Saving Sight

Saving Sight is primarily a direct service provider. It operates a full-service eye bank that recovers, evaluates, and distributes donor corneal tissue for transplant surgery. Alongside this clinical function, it runs community vision programs — such as mobile eye clinics that offer free exams and glasses — and provides targeted grants to residency programs and safety-net eye clinics. It is not a health-conversion foundation that simply administers a grantmaking portfolio.

Before the merger, Saving Sight's primary service area covered Missouri, Kansas, and parts of Illinois, with a growing presence in Minnesota. VisionFirst brought service relationships in central Indiana and Kentucky. The combined entity now coordinates eye-banking and community vision work across five states, with laboratory and administrative offices in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Columbia (MO), Springfield (MO), and Indianapolis.

Yes. The organization allocates tissue for research purposes in addition to transplant use, and it has historically funded clinical studies, residency training programs, and fellowships in cornea and external disease. Research funding decisions are made internally and are typically linked to its mission of improving cornea-transplant outcomes and expanding access to eye care.

Saving Sight is governed by a volunteer board of directors, historically drawn from ophthalmologists, Lions Clubs International members, and community leaders in the regions it serves. The board sets strategic direction for both the eye-bank operations and the community-outreach mission, and it appoints the President and CEO.

The organization was originally founded as a Lions eye bank and retains a close operational and governance tie to Lions Clubs in Missouri and its other service states. While Lions Clubs provide volunteer support and community fundraising, the majority of Saving Sight's operating revenue comes from tissue-processing fees paid by hospitals and surgical centers, not from Lions dues. This relationship is a governance and volunteer pipeline, not a primary funding mechanism.

Saving Sight partners selectively with for-profit entities, principally for tissue placement, surgical training, and research. It has supply relationships with device manufacturers and occasionally participates in clinical studies alongside industry sponsors, but it operates as a mission-driven nonprofit and does not take equity positions or venture-capital-style stakes in partner companies.