Our 2033 Vision
Ten Years of More Than A Smile
From a community-rooted idea to a movement built to last.
In 2023, More Than A Smile Foundation began with a simple belief: every young person deserves the opportunity to belong, lead, and thrive and families should not have to navigate barriers alone.
By 2033, we envision something much bigger.
Our 10-year vision is to build a sustainable, community-led organization that creates pathways from childhood to leadership, strengthens families across generations, and demonstrates what becomes possible when lived experience is treated as expertise.
We are not working toward growth for the sake of becoming bigger. We are building the infrastructure, leadership, partnerships, and resources necessary to serve communities better and for generations to come.
2033 Targets
Where we are going
These are goals, not current accomplishments. They represent what we are building toward by our 10th anniversary.
2033
10-Year Milestone
80,000+
Lives Reached
1,000
Youth Leaders Developed
1
Permanent Community & Youth Center
$5M
Sustainable Annual Organization
Where we are going
Five commitments by 2033
Reach 80,000+ Lives
Expand our cumulative reach through youth development, family support, wellness, education, sports, leadership development, resource access, community events, and global youth connection. Our goal is not simply to count participation. We will measure whether young people feel they belong, whether families gain greater access to opportunity, and whether participants become leaders who create change in their own communities.
Develop 1,000 Youth Leaders
Create a leadership pipeline that moves young people from Participant → Volunteer → Mentor → Youth Leader → Community Leader. By our 10th anniversary, we aim to have supported at least 1,000 young people through meaningful leadership, mentorship, service, advocacy, educational, and career-development opportunities. Young people will not simply participate in More Than A Smile. They will help lead it.
Establish the More Than A Smile Community & Youth Center
By 2033, we envision a permanent home designed with and for the communities we serve. A place where families can walk through one door and find connection instead of another list of referrals. It will be more than a building. It will be a place where belonging has an address.
Build a National Youth & Community Leadership Network
What begins in Louisville should create opportunities for communities beyond Louisville. By 2033, we aim to build a national network connecting immigrant, refugee, and underserved youth leaders, grassroots organizations, mentors, coaches, and community advocates. Through leadership exchanges, youth conferences, sports, virtual programming, and collaborative initiatives, young people will have opportunities to learn from one another across cities and cultures. Louisville will remain our home. Our lessons can travel.
Build a $5 Million Sustainable Organization
Impact requires infrastructure. By 2033, our goal is to develop a financially resilient organization capable of sustaining programs, compensating community leaders fairly, investing in evaluation and technology, responding to emerging needs, and planning beyond the next grant cycle.
The Community & Youth Center
A place where belonging has an address.
The center would bring together six pillars of community support under one roof.
Youth Development & Leadership
Mentoring, tutoring, leadership development, college and career readiness, digital learning, and youth-led initiatives.
Sports & Recreation
Indoor and outdoor recreation, soccer, basketball, wellness activities, and safe spaces for young people to play and connect.
Family Resource Navigation
Language access, community navigation, benefit and service connections, technology assistance, and culturally responsive family support.
Wellness
Peer support, prevention programming, wellness activities, and partnerships connecting families with qualified behavioral-health and health providers.
Women & Family Empowerment
Financial education, workforce development, leadership opportunities, peer networks, and family-centered programming.
Community Space
A welcoming gathering place for workshops, cultural events, youth celebrations, community conversations, trainings, and partner services.
Financial strategy
Diversified revenue for long-term resilience
Our long-term financial strategy will prioritize diversified revenue, organizational reserves, direct community investment, and long-term sustainability—moving from funding individual activities toward financing an institution capable of serving generations.
Our 2033 North Star
From Isolation to Prosperity
Everything we build will move toward one long-term outcome: Young people and families have the relationships, resources, opportunities, and power to shape their own futures.
Our work begins with belonging. Belonging creates trust. Trust creates opportunity. Opportunity builds confidence. Confidence develops leadership. And leadership strengthens communities.
What will not change
Our principles remain the same.
Our organization may become larger. Our programs may evolve. Our reach may extend beyond where it is today. But the principles behind More Than A Smile will remain the same.
Human First. Always. We will meet people where they are.
We will listen before designing solutions.
We will not reduce families to case numbers or checkboxes.
We will value lived experience as expertise.
We will create opportunities for young people to lead.
We will collaborate rather than compete when partnership serves communities better.
We will remain accountable to the people our work exists to serve.
The next generation
How a program becomes a legacy.
The ultimate measure of our success is not how large More Than A Smile becomes. It is what happens to the people who pass through it.
By 2033, we want the people once served by More Than A Smile to be among the people leading More Than A Smile. That is how a program becomes an institution. And how an institution becomes a legacy.
A child who enters a Fun & Play program at eight years old could become a youth mentor at sixteen.
A youth mentor could become a college student, coach, organizer, entrepreneur, educator, social worker, policymaker, or nonprofit leader.
A parent who once came looking for help could become the person helping another family navigate the same journey.
A volunteer could become a staff member. A participant could become a board member.
Help build 2033
Ten years is not the finish line.
It is proof of what a community can build when people invest in its potential.
The road to 2033 will require young people, families, volunteers, community leaders, foundations, corporations, public institutions, and individual donors working together. Whether you invest $25, volunteer an afternoon, mentor a young person, fund an entire program, provide institutional support, or help us build our future community center—you become part of what comes next.
We aren't asking you to invest in where More Than A Smile is today. We are inviting you to help build what it can become.