Make-A-Wish Foundation of Utah Wish Web

What it does
Through our Wish Web, we hope to locate pro bono (volunteered) services and in-kind (free or heavily discounted) donations. Items must be new and of high quality. Services must be skilled or professional in nature. Resources will be used to carry out our mission: To grant one personal, heartfelt wish to every Utah child who has a life-threatening medical condition.

How it works
1. A need is posted
A staff member, Wish Granter, or event organizer has a need for a service, resource, connection, or skill required to fulfill a particular wish or complete a current project. That person contacts the Wish Webmaster at wishweb@makeawishutah.org (or posts a request online) with a brief description of the child's wish, the resource needed, and the deadline for a response.

Example posting:
Nathan is 12 and has osteogenic sarcoma. He is wishing for a fly fishing trip when his chemotherapy is over this spring. Is there anyone on the Wish Web who has a resource for lodging, a guide, or equipment for a family of 5? Anticipated month of the wish is April. Please respond by December 15.

2. The Wish Web broadcasts the request
The posting is then e-mailed from the MAWFU Webmaster to all Wish Web members.

3. Wish Web members respond
If you can help with this child's wish, you respond to wishweb@makeawishutah.org, including your name, phone and e-mail information so that the relevant volunteer or staff member can contact you.

Example Wish Web response: I have a good friend who is a professional fly fishing guide. I have asked him if he would be interested in helping on this child's wish. He is willing to donate his services 100% and he thinks he can negotiate a very good deal at a lodge he regularly uses for his own clients. Call me after 6 p.m. for more particulars at xxx-xxxx.

When the volunteer contacts you, you can share the information you have in detail. Do not pass along a contact's name, however, unless you have already called that person and elicited a willingness to donate on some level and asked permission for the volunteer to call. We are seeking your contacts solicited through you, not leads for cold calls.

4. The Wish Web forwards offers of help
Your e-mail will be acknowledged by the Wish Webmaster and then forwarded to the person requesting help. That person may get multiple offers of assistance and may score a donation before receiving your information, or following up your specific contact, so you may not get a call requesting additional information. In due course, you should receive a thank-you and a brief description of how the need was met.

Wish Web Rules of the Road
1. To participate on the Wish Web, you must live in or do business in Utah.

2. You must complete an online application form, providing your contact information and giving permission for your e-mail to be passed to Wish Web members, and indicating that you have read and will comply with Wish Web policies.

3. WARNING: Wish Web members must not pass any Wish Web message along to other electronic networks of their own. Although it is counter-intuitive, this requirement is absolutely critical to the existence of this project. A loosely controlled broadcast message can get out of control and turn into spam or scam that is still proliferating months and even years later. You may invite other people to join the Web, or ask your own contacts for leads, but you may not broadcast the message beyond your own computer.

4. Before passing along a contact name, you should ask permission of your contact to do so and explain that we are seeking pro-bono services or in-kind gifts. We do not want to make calls to your contacts that are unwelcome, unprepared for, an invasion of privacy, or misunderstood as a business opportunity.

5. Please do not ask to meet or correspond with a child. For obvious reasons of family dignity, safety, and privacy we do not allow this.

6. Wish Web members will, however, be added to our newsletter mailing list so that they can share in the joyful fulfillment of our chapter's wishes. If you do not want this service, please tell us; otherwise you will receive a courtesy newsletter.

Thank you for your assistance! We look forward to your presence on the Utah Wish Web and to your partnership in the wonderful work of granting wishes.