Smile Train address

On Valentine's Day the charities Operation Smile and Smile Train announced they were merging; the new entity would be known as Operation Smile Train. The two organizations address the same malady, cleft lips in children, so the merger made sense and seemed uneventful.

Only it wasn't. As the New York Times reported, the merger was more like a hostile takeover engineered by one of Smile Train's cofounders, Charles Wang.

The terms of the deal are hard to believe:

• Only a third of Smile Train's assets will be assigned to the merged entity. The rest of Smile Train's assets will be part of a fund under Wang's control.
• Half the money Operation Smile Train raises over the next three years will also be placed into the Wang-controlled fund.
• Operation Smile's cofounders will have "lifetime tenure."

Wang had disagreed with Smile Train's other cofounder, Brian Mullaney, about how the charity should plan for the future. Coincidentally, Mullaney's own disagreement with Operation Smile's founders while on its board of directors had led him to create Smile Train with Wang some years ago. It certainly looks as if Wang engineered the merger in part to get back at Mullaney, though the large amount of money that will be under Wang's control if the merger goes through probably was a big factor, too.

The only reason I know about Smile Train is that its incessant and unsolicited mailings have irritated me for years. I'd like to believe its current travails are karmic payback for being a singularly annoying outfit.

[UPDATE: I've gotten a lot less tolerant of Smile Train's begging letters. explains why you shouldn't send a penny to this disreputable and unscrupulous outfit, while is the first of what I imagine will be an endless set of entries documenting further unwelcome solicitations from the weasels at Smile Train.]