Make-A-Wish brings more joy, hope, and strength to children with critical illnesses through Microsoft technology

On a sunny day at the Miami Zoo, four-year-old Amelia fed giraffes, petted a sloth, and made friends with tortoises. She shadowed animal experts to provide behind-the-scenes care to some of her favorite species. A chimpanzee even fingerpainted a picture for her. The animal-filled adventure offered a welcome break from treatment for pediatric leukemia, which Amelia was diagnosed with at age three. Her local Make-A-Wish organized every aspect of Amelia’s day as a zookeeper so the girl could focus on fun—and recovery. As Amelia’s mom remembered, "Her wish inspired us to keep going.”  

Make-A-Wish turns a child’s imagination into a hope-giving reality for children diagnosed with a critical illness. The nonprofit works with families, medical providers, volunteers, and communities to grant wishes, from a tropical island vacation to a photo shoot with a unicorn. The anticipation, experience, and memories help them endure challenging therapies, explains Keith Goodwin, Chief Information Officer at Make-A-Wish. “We bring joy, hope, and strength to children with critical illnesses, their families, and their communities,” he adds. “Having something to look forward to makes a difference in their outcomes."

It takes a lot of steps to grant a wish, from fundraising and medical provider referrals to planning and executing the experience. With partner Redapt’s support, Make-A-Wish is optimizing its operations with Microsoft technology to ensure they can fulfill as many wishes as possible. “We’re a wall-to-wall Microsoft shop, and that has a direct impact on our mission,” Goodwin says.

With Microsoft 365 Copilot, Azure, Copilot Studio, the Microsoft Power Platform, Power BI, and other supporting technologies, Make-A-Wish is making more children’s wishes come true. 

Increasing productivity with generative AI

Whether a child wishes for a celebrity meetup, a trip to a theme park, or a new puppy, that wish requires an all-hands-on-deck mentality. Make-A-Wish is rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot to do that work more efficiently, creating more time and energy for mission-critical efforts. 

“There’s a direct correlation between leveraging AI and operating more effectively,” Goodwin says. Make-A-Wish staff direct Microsoft 365 Copilot to write first drafts of emails, blog posts, strategic plans, and more, then use their expertise to revise and refine materials. The AI assistant also takes notes during meetings, transcribes calls, and tracks follow-up actions. Tackling manual, repetitive, and time-intensive tasks through generative AI helps teams create more marketing materials, generate more revenue, and engage with the many people who make wishes happen. 

Make-A-Wish's IT staff also built Wish Helper, a generative AI chatbot built with Copilot Studio that enables self-service IT support. Users can ask questions, from how to reset a password to how to set up a new SharePoint folder. The chatbot helps users troubleshoot issues by either providing curated answers to common questions or using Azure AI Search to pull information from approved knowledge sources then generating conversational answers. It helps around the clock, an important expansion of support for staff working fundraising events or helping wish families on nights, weekends, and holidays. 

“We’re seeing a lot of demand for AI, in part because of the success of the chatbot,” explains Derek Johnson, Senior Director of Infrastructure, Security, and Operations at Make-A-Wish. Roughly two-thirds of the nonprofit's staff use the self-service chatbot on a given week. As the IT team continues to iterate on the tool, they anticipate improvements will further enable staff to solve their own IT challenges. With fewer tickets to tackle, the IT staff could redirect their energy to value-adding projects, such as expanding the chatbot’s scope to cover HR and finance questions. 

By streamlining everyday tasks, generative AI empowers Make-A-Wish staff, Goodwin says. “Copilot makes us faster so we can work to ensure we serve every eligible child.”

Unifying data for insights and action

To execute on its mission, Make-A-Wish's national and regional chapters needed an accurate, up-to-date understanding of the organization’s fundraising, engagement, wish granting pipelines, and more. Reporting used to be manual and time-consuming, leading to differing figures staff would spend hours reconciling. Now with a unified data platform in Azure and Microsoft Fabric, Make-A-Wish has a single source of truth to distill insights, direct planning, and support a nationwide effort to help children diagnosed with critical illnesses.

Data funnels into centralized storage in the Azure cloud, where it is aggregated and cleansed into data sets. National and regional chapters alike have access to this data, which leadership uses to improve business processes and navigate turbulent times in the nonprofit sector.

Consolidation of data in Azure warehouses empowers Make-A-Wish to utilize deep wells of information for analytics. “This allows Make-A-Wish to properly steer resources in the right direction for generating revenue, reducing donor churn, increasing engagement, and producing the most effective engagement strategies,” explains Joe Maurer, Senior Client Director for Tech for Social Impact at Redapt. “This enhances their ability to make predictions, increase donor value, and fulfill their mission of granting wishes to more children.”

For example, the nonprofit used Azure Machine Learning to create a predictive model for the fundraising team. The model scans donation transactions to identify supporters who are more likely to increase their giving to Make-A-Wish. This predictive capability helps the fundraising team to focus their efforts on building relationships with the greatest potential of generating the revenue needed to expand the nonprofit’s capacity to grant even more wishes. 

Power BI pulls data from Azure and Fabric to create dashboards for every Make-A-Wish chapter, which are like “real-time report cards,” Goodwin says. Now that Power BI operates under Fabric as a unified source, dashboards can connect to multiple data sources, take advantage of the Power BI automation capabilities, and better analyze chapter wish granting, revenue, budgeting, and more.

Many offices display these dashboards—such as ones depicting the status of in-process wishes or fundraising streams—so all staff can track important metrics such as average wait time for wish completion, the number of referrals, average wish cost, and more. They can compare their benchmarks to national averages and to nearby chapters.  

“A complete understanding of our data profoundly impacts the daily operation of everything we do,” Goodwin says. “We use dashboards every day to drive efficiency in financials and mission work.” For example, up-to-date revenue figures indicate how a chapter is performing against budgets and forecasts, enabling leadership to provide additional support or change tactics when needed. Dashboards also reveal bottlenecks or challenges, such as a spike in new wishes, so nearby chapters or national staff can quickly step in to help. 

Goodwin says, “Data visibility empowers our teams. We make sure our resources have the most impact for more wishes.”

Fulfilling more wishes on a budget

Generous supporters donate loyalty points and other in-kind gifts to Make-A-Wish to facilitate kids’ wishes. Given that travel tends to be the most costly aspect of wish fulfillment, these gifts enable the nonprofit to serve more families on a limited budget.  

Make-A-Wish had a web application to track these in-kind donations, called the Wish Bank. The organization recently upgraded the Wish Bank using Microsoft Power Platform to enhance security, refine the user interface, allow for ongoing modifications, and improve tracking capabilities. They began by migrating their on-premises SQL database to a newly established Azure SQL database, which includes comprehensive management of data, security, and database administration.  

The team also reconstructed the .NET application and its forms using Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate. The Wish Bank now employs shared connectors to the SQL database for data updates, while a Microsoft 365 Outlook connector was used for automated email notifications. The tool links to Power BI for reporting purposes, enabling Make-A-Wish to track gifted points, which chapters have received points, and more. 

“Our collaboration on Wish Bank v2 allows non-technical users to manage donations easier and faster, without having to write complex code,” Mauer says.  

The Azure SQL database houses data of all the gifted points, organized by airline, hotel brand, and credit card company as well as other details, such as expiration date. This granular detail is vital to Make-A-Wish's reporting, which external partners require, and to ensure miles are used before they lapse.  

The secure, centralized inventory empowers staff to efficiently make the best use of donations. For example, the deep pool of points with a wide variety of carriers enables staff to choose one that offers a needed flight for less. The new, intuitive interface also streamlines the previously manual processes of requesting, approving, and distributing requests for points or miles. The visibility of the single solution also helps the team effectively and fairly distribute gifted points across chapters.   

With the former .NET application, a skilled developer had to make any needed modifications. Now the team can easily adjust the Wish Bank within the low- and no-code Microsoft Power Platform. This flexibility enables Make-A-Wish to refine the tool, for example adding different categories of in-kind donations to the Wish Bank.  

The improvements mean it will be easier for Make-A-Wish to distribute miles and other donations, reducing the cost of wish-associated travel—and freeing funds to make more wishes happen. "The new Wish Bank helps us distribute donations fairly among chapters,” Goodwin says. 

Improving security to protect children’s data

To make children’s wishes come true, Make-A-Wish stewards families’ data, including sensitive information such as medical diagnoses. The nonprofit is dedicated to protecting children’s privacy through industry-leading technology safeguards. 

“As a nonprofit, the integrity of our brand is everything. To fulfill our mission, people must trust that we can protect their data,” Goodwin says. 

Microsoft security products and services shield Make-A-Wish's operations across the board. Microsoft Defender for Cloud uses advanced threat protection, detection, and response for the nonprofit’s cloud applications, storage, devices, identities, and more. Purview provides next-level data security as well as a holistic platform for data governance and compliance. Make-A-Wish sets up policies and procedures within Purview to ensure only approved staff can access beneficiary data, information is securely stewarded throughout its lifecycle, and that data is retained only as long as it is needed.

Make-A-Wish's digital infrastructure, platforms, and data are now safer behind the Microsoft Cloud’s defenses. Centralizing its apps and data on Azure diminished security vulnerabilities of on-premises servers while enabling the nonprofit to share information needed for collaboration. Securely communicating information with external partners brings in additional resources, such as in-kind donations, increasing the number of wishes granted. In addition, the nonprofit created and hosts several public-facing websites with Azure App Service, taking advantage of Azure’s built-in security and compliance features. 

Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Azure also "close cyber risks,” Johnson says. “With Copilot, we have a central gen AI solution we control and that ties into our entire security framework,” he adds. With an approved and closed generative AI solution, Make-A-Wish steers staff away from external, open-source AI tools that may store and use inputs. 

Every improvement makes a difference for Make-A-Wish's mission, Goodwin explains. “While we grant over 16,000 wishes a year, for every wish we grant, there are still two children with critical illnesses whose wishes need financial support. Anytime we can save a dollar or time through technology, that means more wishes for more children. That’s how we can reach our vision to grant the wish of every eligible child.”

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