How much does Make-A-Wish Foundation of America give?

Make-A-Wish Foundation of America reported 59 itemized grants totaling $60,305,049, out of $66,860,765 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 59 and 63 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Make-A-Wish Foundation of America fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (98%), International (2%), Philanthropy (1%).

Who are Make-A-Wish Foundation of America's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Make-A-Wish Foundation of Oh Ky & In ($23M), Make-A-Wish Foundation of Metro New York and Western New York ($22M), Make-A-Wish Foundation of Illinois Inc ($21M).

Does Make-A-Wish Foundation of America fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as Make-A-Wish Foundation of America?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Car Donation Foundation, Inspire Brands Foundation Inc, Jpmorgan Chase Foundation.

Where is Make-A-Wish Foundation of America based?

Make-A-Wish Foundation of America is based in AZ.

Make-A-Wish Foundation of America

Make-A-Wish Foundation of America at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Make-A-Wish Foundation of America

Together, we create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.

$67M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$2.7M

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Health$458MInternational$7.7MPhilanthropy$2.8MOther$0

02FY2025 · 59 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 59 grants below total $60,305,049, the rows itemized in this filing. The $66,860,765 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $6,555,716 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

$50k–250k6 grants · $709k
$250k+53 grants · $60M

$978,998

Median grant

States reached

$126M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
MAWF SOUTHERN FLORIDA	$2,688,248
MAWF METRO NEW YORK AND WESTERN NEW YORK	$2,658,915
MAWF ILLINOIS	$2,253,812
MAWF NEW JERSEY	$2,113,100
MAWF OHIO KENTUCKY AND INDIANA	$2,089,733
MAWF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN FLORIDA	$2,010,767
MAWF GREATER LOS ANGELES	$1,962,830
MAWF GREATER BAY AREA	$1,843,907
MAWF NORTH TEXAS	$1,786,989
MAWF COLORADO	$1,732,875
MAWF MISSOURI AND KANSAS	$1,524,071
MAWF WISCONSIN	$1,520,518
MAWF MICHIGAN	$1,485,288
MAWF GEORGIA	$1,461,102
MAWF ARIZONA	$1,397,379

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $41.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$468M · 65 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

65 repeat relationships: 59 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$468M

Still filing today

91%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

HealthHuman ServicesPhilanthropyArts & CultureOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.

Backed again, and grew

MF
MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF OH KY & IN
9× · 2017–2025 · $23M · revenue +39%
MF
MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF METRO NEW YORK AND WESTERN NEW YORK
9× · 2017–2025 · $22M · revenue +56% · 29% of their budget
MF
MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $21M · revenue +12%

Funded once

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Make-a-Wish Foundation of America

Together, we create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.

—

Wishing Star Foundation

Wishing star foundation's mission is to provide hope and lasting memories for children who are terminal or battling a life-threatening illness.

Unclassified

Indiana Wish Inc

The mission of indiana wish is to grant wishes to indiana children ages 3 -18 diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.

Health

Little Wishes

Little Wishes grants the immediate and ongoing wishes of chronically and critically ill hospitalized children to ease their discomfort and bring them moments of joy.

Human Services

A Special Wish Foundation Inc

To grant the wishes of seriously / terminally ill children.

—

Dreams and Wishes of Tennessee

To provide dreams and wishes to terminally ill children in tennessee

Philanthropy

Wish of a Lifetime

Wish of A Lifetime's (WOL) mission is to spark hope and joy in the hearts of older adults by fulfilling their dreams through personalized experiences that promote healthy and purposeful aging. We share these stories to inspire those of all…

Human Services

A Child's Wish of Louisiana Inc

To grant wishes to and otherwise act for the benefit of children suffering from terminal or life theatening illness or disease.

—

A Special Wish Foundtion - Central Ohio

Grant special wishes to children with a life-threatening medical problem.

Human Services

One Simple Wish Inc

One Simple Wish empowers you to restore hope and happiness to children impacted by foster care, abuse and neglect.

Human Services

A Wish With Wings Inc

Organization grants wishes to children with life threatening conditions.

—

Montana Hope Project Inc

Granting wishes for montana children living with critical illnesses.

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Missouri and Kansas; the most unlike its peers is Make-a-Wish Foundation Guam. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

63 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 63 of the 65 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

59/63

Grantees still filing

52/63

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Health$252,069,990Other$155,684,690Human Services$41,388,661Philanthropy$16,608,342Arts & Culture$2,422,249

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Car Donation FoundationMN85.3× affinity38 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Car Donation Foundation · Inspire Brands Foundation Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Dutch Bros Foundation · Edward Jones Foundation · Give Back Foundation · Assurant Foundation · Lamb Weston Charitable Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Make-A-Wish Foundation of America funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Make-A-Wish Foundation of America. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

8get no government money at all

9report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Make-A-Wish Foundation of America’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home