Make-A-Wish® continues its mission of hope and embraces innovation with help from Surface devices

Enhancing a life-changing mission with technology

“We regard our Surface device deployment as a huge advance for our enterprise,” says Jono Smith, Senior Director, Digital and Brand Communications at Make-A-Wish. “Having converted Make-A-Wish to Office 365 and Azure, adding Surface devices unifies our organization so that we can focus on what we’re here to do—grant wishes for children with critical illnesses.” For the IT team, this has meant expanding the centralized management of device provisioning and standardizing hardware services to all 60 chapter teams.

Make-A-Wish staff and volunteers frequently travel to children’s homes to help discover a child’s heartfelt wish. They also collaborate with other resources—using spreadsheets to track costs and donation amounts, suppliers, materials and timelines. “We have a very portable mission,” explains Smith. “A complex, voluminous and secure data set is needed to make wishes come true. A portable device that enables seamless communication with the office while at a wish kid’s home is vital to fulfilling wishes.”

The volunteer and employee teams use Microsoft 365 and a connected database to enroll new wish kids and track the rapidly growing alumni community. “Although every child we support is diagnosed with a critical illness, most wish kids survive their illnesses, often crediting Make-A-Wish as a turning point in their fight” says Smith. “We strive to maintain life-long relationships with these alumni and their entire families. It’s absolutely core to the wish journey.”

Selecting a device that works for everyone

The success of the device standardization program is the result of organization’s knowledge of its user base. “Many of our users are not digital natives,” says Smith. “We need to make everything as turnkey as possible: great training, a well-prepared help desk, and multiple on-demand resources.” Adds Gerrad Mitchell, Senior Manager of IT Operations at Make-A-Wish: “Identifying technologies that fit such a wide range of needs and comfort levels was one of our biggest challenges. Surface Laptop 4 met our needs for compute power, a choice of data storage options, and flexible configurations.”

Make-A-Wish created four Surface device configurations based on extensive analysis of user needs, geographic preferences by chapter, data sensitivity, and budget. Portability and ease-of-use have been designed into all configurations. “I hear appreciation from our Make-A-Wish employees for the light, thin form factor of the Surface devices,” says Scott Goodman, IT Support Specialist at Make-A-Wish. “They’re constantly on the move—at family homes, events—and they rave about ease and portability.” He adds that the touchscreen is popular. “Devices with touchscreens were rare for Make-A-Wish before. Now that we’ve standardized on Surface, people are embracing it easily to be more efficient and productive.”

Adds Goodman, “we have a constant influx of new volunteers. We need to get them up and running as soon as possible so that they can have maximum impact from day one.”

Optimizing support and security with synchronized solutions

The Make-A-Wish investment in Surface devices integrates a unified environment for optimizing support to all staff and volunteers. “We deeply value the compatibility of Surface devices with our Microsoft 365 and Azure environment,” reflects Mitchell. “The visibility and simplified management and update process we get with the Surface Management Portal is one of the greatest benefits we’ve experienced.” The Surface Management Portal is built into Microsoft Endpoint Manager, so the Make-A-Wish IT team can proactively detect and remediate low disk storage, potential compliance issues, and data security. “After years of managing a plethora of aging, diverse devices, the warrantee data we access through the Surface Management Portal is a game-changer for us,” enthuses Goodman. “Standardizing on Surface has saved hours, even days, of time.”

Make-A-Wish uses the entire ecosystem of Microsoft device management solutions, including Windows Autopilot for touchless configuration and deployment to end users, and Intune to push out application updates. The organization has extended protection to the application level with Defender for Microsoft 365.

“We push updates—whether firmware or driver-related—through Intune, which is remarkably fast,” says Goodman. “The connected environment gives us consistency—we know exactly how machines will respond. That saves a great deal of precious time.” 

“By using Surface devices, we can guarantee compatibilities between devices and the Microsoft tools we use for deployment,” says Tyler Nelson, Desktop Administrator, Make-A-Wish. “It also ensures continued compatibility with OS improvements and updates as we prepare for Windows 11.”

Benefitting from a deeply coordinated toolset 

Make-A-Wish, like other organizations around the world, pivoted quickly to remote work at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We went remote on 48 hours’ notice and had the whole enterprise up and using Microsoft 365, especially Teams for collaboration,” says Smith. But, for Make-A-Wish, the pressure of keeping children connected to hope was immense. Smith explains that although some elements of traditional in-person wish experiences had to be postponed during the pandemic, the Make-A-Wish team was quick to create new events using their technology tools. “In fact, for many celebrity wishes – such as when the child might attend a concert to meet backstage with the artist – now they’re having a lengthy, one-on-one conversation with a celebrity via Microsoft Teams,” Smith explains. “Although nothing can replace that in-person interaction, the level of intimacy was much higher as result of the virtual conversations.”

Make-A-Wish looks forward to continuing to harness the power of technology to ignite transformative joy for wish kids and their families when they need something hopeful to hold onto. “We use technology to operate effectively in a modern world while ensuring proper stewardship of our resources,” concludes Travis Gibson, CISM, Senior Director of Infrastructure, Security, and Operations. “With Microsoft Surface, we’re providing a highly capable device, reducing down time and decreasing provisioning time with Microsoft Intune and Autopilot. Now Make-A-Wish staff and volunteers can better focus on their passion to serve Make-A-Wish children across the country.”