The Patient and Family Support field within non-profits, maybe even more so than other fields, relies heavily on the pillars of philanthropy and voluntarism. This becomes particularly clear when looking at those organizations that focus on the granting of wishes to ill-children, which have been at the center of this investigation. Such a reliance upon both voluntarism and philanthropy is due to the fact that many of these organizations act almost as intermediaries between those people that wish to donate and the children that qualify for the organizations respective services. This intermediary like perception is something that is sort after within this particular niche of the field as maximizing the percentage of donations that go directly to the children is preferable in the attaining/raising of donations.

            When looking to the Make-a-Wish foundation and the Dream Factory as examples we are able to see how each of these companies significantly incorporate both philanthropy and voluntarism into their business models and capitalize upon them in order to carry out their logic models.

            For the Make-a-Wish foundation we can first look to their reliance upon volunteers and how it effects their ability to operate as they have approximately 34,000 volunteers that help aid the organization in the granting of wishes. (Make-A-Wish , 2019) This number of volunteers is enormous compared to their only 876 paid employees. Thus, even before understanding the role that these volunteers play, we can understand the high level of need that the Make-a-Wish Foundation has for volunteerism.  In addition to these volunteers the Make-a-Wish Foundation depends upon numerous corporate sponsors and partnerships with celebrities to fulfill many of their children’s wishes. When looking just at those celebrities that volunteer to help aid the organization in granting wishes the number currently is totaled at approximately 250. (Make-A-Wish , 2019) Many of which volunteer numerous times to grant wishes.

            In addition to this reliance on volunteerism, philanthropy is another enormous aspect of the Make-a-Wish Foundations business model and is central in their ability conduct wish fulfillment. Within their business model we are able to see the Make-a-Wish Foundations dependency on the philanthropic giving/generosity of its donors to make up its revenue. Forbes measured this ‘donor dependency’ at a level of 97%. (Forbes, Make-A-Wish Foundation of America) This is noticeably higher than the average within the Patient and Family Support field which sits at approximately 82%.

            For Dream Factory, who are comparable in wishes granted to the Make-a-Wish Foundation and provide a very similar service, we are again able to see how this organization relies, quite heavily, on a foundation of philanthropy and voluntarism.

            Voluntarism within the Dream Factory is inbuilt into the organization, much like the Make-a-Wish foundation, with the company only having four paid positions as of 2019. In addition to these four paid employees the organization operates 27 all-volunteer chapters across the United States. (Dream Factory, Inc. National Headquarters HQ) This overwhelming majority of volunteers as well as others, including celebrities and so on that work with the organization, is an excellent indicator of the dependency on volunteerism present within Dream Factory.

            Philanthropy within Dream Factory also plays a significant role in allowing the business to operate and fulfill the wishes of the children that it works with. For Dream Factory their contributed percentage of total revenue lies just above the industry average at 84.8%, in 2018.

            Thus it is through looking at these two industry ‘leaders’ (in terms of wishes granted) and the ways in which they have built voluntarism and philanthropy into their business models that we are able to gauge their importance in helping these respective companies, and many others like them realize their logic models.

References:

Dream Factory, Inc. National Headquarters HQ. (n.d.). Retrieved December 08, 2020, from https://www.guidestar.org/profile/31-1009812

Make-A-Wish Foundation of America. (n.d.). Retrieved December 08, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/companies/make-a-wish-foundation-of-america/?sh=762d13ff234f

Make-A-Wish. (2019). About Make-a-Wish.