Happy Holidays, Dear Colleagues!

As 2020 comes to a close, I think we are all breathing a sigh of relief that this year is almost behind us! This has been a time like no other in our lives. The COVID-19 pandemic produced uncertainty, stress and trauma in our communities around the world. Despite the challenges we are all facing every day, this is also a time that is bringing out the best in many people—all of you have demonstrated our values, our purpose and our culture of compassion and collaboration more than ever before. I believe that we can do better than returning to ‘normal’ – I am confident that if we continue to work together, we can build a global organization that will achieve its vision, one day.

We are working diligently to focus on our strategic imperatives, and we have made great progress towards our goals. Our motto is ‘simple strategy with enhanced execution’. We have begun our digital transformation with the launch of our new website and becoming digitally ‘obsessed’ with our recruitment and engagement with our constituents. Our Regional Directors are assimilating to their roles, and our Q1 forecast and budget indicated an overall good start of FY 21. We are positioning Make-A-Wish International for growth and improved performance when the economy recovers.

Our engagement with Disney's holiday campaigns runs across multiple lines of business within the Disney family. It includes the biggest EMEA campaign yet, 'From Our Family To Yours'. The campaign has had a massive media reach across all media channels and has created lucrative income streams for Make-A-Wish.

In an effort to strengthen our commitment to advance the diversity and inclusion in the workplace, I have joined CEO Act!on, which is the largest CEO-driven community made up of over 1300 CEOs of major companies and 120 nonprofit organizations aimed at promoting DE&I (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion). As we are a diverse organization in countries, cultures, ethnicities, we want to take an official position on this issue which is gaining much attention across the world, and especially in the US.

The announcement was made at the end of our virtual conference, that next year’s conference will be 1-5 November 2021, at Disney World in Orlando, Florida! We are looking forward to seeing you there to celebrate our postponed 40^th anniversary! Before that conference, we are planning our next international CEO Forum in Amsterdam next Spring. More information to come soon on both in-person meetings!

Above all else, this year we celebrated our 500,000^th wish in our 40^th year of existence. All of your wishes contributed to that milestone. Thank you for your incredible dedication, perseverance and commitment as we face our new reality. I also want to thank each of you for your continued trust and support. I believe we are more committed than ever to creating a shared success for all.

Best wishes,

Dear Affiliate Community,

We entered 2020 with optimism having completed the move of the Make-A-Wish International headquarters from Phoenix to Amsterdam, appointed a new CEO and welcomed new leadership at Make-A-Wish International and several Affiliates. None of us could have anticipated what lay ahead. 2020 has been a most challenging year for the world and Make-A-Wish has not been spared. Make-A-Wish International and many Affiliates faced significant financial hardship, and most importantly, severe limitations in our ability to grant wishes due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The highest priority for Make-A-Wish International and its Board throughout this period, has been to find ways to generate income and to support you, our colleagues around the world. Somehow through all of the challenges, we’ve remained faithfully focused on our mission by adapting, as best we could, by innovatively delivering the wishes to the children, by relying on e-learning to keep us growing professionally, and by depending on each other’s strengths and assets to help us to achieve many accomplishments. I am proud of what we have done together over the last year, and the way you have adapted quickly to an unprecedented set of challenges. A particular highlight this year was the launch of our virtual conference and AGM – another sign that we are resilient and can cope with short-term pressures, while also focusing on reinventing our future.

At the AGM and Board meeting, we reviewed the previous year and looked ahead to 2021. We closed 2020 a little ahead of budget, which was a good performance, given this year’s pandemic, but significantly below last year in the number of wishes granted. We made good progress in executing our transformation, maintaining a stable financial position and prepare to resume growth and improved performance when conditions improve.

At the Board meeting, we also engaged in extensive discussion on the subject of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I). We are augmenting our efforts to foster a culture where everyone feels valued, respected and has the opportunity to grow and succeed. The Board reaffirmed its commitment to DE&I by endorsing the following statement, which has been added to our website:

“At Make-A-Wish^® International, diversity and inclusion are part of our DNA. Together, we will continue to build an inclusive culture that encourages, supports, and celebrates the diverse voices of our wish children, families, volunteers, supporters, and employees.

When we say we want to grant the wish of every eligible child, we mean it. And to do that, we want to foster an environment that is diverse and inclusive. They are the key drivers of creativity and innovation that will enable our wish children and families to reap the maximum benefit of a wish.”

Work continues to formalize our Board's succession process to align with the ever-evolving and changing needs of our organization and to identify our strengths, as well as gaps. Some Directors will term out next year and the Nominating Committee has begun building the pipeline of prospective Directors for recruitment. The goal is to create a smooth transition by identifying good prospects early and ensure timely appointment of new Board members. Here again, we rely on timely nominations from Affiliates.

Looking to the future

Like most organizations around the world, life at Make-A-Wish changed dramatically in 2020. The ability to look ahead, adapt and transform quickly, are critical for Make-A-Wish not only to survive, but also to reinvent itself stronger and better than before. We know that 2021 will be another challenging year. I am confident that working together, we shall succeed.

Holiday Campaign

Thank You to the Affiliates who supported us by sharing their assets and stories for our current Holiday Campaign: Make-A-Wish Germany, Make-A-Wish Spain, Make-A-Wish Greece, Make-A-Wish Austria, Make-A-Wish Malaysia, Make-A-Wish Pakistan, Make-A-Wish Hong Kong, Make-A-Wish Brazil, Make-A-Wish Singapore, Make-A-Wish Chile.

If you have any question about this campaign, please contact Lisa Zhao (lzhao@worldwish.org), or Jessica Curran (jcurran@worldwish.org)

In case you still need access to the resources and assets provided, here they are:

• Holiday Campaign Toolkit: click here

• Webinar recording: click here

• Campaign assets(including editable files): click here

To celebrate our 40 year partnership, our friends at Disney launched the Wishes Come True Blue Colour Collection in October. Sales from the collection across Europe, the US & Canada, have generated a US $500,000 donation to Make-A-Wish organisations. We have communicated to all Affiliates involved. We are not doing proactive celebratory messaging on social media (yet) about this campaign. Please see here for T&Cs.

We are already closing the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2021...time flies!

Please note the following updates and news for Finance:

The C-fund is still open: indeed, there is still funds available on the C-fund, and our fundraising team is still fundraising for it. All information to apply can be found HERE,

The next Affiliate distribution is planned for this month (December), so you should receive the distribution reports in a couple of weeks,

As usual, do not hesitate to reach out to me (lqueromes@worldwish.org) or Silvia Mazza (accounting@worldwish.org) if you have any questions.

Wishing you all a great Holiday Season!

Orientation and Resource Site

Our new Orientation and Resource Site is now Live! Our Affiliate leaders (CEOs and Chairs) who are joining the organization have a new resource to refer to when the join us! We set out to create a repository of the most pertinent information to introduce the organization to newcomers. The Orientation and Resource Site provides an easy-to-use, centralized, and informative welcome to all things ‘Make-A-Wish.’ It references not only important governance policies, but also important brand guidelines, fundraising Information, including Disney storytelling guidelines, ethics and culture, communication tools, finance and APD (Affiliate Performance Data) and resources (all the updated toolkits!) and much more!

This site will allow easy administration of large amounts and varied topics of information in a user friendly, web based environment. This is only phase one of our learning and training as we aim to continue to refresh, update and enhance our on-demand training as we grow!