Today I am more than thrilled to see Make-A-Wish Canada launch their new ‘Blue Dot’ moment – a massive strategic repositioning to ‘Wishes are Medicine.’ You can see it at makeawish.ca.

It was quite a journey for them to get here, and we at Revolutionise had the privilege to be involved in the early stages of this project.

There was a critical moment in the process when we identified a clunking core conflict which was hampering all their communications and fundraising potential. It was a classic conflict of ‘we don’t have data-based evidence’ against ‘the stories tell us this.’

At this moment, most organisations quite frankly bottle it and compromise. Instead of putting the effort and belief into proving (in this example) wishes improve a child’s medical outcomes, they would fudge and muddy their fundraising focus. This is the easy route. But far from the best.

Make-A-Wish Canada did not compromise or fudge. Wonderfully led by Deana Shaw and Meaghan Stovel McKnight, MBA, CFRE they chose to focus, put in the hard yards and prove it. It is a brilliant whole team effort with agency support, but leadership was key. Thus, they were able to unite the organisation and drive fundraising performance. Early financial results from their new surge are already encouraging – and the number of wishes they are granting is on the up.

Much of the detailed, iterative work on this was completed without us. We love this. Early on we had to wrestle with the conflicts and encourage staff teams to go straight through them. It is the greatest delight for all of us at Revolutionise International Ltd when the client has the focus and fortitude to continue without compromise, and launch in such a wonderfully precise and powerful way as this.

Wishes are Medicine. Truth well told. Very important. Much needed.

More strength to you Make-A-Wish Canada.

Originally posted by Alan Clayton on LinkedIn on 10 September 2025.

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