
One of the things I’m most proud of about Make-A-Wish Southern Nevada is that we truly run our business like a business. We look at key indicators weekly, monthly, and quarterly to ensure we’re on track to serve our community while being fiscally responsible and reaching every eligible child in our area, ensuring they get their heartfelt wish.
A lot of people still don’t understand that while we may be a “non-profit,” I think of us as a “for impact” organization. What is the impact we’re making in our communities? How are we doing to provide children with critical illnesses that prescription for hope when they need it most? Yet many people will ask how much we spend on “overhead” (e.g., salaries, paper clips, etc.) and believe that’s more important than anything else. I encourage all of you to watch the Dan Pallotta Ted Talk about nonprofits and the misconceptions out there that somehow a bake sale that costs only $5 to produce and makes $20 is better than spending $30,000 to make $1M. Do you know how many wishes we can grant for $20? I’ll give you a hint, not one.
Rest assured; we have a Board that also works with us to ensure we manage our finances too. So, please stop asking how much from every dollar goes to “the cause” that you’re donating to and ask what impact the organization has made. We have an over 40% response rate on our post-wish satisfaction surveys, and out of a 10, being the absolute best wish experience, we average a 9.96 here at Make-A-Wish Southern Nevada. Additionally, medical surveys now tell us when a child gets a wish, they stay healthier longer, require less medication, and are more likely to follow their treatment plans due to the emotional health benefits of going through the entire Wish Journey with us.
Our fiscal year begins every September, and my staff knows that September 1 is not a day you want to be around me because the number of wishes we’ve granted goes back down to 0, our fundraising for the year also goes down to $0, and we still (currently, as of today) have 256 kids waiting for their wish. We granted 174 wishes in our last fiscal, a record-breaking year for us at our chapter. (We granted 158 in 2019, when I was over the program piece of the business, so the team has loved crushing “my” record, and they have their sights set on another record-breaking year next year.) We also received nearly 200 new referrals this year, which is record-breaking for us.

So, as we begin each year, I like to give my team a rallying cry. Last year, we still had many families who were not ready to venture out into the world for travel wishes, or the child was not ready for the hope we provide. I encouraged our team to work with the families that were “In it to wish it.” We focused our energies on those families that said their child needed hope now, and boy, did this team make that happen. By being able to provide our families who weren’t ready with a “family elected hold,” we focused on those families who were ready to go, and it paid off for everyone.
This year, I’m thinking about inflation (the cost of wishes is rising like the cost of everything else), how many more wishes we want to grant, and how to ensure we keep this forward motion going for our kiddos here. Allow me to introduce you to Raise, Grant, and Repeat.
Raise (Awareness, Hope, Support) = We’ll need to continue to educate our community that we’re not a dying wish, in most cases, and that these kids need the hope we can provide if they support us.
Grant (Wishes) = This one should be very clear; we’re again looking to grant a record number of wishes. Watch us do it!
Repeat = If we stay focused on the above and continue to repeat it, then we get even more kids wishes next year!
Please begin to follow us on social media, give what you can, and know you can always call us to join us for a wish child’s reveal or at our largest community event, Walk for Wishes in April each year.
I’m dedicated to keeping hope alive in children suffering from critical illnesses. Please join me, you’ll find you get much more than you give! We need YOU to help us Raise, Grant and Repeat!