Make-A-Wish America:
mission-critical digital transformation DIGITAL REPORT 2022
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
Missioncritical digita transformatio 2
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MAKE - A - WISH AMERICA
Teresa Duran describes the exciting digital developments, partnerships, and culture shifts marching the Make-A-Wish America mission forward
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ince the onset of the pandemic two years ago, it seems as though every company — big or small — has had to radically overhaul its business to stay on top of the game. This means that you’ve likely heard the phrase ‘digital transformation’ bandied around a lot recently. The phrase describes a period of change focused on developing and using technology within an organisation, streamlining processes, speeding up responses, and enhancing capabilities. This is the exact process currently underway at the 59 individual US chapters that collectively form the nonprofit Make-A-Wish America. Whether partnering with tech companies to improve provisions for clients and consumers or expanding existing departments and leadership teams to develop full-stack, in-house tech, different companies are navigating their digital transformation journeys according to what they need to succeed.
MAKE - A - WISH AMERICA
“ Make-AWish is going through the largest business transformation in its history — and for me, that's my sweet spot” TERESA DURAN
CIO, MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA
For Make-A-Wish America’s well-versed Chief Information Officer (CIO), Teresa Duran, this process is nothing new, and rather than filling her with trepidation, the challenge instead invigorates her. “This is my third time leading a complex technology department. And when an opening arrived at Make-A-Wish, I was extremely excited to join,” Duran smiles, her genuine enthusiasm palpable. “Number one, the inspiring Make-A-Wish mission itself. Number two, because Make-AWish is going through the largest business transformation in its history — and for me, that's my sweet spot. I am very passionate about technology and how it will enable any company to reach new heights.” Today, we see the beginnings of this flourishing, symbiotic partnership: Teresa Duran’s experience, skill, and strategic prowess being utilised by one of the foremost charitable organisations in the world, while Make-A-Wish America is, in turn, providing a meaty challenge worthy of Duran’s talent.
TERESA DURAN TITLE: CIO INDUSTRY: NONPROFIT, CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION LOCATION: SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES Teresa Duran is a 3x CIO, recognised for advising and leading companies through transformational change and modernisation efforts across corporate and nonprofit sectors. At Make-A-Wish, she is responsible for all technology services, including emerging technologies, business applications, product innovation, infrastructure engineering, communication services, product development, data warehousing, security, and risk management.
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EXECUTIVE BIO
COMPANY: MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA
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“ These wishes give children and their families a sense of hope” TERESA DURAN
CIO, MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA
I wish to meet monkeys Xavier 5 kidney transplant
A mission that is worth fighting and fundraising for Because so many people are aware of the existence and purpose of Make-A-Wish, it almost feels as though the organisation has always been leading the way with its noble cause. Make-A-Wish, however, is only 40 years old, and it has a heart-warming origin story that demonstrates the simplicity of the organisation’s message and aims. The inspiration for the children’s charity struck in 1980 with 7-year-old Christopher Greicius in Phoenix, Arizona, who was bravely battling leukaemia. Learning of his dream to one day be a police officer, his community came together and granted him his wish for the day. “A handful of people were involved in thinking about making this child's wish come true and then created this whole
experience around it. Afterward, they talked about how to fund something that would enable this for more kids,” Duran explains. “So, our mission is to create lifechanging wishes for children with critical illnesses. And the biggest misconception about our mission is that it’s a child’s last wish, when in fact, the wish experience can be a game-changer and an important part of the healing process for wish kids.
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MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA IN NUMBERS:
42
years old National Headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona
59
chapters across the US
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For every wish granted, there are 3 more wishes that need financial support
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wishes granted per day
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Every 20 minutes, a child is diagnosed with a critical illness
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I wish to be a professional gymnast Avary 7 leukemia
Children do not need to have a terminal prognosis to be eligible for a wish. Most of the children survive and thrive past their illness.” While this fact may surprise some, there’s a reason behind fulfilling the wishes of children battling a critical illness who go on to lead full and happy lives, as well as those who receive an end-of-life-prognosis.
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“These wishes give children and their families a sense of hope. It’s wonderful to hear repeatedly how these life-changing wishes help them through that difficult time and how it’s helped children accept their treatment processes and provide an escape for the entire family.” “Chris’ wish sparked the energy around this beautiful mission,” says Duran.
Creating cohesive, centralised chapter technology to stay true to the mission When it comes to Make-A-Wish America’s digital transformation, Duran emphasises the importance of developing a cohesive, standardised, and centralised system capable of managing the entire fundraising and wish-granting processes for the different US chapters. wish.org
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MAKE - A - WISH AMERICA “We currently support and serve 59 different chapters around the US, and our systems and processes are extremely fragmented — there are 59 different ways to manage our information. And we're on very antiquated technology that is not mobilefriendly,” says Duran. Make-A-Wish America's digital transformation aims to resolve these issues and develop a centralised system to manage data and analytics related to the overall wish journey. Luckily, the organisation has the very experienced Duran to guide the process. “Leading that modernisation effort is something that I've not only done many times before, but I also know what it looks like on the other side — how digital transformation enables the growth of the organisation,” she says. “At Make-A-Wish, what I'm most excited about is being able to do this for such a meaningful mission.” Duran continues: “We work closely with the chapters to provide a sense of equity
whenever we can. We don't just grant the wishes — there's a whole process around it that we build. And a lot goes into making those wishes happen, particularly regarding the 24,000 volunteers across the US, without whom we could not continue this mission. The reach that we have and the level of commitment in our communities are both pretty incredible — this transformation process is really about enhancing and leveraging those aspects and the ability to work together to strengthen our relationships with our donors and wish families.” What is it that stimulates these sorts of changes and makes them successful? “Another thing I love about MakeA-Wish is its people-first culture. Everything is about what we do for our mission, what we do for our wish kids, and what we do for our employees.” “One of the reasons I am so energised to be here is to focus on prioritising our
This Is Make-A-Wish®
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“ That special case really sparked the energy around this beautiful mission” TERESA DURAN
CIO, MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA
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1980 1980: Chris Greicius’ wish to be a police officer is granted. His wish inspires the creation of Make-A-Wish
1981: First official wish granted to Frank ‘Bopsy’ Salazar Story in NBC Magazine leads to formation of multiple US chapters
1983: Make-A-Wish Foundation of America is incorporated First presidential wish granted by President Reagan
1988: International awareness of the foundation’s mission is raised
1993: Make-A-Wish International formed
2000
1985: Chapter expansion across the US
1990 1990: Make-A-Wish’s 10th birthday - 10,000 wishes granted so far
1996: The Make-A-Wish America website, wish.org, goes live
2000: Wishbone logo is changed to a swirl and star logo
2010 2018: Brand refresh unveiled
2020: 40th anniversary of the first wish
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2020
2010: First World Wish Day is celebrated around the world. Over 198,000 wishes granted
2022: Introduction of Make-A-Wish America’s digital platform, Galaxy
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“ Galaxy is a way for us to reach new heights, taking our 59 disparate systems and bringing them into one enterprise system” TERESA DURAN
CIO, MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA
strategy and making sure that we are providing flexibility to our colleagues. Our national office is 100% remote, and we offer flexible schedules to suit individual lifestyles because it's not just about attracting talent, it's about retaining it,” continues Duran.
“I also really can't speak more highly of our CEO, Richard Davis, and our employees, from the talented Technology department to our National and Chapter employees dedicated to the success of Galaxy. These business and digital transformations are a significant undertaking and are more successful if you have a strong leadership team and culture.”
Developing a digital innovation framework Part of the nonprofit's modernisation process has been creating digital technology unique to Make-A-Wish America – the Galaxy platform – which aims to expand the scope and ability of the organisation to generate donations.
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“These business and digital transformations are a significant undertaking and are more successful if you have a strong leadership team and culture” TERESA DURAN
CIO, MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA
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Make-A-Wish America: mission-critical digital transformation
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Harnessing technology to make wishes a reality. Microsoft Tech for Social Impact and Microsoft Surface are proud to help Make-A-Wish use technology to fulfill its mission of granting life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.
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MAKE - A - WISH AMERICA
“Galaxy is a way for us to reach new heights, taking our 59 disparate systems and bringing them into one enterprise system — it's just helping us find ways to have this connected vision. The Galaxy initiative includes adopting Salesforce to increase collaboration, fundraising, and revenue to grant more wishes,” says Duran. Change is always tricky when it comes to embedded systems at decades-old organisations. “I've done this many times, so I can give not just a sense of confidence and articulate the level of change to expect, but
also to acknowledge the change's impact, to say this is all normal; it's a journey and not something that will happen overnight.” Another integral aspect of Make-AWish America's digital transformation is the partnerships that it has developed with tech giants such as Microsoft, Accenture, TEKsystems, and Salesforce. “We have amazing strategic vendor partners that have been completely invaluable. They've helped provide not just the surge of capacity, but also streamlined how we do everything — from the
“ We have a very successful strategic partnership with Microsoft” TERESA DURAN
CIO, MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA
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“ Accenture is an extended part of our team” TERESA DURAN
CIO, MAKE-A-WISH AMERICA
architecture of our systems to what milestones we should hit, to helping scope the pace of change,” says Duran. “These partnerships have helped us increase how we can connect with donors and utilise emerging technologies, helping us do all we can to achieve our mission. I don't think you can succeed in these initiatives without strong strategic partnerships and creating a culture of trust and working as one team.” “We have a very successful strategic partnership with Microsoft, which supported our initiatives to centralise and modernise identity and access management to Office 365, cloud and data strategy, Surface deployment, and strengthen our cybersecurity controls,” explains Duran. “That move was essential during the pandemic and is critical to our Galaxy initiative.” While Microsoft and Salesforce are relatively recent partners, Accenture is a longstanding partner of Make-A-Wish America that has provided incredible value. Accenture has been Make-A-Wish’s digital transformation partner since its first initiative implementing NetSuite Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), ensuring that the technology would work as hard to support Make-A-Wish’s mission as its dedicated workforce. Accenture brings global experience and expertise in digital, cloud, and Salesforce implementations, as well as deep insights from its Nonprofit Practice. The company 20
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harbours great care and support for the Make-A-Wish mission to grant more wishes to children with critical illnesses, helping at every step to achieve their strategic goals and provide constituents with a deeper, personalised experience. “[Accenture has] played many crucial roles and not just in the more technical aspects: they’ve also been instrumental in providing change management, training, and programme management leadership, too,” she says. “Accenture is an extended part of our team because there's a lot of policy when embarking on mass business process changes.” Duran has also had a long-standing relationship with TEKsystems, which provides critical IT talent management solutions and full-stack technology services. The future of Make-A-Wish America and the digital world There’s much for the Make-A-Wish America
MAKE-A-WISH INTERNATIONAL IN NUMBERS:
520k
wishes granted worldwide
39
affiliates serving
50
countries spread across
5
continents
43k+
volunteers worldwide
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team to be excitedly anticipating in 2022 — it’s going to be a big year for the organisation. Despite Duran being cautious — a firm believer in adopting an “underpromise and overdeliver” approach to future endeavours — she anticipates an “action-orientated year” featuring the development of an enterprise CRM, a detailed product growth map, more partnerships, and a wider focus on ESG strategies with like-minded partners. But, mostly, Duran is excited for the new avenues that evolving technology will open up for Make-A-Wish America: “You see corporations and new partnerships evolving in the Crypto/ NFT and metaverse space. And when you look at the younger generations and where trends are growing, it's something that we have to pay attention to, as well as their payment preferences, how they want to connect— it's all digital. We need to make sure we're finding new and creative ways to meet their needs.” “Many nonprofits are accelerating growth just by trying new ways of fundraising. I can see more digital events, such as a gala in the metaverse with people dressing up their avatars, each doing something creative. I see additional gaming fundraising opportunities as a viable avenue, too — it's a multi-billion-dollar industry!” Although the road ahead for the next 6-12 months is likely “going to be a little bumpy” as the changes are embedded and adopting the new system takes place, Teresa Duran and the Make-A-Wish America team are excited for their digital future to be fully realised. If you would like to help us grant more wishes, please go to https//wish.org.
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Make-A-Wish Foundation of America 1702 E. Highland Ave. Ste 400 Phoenix, AZ United States 85016
T (602) 279-947 | wish.org
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