The #WishMakersWanted campaign was designed to raise awareness for World Wish Month in April 2025 while celebrating Make-A-Wish's 45th anniversary. Our primary objective was to educate audiences about a critical misconception: that Make-A-Wish only serves children with terminal illnesses. In reality, wishes are granted to children with any critical illness, significantly expanding the population of eligible children.
Through authentic influencer partnerships, we aimed to drive meaningful engagement that would translate into tangible support for the organization. Specific goals included generating quality impressions across target demographics, increasing traffic to wishmaker.org for donations, and recruiting new WishMakers from diverse communities. We sought to demonstrate that everyone has the power to make wishes come true, whether through donations, volunteering, or advocacy.
The campaign targeted families and lifestyle-focused audiences through carefully selected micro and mid-tier influencers (60K-200K followers) who could authentically connect their personal experiences to Make-A-Wish's mission. By sharing real wish stories from 2025 recipients through personalized WishMaker Boxes, we aimed to create emotional connections that would inspire audiences to move beyond passive social media engagement to active charitable participation, ultimately supporting life-changing wishes for children facing critical illnesses nationwide.
Our strategy centered on authentic storytelling through carefully curated influencer partnerships during World Wish Month in April 2025. We selected 10 content creators with 60K-200K followers who focused on family and lifestyle content, ensuring natural audience alignment with the Make-A-Wish mission.
Execution Framework: Each influencer received a personalized "WishMaker Box" containing Make-A-Wish branded merchandise and, most importantly, a real story about a wish kid. This tangible connection between creators and actual beneficiaries fostered genuine emotional investment in the cause beyond typical sponsored content.
Content Strategy: Campaign deliverables included Instagram Reels, carousel posts, and Story frames featuring key messaging about the transformative power of wishes. Content emphasized that wishes aren't exclusively for children with terminal diagnoses but for any child with critical illness – directly addressing the widespread misconception that limits public understanding of Make-A-Wish.
Challenges and Solutions: The primary challenge was educational: seamlessly overcoming common misconceptions by integrating this piece into engaging content without appearing overly clinical or technical. We solved this by encouraging creators to share wish stories naturally, allowing the emotional narratives to organically demonstrate the breadth of wish eligibility.
Logistical challenges included coordinating personalized box delivery across multiple locations while maintaining consistent brand messaging across diverse creator styles. We balanced authentic creator voice with must-hit messaging requirements through detailed briefing materials and ongoing communication.
Budget constraints limited us to gifted incentives rather than monetary compensation, requiring strategic influencer selection based on genuine passion for the cause rather than financial motivation.
Unique Features: Our approach was distinctive in its focus on real wish stories rather than generic awareness content. By pairing each creator with an actual wish kid story, we created authentic emotional touchpoints that resonated deeply with audiences. The strategic use of the #WishMakersWanted hashtag and consistent calls-to-action directing traffic to wishmaker.org created measurable pathways from social engagement to charitable action.
The campaign leveraged the natural storytelling abilities of family-focused influencers while maintaining brand consistency through detailed creative guidelines and ongoing support throughout the campaign period.
The #WishMakersWanted campaign delivered exceptional results, generating 43.3K total impressions and 10.3K total engagements across just 10 creator partners. This performance significantly outpaced Make-A-Wish's 2024 holiday campaign, which generated 26K impressions and 3.4K engagements across 23 partners — demonstrating remarkable efficiency, with engagement tripling despite using 57% fewer influencers.
Instagram Reels proved highly effective, generating over 27% engagement rate — nearly double the previous “Unwrap a Wish” campaign engagement rate. The top-performing content pieces delivered impressive results. For example, @girlbossmommie_3x (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ3aHKMREhD/) achieved a 55.8% engagement rate with 2.3K impressions, while @alwaysinbeige (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJCQAP3uex9/) achieved a 24% engagement rate with 21.1K impressions.
In addition, the campaign generated 28 direct link clicks to wishmaker.org, creating measurable traffic to the donation platform. Content featuring kids consistently outperformed other posts, demonstrating strong emotional resonance with audiences. The campaign greatly exceeded industry benchmarks, with a 27.1% median engagement rate on Instagram Reels (compared to 6.2% industry average) and 9.4% median engagement rate on Instagram posts (compared to 8.3% industry average).
Beyond metrics, the campaign successfully educated audiences about wish eligibility misconceptions while inspiring new WishMakers to join the mission of granting life-changing wishes to children with critical illnesses nationwide.
