Christensen Clinicians Report Foundation. Many years ago, like 50, I was then a full-time educator, which I did for 15 years and therefore had a little more time than I do in entrepreneurial involvement. I was on the Council of Dental … Devices, a scientific council. These are all ADA councils, The Education Group, The National Board of Construction Group. And it was interesting to see overall the influence that had, because they're basically nonprofit organizations. And I thought I need some freedom within the boundaries of the nonprofit, which you know very well, and then the need to have the expert accounting and so forth. And I thought, how about if we develop a nonprofit product evaluation group? And I was a professor at University of Colorado on a decent salary, a comfortable home, everything was cool. My wife thought I was absolutely nuts in the vernacular, and I had several colleagues say you that, "You can't do that, you'll fail in six months."

So now it's 47 years later, we're in a hundred and some odd countries, our readership is somewhere in the magnitude of 100,000 practices. So it's grown from just a few study clubs. I started this group out to just assist study clubs, hands on study clubs. And now it's hardly that, it's into every conceivable part of dentistry, but it was done on the basis of not being biased by money, but then we had to raise money. So our revenue sources come from three orientations: our publication, as I said, goes into over a hundred countries and there's a subscription for that, that is a significant chunk of our income. Our donations, as you know, we have donations and the donations are another significant chunk. And then the courses that I others provide are the third aspect.

As with you we're audited every year, there are over 1000 nonprofits in this state, I'm always pleased when we're done to see that there are hardly ant complaints. There are little things like, "You left that drawer open with some papers in it," but almost no challenges there. It has grown. And well, initially it grew so fast we couldn't even control it, because it's in so many countries and let's just face it, not every country has the same altruistic attitude as many in the US. So it took a while to get into, well, we're in almost all Western European countries. We're into Asian, well, Korea, Singapore, China, everywhere. So it's grown very rapidly.

We're well known to not ding a company if we find something bad, we go to the company and we'll say, "This product which you're claiming does such and such we couldn't prove it. How did you do it?" And we find, you don't want to hear this, that many of them cannot prove their advertising claims, it's a very high percentage. So the ones that do approve their advertising claims, we're more than happy to promote. Those who don't, we remain silent because we don't need any more lawsuits. If someone asks us, we will tell them what we found, but otherwise we can't report it. I don't know how consumers report, which is obviously the widely spread eclectic group. I don't know how they handle that. They must have flocks of attorneys because they will ding the product. We will occasionally do that when something is flagrantly saying the wrong thing and none of their claims can be proven.

So we are the ombudsman, I guess you would say, between the practitioner and the company, when someone needs to be there. Companies like us, because if they say something good, we're going to say it, I mean, something proven. If they say something bad, we're going to get to them and say, "Why don't you change this or that?" And most of them do. So it's been just an evolution. I never thought I would do something like this. I thought I would go to Santa Barbara, California and be a dentist, but never happened, never happened.

Jill Malmgren:
That's incredible. And it's so exciting to see that kind of growth and I think it really speaks to the service and value of information that you're providing to the profession, clearly there is a need for that, for dental professionals to identify what products were great and have a wonderful unbiased source to get that information from. So that's wonderful.

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Thank you. Yeah, it's been an enjoyable journey. It is not without a lot of work, as you know any entrepreneurial, I guess they say there's never a day off for someone in an entrepreneurial small business and that's us. And there is never a holiday, you just have to make it.

Jill Malmgren:
And no, I don't imagine you have many days off knowing how busy you are.

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Well, usually, when I'm out speaking, I usually do something fun. One of my mantras is you ought to do something fun every day. It might be 15 minutes, it might be reading a book, whatever it is.

Jill Malmgren:
Well, that is a great mantra and I think a great way to keep your zest in enthusiasm for what life has to offer us. I love that. I'm going to borrow that if you don't mind. That's awesome. So last question, you have been a devoted supporter of America's Toothfairy since its inception and have served on our board for 15 years. What is different about our organization that inspired you to be involved?

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
First of all, the people involved, Cherilyn Sheets I have unbelievable respect for and her father and how they treated the patients and how altruistic they were. And also the competency she has. She's not doing this because she can't do something else, she started it because she felt a need. And that was my original attraction to it. And then knowing full well the gross need among children.

I'll tell you the story, it's a heartbreaking story. My son, Michael, is a general dentist in a small town in Canada, a resort town, Kenora, Ontario. He and his wife had three daughters, one of them was born with speech defects, she couldn't speak. And all of the authorities said she will never speak. Well, Mike is not one to be dormant. He found out everything he could about that condition and he living in the small town was three hours drive from Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is another province, he's in Ontario. He found the person whose life work had been this very disease and it was stated to be non-curable. It's not a disease, it's a condition. And so Mike made hundreds of trips from the three hours from Kenora, Ontario to Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Not only did this young woman over hundreds and hundreds of visits overcome this speech condition, she became student body president in high school, she became the highest scholar in all of Canada. And this came from nothing and it came from a total defeat when the child was first diagnosed. Now this girl, who's now 40ish is now teaching one to one the kids who have the same challenge, one to one, she's now well known. She went to the master's level in pathology. But my point is that child would've never been able to speak had somebody not taken on. Now, Mike had the money, well, he was a dentist so it was not a matter of money, it was a matter of determination, persistence, knowledge, faith in God.

Jill Malmgren:
That is an amazing story and it so speaks to, I think, the opportunities we can provide these kids, especially those that are underserved that need it. And then to see her kind of really carrying on and helping other children. What a wonderful story. Well, I am so grateful for all of your time today and the insight that you shared. We did a highlight with Dr. Cherilyn Sheets as well, and we have some wonderful receptivity to that so it's just kind of a way to show folks, "Hey, this is who's involved with us and here's why, and kind of what motivates them to be involved with us," as well as give a little history to kind of show where that passion comes from.

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Was that your idea?

Jill Malmgren:
It was my communication manager's idea. So she was like, "Let's talk to them and do an interview kind of the key folks that are involved," and I loved it so I said, "Let's do it."

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Love that creativity. And you're doing very, very well.

Jill Malmgren:
Oh, well, thank you. Well, I'm very fortunate. I have a fantastic team. We're a small team, there's just four of us, but we work together really well and I think everybody has some great levels of expertise and really kind of unites to work together, and we're certainly committed. And I have to say over the past couple years, it's just been really powerful and motivating to kind of see what we can do. And we've had some great traction and we want to do what it takes to keep that going and really move the fulcrum on this issue.

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Standing well.

Jill Malmgren:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gordon Christensen:
Thank you, keep up the good work.

Jill Malmgren:
Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Christensen. Have a wonderful day and thank you so much for your time.

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