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By Stacie Crozier

Four new facilitating partners have joined the Dental Education: Our Legacy—Our Future initiative.

The newest partners include the Academy of General Dentistry, the American Association for Dental Research, the Colorado Dental Association and the New York State Dental Foundation.

The initiative, a collaborative effort involving the input and participation of hundreds of dental stakeholders and 75 partners to date, has three goals:

• to raise awareness of the challenges facing dental education in the United States—faculty shortages, lack of diversity, aging physical and clinical facilities, lagging local and state government support, as well as escalating costs;
• to promote a culture of philanthropy within dentistry to address these issues;
• to deliver a call to action—starting within the dental community—to support dental education.

The purpose of the initiative is not to create a new fundraising entity. Our Legacy—Our Future will not collect a single dollar of its own, but will serve as a support tool for the fundraising efforts of its partner organizations.

Partners can be one of three types:

• recipient partners—institutions that maintain dental educational programs accredited by the ADA Commission on Dental Accreditation, including dental schools, graduate dental education programs, hospital-based dental residency programs and allied dental health programs;
• facilitating partners—organizations that solicit, hold and redistribute funds for dental education;
• donor partners—both for-profit corporations and non-profit or philanthropic organizations that financially support dental education.

The amount of contributions received by the partners from July 1, 2004-Dec. 31, 2014, will be counted toward the objective of generating an estimated $500 million for dental education.

For the latest news on OLOF, its partners, a "donor spotlight" feature or to view a special video on the initiative, log on to www.ourlegacyourfuture.org .