Impact of a Wish

A wish come true empowers a child with a life-threatening medical condition to fight harder against their illness. When they are granted a wish, they get more than just a great experience for a day, two days, or a week. That experience improves the quality of life for them and their entire family. A child’s wish come true positively impacts their health status and state of mind and strengthens communities.

Health Status
• 81% of parents observe an increased willingness by their wish kids to comply with treatment protocols


• A combined 89% of nurses, doctors, social workers and child life specialists surveyed say they believe that the wish experience can influence wish kids’ physical health

A wish helps children feel stronger, more energetic, more willing and able to battle their life-threatening medical conditions. For many of them, it marks a turning point in their fight against their illnesses. For their doctors, nurses and other health professionals, the wish experience works in concert with medicine to make their patients feel better, emotionally and even physically.

State of Mind
• 98% of parents feel the wish experience gives them the opportunity to be a “normal” family again

A wish improves children’s state of mind, replacing fear with happiness and helping them to feel like normal kids again. Through their wish experience, wish kids feel less isolated and more empowered to take back control of their lives. And while wishes help kids who get them, it helps their families, as well. Life-threatening medical conditions impact parents, siblings, and other family members on mental and emotional levels. Parents report that wish experiences help repair and strengthen their families through a return to normalcy, and that feelings of hope and optimism replace fear and stress.

Strengthens Communities
• 92% of volunteers feel an increased desire to give back and help someone else’s family

When volunteers help to grant wishes, they report feeling an increased sense of compassion and desire to help others, and a greater faith in humanity. They become more trusting in others and more optimistic in the future. These changes in volunteers ultimately lead them to make greater long-term commitments to philanthropy, creating a ripple effect of social value.

**Make-A-Wish Foundation^® of America Wish Impact Study 2010
Data presented are based on three representative sample surveys – wish parents, Foundation volunteers and medical/healthcare profressionals – conducted and analyzed by an independent contractor.