Make-A-Wish Foundation of New Jersey

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

Our mission is to create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. To qualify for a wish, a child must be between the ages of 2 1/2 and 18 years of age at the time of referral, been diagnosed with a qualifying illness that has put the child's life in jeopardy, and have not already had a wish granted by another wish-granting organization.

How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals

What significant change resulted from feedback?

The feedback we receive from our wish families has always been an organization-wide resource and utilized in many ways. However, over recent years we have continued to streamline the process of gathering these important testimonials, relied on staff members from multiple departments throughout the process in order to obtain those testimonials, and expanded the distribution of the feedback to be used in more ways than ever before. From donor stewardship, to online and community engagement, to enhancing our best practices and creating historical "playbooks" for similar wish experiences in the future, the feedback we receive from our wish families is invaluable to the organization in every department, serving a key need in advancing our mission and striving towards our vision.

Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback

What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback