First Candle is one of the nation’s leading charities dedicated to infant health and survival.  The charity was integral in the Back To Sleep campaign launched in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Institutes of Health and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau.  One of the nation’s most successful public education campaigns to date, the goal of the Back To Sleep campaign is to communicate and promote the important message of placing babies on their backs to sleep, the optimal position for infants to reduce the risk of SIDS.

Since the launch of the campaign ten years ago, we have saved 30,000 infant lives and the SIDS rates have dropped by more than 50 percent.  But our work is not done.  It is vital that we educate each new family on how to keep their children healthy and promote safe sleeping practices.  It is our mission to eradicate SIDS entirely and allow every baby to celebrate his or her first birthday and many happy ones beyond.

In 2002, the organization’s board of directors, known then as the SIDS Alliance, voted to expand its mission to address other areas including stillbirth and miscarriage.  Currently, more than 26,000 infants are stillborn in our country each year. 

Thus, the organization has committed its resources – both human and financial – in the hopes of having an impact (similar to the impact it has had on SIDS rates) in other areas of infant health with the goal of seeing all babies survive and thrive.

First Candle prides itself on its ability to maintain its administrative and fundraising costs below the nonprofit industry standard. In acknowledgement of this and its work, First Candle has received the following accolades:

• First Candle was named as one of the Nation’s Top 100 Charities out of 80,000 organizations surveyed by Worth Magazine.
• The organization meets all standards set by the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Guide.
• Parenting and Parents magazines recognized First Candle as one of the Top Fifteen Children’s Charities in America.