These principles reflect DentaQuest Foundation beliefs about the role of philanthropy and our involvement with partners and stakeholders. This is what guides what we do, why we do it, and how we do it.

• The mission of the DentaQuest Foundation is to support and promote optimal oral health.
   
• We hold ourselves accountable for the effective stewardship of our resources in order to fulfill our mission.
   
• We share credit about our results with our partners.  We share information about our results with our stakeholders and our community. 
   
• We are committed to maintaining a diverse, motivated, and highly performing staff and Board.
   
• We apply our efforts against a theory of change.
   
• We believe that all communities have assets, knowledge, culture, and the power to define and solve their problems.
   
• We believe that collaborations and partnerships are fundamental to enabling organizations and institutions to pursue sustainable oral health improvements.
   
• We treat each other, our stakeholders and our partners as valued colleagues.
   
• We are catalysts and partners for change.
   
• We recognize that grant support allows grantees to craft solutions appropriate to the size of the problem they are trying to solve.
   
• We embrace growth and change.
   
• We strive to be humble in our actions and words and seek the counsel of outside voices.
   
• We demand ethical behavior of ourselves and our partners.
   

The DentaQuest Foundation’s partner in its mission to improve oral health is the DentaQuest Institute. Working with clinical oral health care partners, the DentaQuest Institute is focused on quality, efficiency and effectiveness of oral health services in all care environments, including safety net dental programs, private dental offices and hospital-based clinics. The Institute works to take advances in oral health science “the final mile” from the centers of research to the dental office, helping dental care providers emphasize prevention, disease management and accountability. The goal is for patients to get the right care, at the right time, at the right cost, for the right outcome.

The DentaQuest Foundation is an affiliate of DentaQuest, one of America’s leading oral health companies, offering prevention-focused dental benefits and program administration to 18 million individuals across the United States who have coverage through state programs, health plans, groups, or individual plans. DentaQuest is working with partners across the country to prevent oral disease, improving the likelihood that people will maintain their teeth in good health for their entire lives.

DentaQuest is committed to the highest levels of integrity. Employees of DentaQuest, the DentaQuest Foundation and the DentaQuest Institute are expected to conduct their relationships with each other and with outside organizations with objectivity and honesty. Employees are obligated to avoid and disclose ethical, legal, financial, or other conflicts of interest involving the DentaQuest entities, and remove themselves from a position of decision-making authority with respect to any conflict situation.