Despite enjoying wide-spread trust, recognition and brand love, Make-A-Wish sees a significant gap between awareness/affinity and consideration/support. Our objective was to create a platform that would help close that gap by driving reach and revenue, deepening audience connection to the mission and generating sustainable supporter engagement.
We established three core pillars: (1) increase revenue opportunity from corporate partners, (2) increase alignment and collaboration across the enterprise, demonstrating "one Make-A-Wish," and (3) inspire action among individual supporters, filling the pipeline to address a variety of mission critical needs.
By rallying ordinary people to do extraordinary things, we created a scalable platform that invites everyone - corporate partners, supporters, medical partners and community members -to join our mission and take action for children with critical illnesses. Through a consistent, evergreen umbrella thematic and a single rallying cry, we create a clear and easy path for anyone to take action and help grant more wishes.
World Wish Month (April) is now the time of year when the Make-A-Wish community invites the world to join our mission. Anchored by the “WishMakers Wanted” campaign, our long-term aspiration is for World Wish Month to be a universally recognized annual platform that drives corporate revenue, feeds our donor pipeline, inspires engagement at every level, and helps us grant the wish of every eligible child.
By 2030, World Wish Month will be a universally recognized annual platform that generates significant corporate revenue for the enterprise, feeds the individual donor prospecting pool and inspires local, national and global engagement.
The “WishMakers Wanted” campaign reflects the Make-A-Wish belief that ordinary people can do extraordinary things for children with critical illnesses. By uniting chapters, partners and supporters, World Wish Month created a scalable, community-driven movement with a clear path to increasing mission impact.
Research revealed that while Make-A-Wish consistently scores over 90% in brand awareness and affinity, consideration to act in support of the mission remained under 50%. We saw World Wish Month and the “WishMakers Wanted” campaign as an opportunity to close that gap. By uniting chapters, partners and supporters under a single rallying cry, World Wish Month became a scalable, community-driven movement to inspire action. Expanding to a monthlong, mission-focused effort required a shift in strategy: we designed and implemented a community-driven model that could evolve and expand with every annual iteration.
Historically, Make-A-Wish has seen a strong giving capacity in April, compared to industry averages. This provided a unique window to “own” the month and drive participation. April ranks fourth for percent of annual revenue/gifts industry-wide, but second for Make-A-Wish – surpassing November and trailing December.
Our campaign came to life through a 360-degree activation strategy designed to engage supporters wherever they are: local events, PR, social media, digital, advertising, celebrity/influencer engagement, direct response, mini-campaigns, alumni involvement and corporate activation worked in tandem to create momentum, maximize reach and make participation seamless.
The campaign's creative embraced a bold, whimsical approach to show that it takes a village of everyday heroes to grant wishes. WishMakers were invited to participate in the shared creation of a mosaic image - a collaborative artwork built from individual supporter photos and stories, visually representing how each person’s engagement helps create something larger than themselves. This content, including a series of videos featuring WishMakers, was shared across a wide range of mediums.
The rallying cry, “WishMakers Wanted,” infused urgency across all collateral. Calls to action were strategically tied to key campaign dates and customized for chapters and audience segments, ensuring relevance across diverse channels. Creative elements like the mosaic image and WishMaker stories unified the experience, reinforcing purpose and inspiring action. This integrated approach strengthened brand equity, fueled revenue growth and deepened supporter engagement.
As a decentralized organization with 57 chapters in the U.S., we knew it would be a challenge to ensure all branches of our organization felt truly included in this activation. To combat this and secure buy-in from chapters nationwide, we created an umbrella campaign that offered customizable resources, including a comprehensive guide with an overview of national activation and PR plans, inspiration for chapter planning and fundraising, creative assets and other tips to build successful local activations. There was a great deal of communication required to educate team members, but it paid off – in 2025, 100% of chapters participated, versus 93% in 2024.
World Wish Month is the time of year we invite the world to join our mission. Our “WishMakers Wanted” campaign helps deepen understanding of wish impact, lets people see themselves in our mission and creates a clear path to take action and help grant more wishes.
To measure success, we also refer back to our three core pillars: (1) increase revenue opportunity from corporate partners, (2) increase alignment and collaboration across the enterprise, demonstrating "one Make-A-Wish," and (3) inspire action among individual supporters, filling the pipeline to address a variety of mission critical needs.
Campaign results included:
We turned loyal supporters into advocates, created shared, community-driven moments, and a unveiled a visual representation of the WishMaker community via the mosaic. Our efforts fueled measurable growth in revenue, engagement, and brand equity, while truly uniting our internal stakeholders around the world.
The “WishMakers Wanted” campaign is an enduring platform that chapters and partners can leverage year after year, turning awareness into advocacy, expanding the supporter pipeline and demonstrating how ordinary people, acting together, can do extraordinary things for children fighting critical illnesses.
