PLATINUM2023

TWILIGHT WISH FOUNDATION

Celebrating Seniors and Making Dreams Come True

aka Twilight Wish   |   Doylestown, PA   |  www.TwilightWish.org

Mission

The mission of Twilight Wish is to honor and enrich the lives of seniors through intergenerational Twilight Wish celebrations.  Our vision is to make this world a nicer place to age, one Twilight Wish at a time.

Notes from the nonprofit

Twilight Wish positively impacts the way society views and values our oldest generation by fulfilling seniors’ wishes and sharing their incredible stories to inspire all ages. Our overall goal is to help inspire a society where aging is embraced, and seniors are celebrated for their achievements and successes.

Ruling year info

2003

Executive Director

Mr. Peter Stinson

Main address

P.O. Box 1042

Doylestown, PA 18901 USA

Show more contact info

EIN

73-1670060

NTEE code info

Senior Centers/Services (P81)

Philanthropy / Charity / Voluntarism Promotion (General) (T50)

Human Services - Multipurpose and Other N.E.C. (P99)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Communication

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Senior citizens are the fastest growing population in the world. The number of Americans 65 and older is projected to more than double to over 98 million by 2060. In the U.S. today, one in three seniors older than 65 live alone and the number of seniors living alone only increases with age. Many of these seniors experience social isolation which puts them at risk for developing medical conditions such as high blood pressure and dementia. Granting a wish can help change that. Our wish recipients report overwhelmingly that having their wish granted impacted their life for the better. Their mental and physical health often improves, positively changing their outlook on life. Simple needs wishes such as hearing aids, dentures and lift chairs often have the biggest impact on improving the quality of life for low-income seniors. Items such as these reduce isolation, increase self-esteem and allow many seniors to continue living on their own.

Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

Wish Granting Programs

Twilight Wish Foundation is a national nonprofit charitable organization that fulfills wish requests for seniors under several programs.  Since our founding in 2003, we have impacted the lives of over 3,360 low-income elderly by providing what they could not provide for themselves. We serve low-income elderly, age 65 and older, who earn less than 200% of poverty level annually or who live in a nursing facility.  Approximately 80% of the wishes we have granted fall under our "Simple Needs" wish granting program through which we fulfill wishes for basic quality-of-life healthcare and accessibility items including hearing aids, dentures, mattresses, wheelchairs, and walkers.  These items enhance the quality of life for many vulnerable, low-income elderly, reducing isolation and increasing mobility and accessibility, resulting in improved self-esteem and independence. In addition, as part of our overall mission of granting wishes, we created our Intergenerational Education Program (IEP) which directly matches local schools with nearby nursing homes, benefiting both the students and seniors in a wish granting experience. Our main goal is to continue the progress we have made since our founding and continue to fulfill wishes for deserving seniors across the U.S.

Population(s) Served
Seniors

Treat anonymous seniors to meals at local diners by use of a DUTY card and paying for their meals as a thank you.

Population(s) Served
Seniors

Segmentation of Veterans Wishes into their own program.

Population(s) Served
Seniors
Veterans

Through our Intergenerational Education Program we connect local schools and students with nearby nursing homes residents.

Students perform the entire wish granting process, including learning about the seniors and finding out what their wishes are, to fundraising, and then providing the wishes at a celebration event.

Population(s) Served
Seniors
Adolescents

Tuesdays with Lori is a wish granting legacy program that honors the memory of Lori Radel and her love of Twilight Wish Foundation's mission. Radel personally granted several wishes to local low-income seniors. She felt that seniors were a treasure and she wanted to give back to them after they had given of themselves throughout their lives. Radel planned to retire early and dedicate her life to helping grant wishes to our most under served and oftentimes, forgotten and alone, seniors. Sadly, she fought the effects of an autoimmune disorder for years and unexpectedly passed away in 2017, at the much too young age of 55. After her death, her family and friends were driven to create this new program in her memory to grant the wishes of our elders who are at the end of their life’s journey.

Population(s) Served
Seniors

Where we work

Awards

Resolution #838 - June is unanimously voted as Twilight Wish Foundation month 2010

Pennsylvania House of Representatives

Resolution #287 - June is voted unanimously as Twilight Wish Foundation month 2007

Pennsylvania House of Representatives

Community Teammate Award 2007

Philadelphia Flyers

Videos

Our results

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.

Improve the quality of life for low-income senior citizens.

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Seniors, Older adults, Economically disadvantaged people

Related Program

Wish Granting Programs

Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

We track the number of wishes granted and seniors impacted on a daily basis. Post wish granting, we measure the impact of our wish granting with follow-up surveys to wish recipients.

Our Sustainable Development Goals

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.

Goals & Strategy

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.

Charting impact

Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.

To make our world a nicer place to age, one Twilight Wish at a time. We desire to have active chapters in all 50 states and to do work internationally with countries that have already shown interest. We desire national long term care partners to help us grow the organization with affiliate partners and vendors that are national and care about making the senior population feel valued and honored and thanked for paving the path for us. We desire to have our name known Nationally and Internationally, much as Make-A-Wish is for children, Twilight Wish will be for seniors. We desire to make the difference in every life we touch, be it a wish recipient, a wish requestor, a facility where a wish is being granted, or just by someone seeing an uplifiting Twilight Wish granting story on the last 30 seconds of a half hour of otherwise depressing news each night, as has happened dozens of times.

Seeking national affiliate partners who wish to honor seniors with similar goals through connections in the long term care field.
Seeking national advertising partner through connections with pr companies.
Partnering with long term care organizations.

Our 1,100 square foot office is located in Jamison, PA, and we have staff fully credentialed in directorship positions with specific job descriptions to move our goals forward. We currently have 20 chapters across the country and several more in process.

In our first twenty years, we have outreached hundreds of millions of people through our stories in various media and have accomplished establishing the idea that seniors have wishes, too. Since our founding in 2003, we have impacted the lives of over 5,200 seniors in need. In the future, Twilight Wish would like to see 50% of long term care facilities granting wishes for their residents as a recognized "standard of care" - which may take 5-7 more years.

How we listen

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.

done We shared information about our current feedback practices.

  • Who are the people you serve with your mission?

    The population we serve is economically-disadvantaged seniors who are 65 and older or are a permanent resident of a nursing facility. They must have an income of less than 200% of poverty level. For 2022, that is less than $25,760.

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

    To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, 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?

    We have increased our outreach to social workers who have more involvement with low-income seniors.

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

    We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We act on the feedback we receive, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded

  • What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

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

Financials

TWILIGHT WISH FOUNDATION
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Operations

The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

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Connect with nonprofit leaders

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Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.

  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
  • Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
  • Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations

Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.

TWILIGHT WISH FOUNDATION

Board of directors
as of 05/30/2023
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board co-chair

Cass Forkin

aEONRG LLC

Term: 2003 -


Board co-chair

James Ciervo

James Ciervo

Mary Mannix Meister

Jack Regan

Annabella Wood

Ruth Anne Wood

Mae Krier

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • Board orientation and education
    Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes
  • CEO oversight
    Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes
  • Ethics and transparency
    Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes
  • Board composition
    Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes
  • Board performance
    Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes

Organizational demographics

SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 5/30/2023
info Candid has made improvements to the race and ethnicity options.

Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.

Leadership

The organization's leader identifies as:

Race & ethnicity
White/Caucasian/European
Gender identity
Male

Race & ethnicity

No data

Gender identity

 

Sexual orientation

No data

Disability

No data

Equity strategies

Last updated: 11/17/2021

GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more

Data
  • We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
  • We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
  • We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
Policies and processes
  • We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
  • We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
  • We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
  • We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
  • We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.