How Make-A-Wish Arizona Surpassed Their $2.7M Goal with the OneCause Fundraising Platform

Background

MAW Arizona

Each year, Make-A-Wish Arizona hosts Wish Ball, its signature fundraising event, to bring hope and joy to children facing critical illnesses. As the organization’s largest annual fundraiser, the event plays a vital role in granting life-changing wishes to children across the state.

Opportunity

Orchestrating a high-profile gala like the Wish Ball is no small undertaking. From streamlining guest check-in and building a world-class auction, to tracking sponsorships and ensuring a flawless donor experience—every detail matters.

As the event’s impact and attendance grew, so did the complexity of managing it. With nearly 1,000 guests, Make-A-Wish Arizona faced mounting challenges: long check-in lines, auction item management, and fragmented data across fundraising efforts. They knew that to continue delivering magical moments and granting more wishes, they needed more than just hard work—they needed innovation.

Determined to elevate the Wish Ball, the organization turned to the OneCause Fundraising Platform to create a seamless, scalable, and supporter-first experience.

Solution

It didn’t take long for Make-A-Wish Arizona to start reimagining their event experience—unlocking new ways to make fundraising faster, more engaging, and data-driven from start to finish. According to Make-A-Wish event specialist Kelly McKeever, the transformation was clear from day one.

“The platform was so easy to use,” shared Kelly. “And having a reliable system was beyond helpful. Being able to find contact information, communicate with donors, make adjustments in the software—I just feel very lucky to have had OneCause. It set us up for success.”

That fundraising success was evidenced in several ways, including:

Seamless Sponsorships
Record Check-In Times
World-Class Auctions
Inspirational Appeals (Fund-A-Wish)
Reconciliation & CRM Integration

Seamless Sponsorships

Securing key event sponsorships is vital for many organizations and Make-A-Wish Arizona discovered a smarter, more streamlined approach with the OneCause Fundraising Platform. By selling sponsorships online and processing payments directly within the platform, their team gained real-time visibility into sponsor commitments—while confidently managing every detail, from ticket allocations to table assignments, with accuracy and ease.

“With OneCause, sponsors can pay for their sponsorships online,” remarked Jodi Stoken, chief development officer at Make-A-Wish Arizona. “Some need to be invoiced, but we can also manage that in OneCause. It’s made for more efficiency in getting the event closed out.”

Record Check-In Times

“Before OneCause, one of the biggest pain points was our registration process,” admitted Kelly, as she recalled previous events. “That’s the first impression donors have of an event, so it’s something we want to make as seamless as possible.”

Not only was check-in seamless at this year’s Wish Ball, but the Make-A-Wish team was able to carve 30 minutes off the total registration timeframe.

Jodi noted, “One of the most attractive features was the ability to scan ticket QR codes, because we wanted to be able to move people quickly. In the past, the line to check-in was upwards of an hour. This year went so much smoother, never having a line longer than a few minutes.”

World-Class Auctions

The OneCause Fundraising Platform enabled Make-A-Wish Arizona with new tools for building both organizational efficiency and audience engagement into the Wish Ball’s silent and live auctions.

While item procurement can be a challenge for many nonprofit organizations, Jodi shared how the platform made this easy.

“We were able to enter so much information into the platform. What used to be manual and quite difficult is now a seamless process.” Kelly explained, “Our supporters submitted in kind donations, photos, everything through OneCause—which is great, because then we can follow up and cultivate relationships.”

By opening the silent auction in advance of the event, they could promote it on social media and witness early success. “We went into event day with the auction already at $80,000,” Jodi recalled. “Even people who were unable to come to the event participated online,” a key benefit when using full-featured auction software.

“We have a massive silent auction—and some super silent items that raised more in the silent auction than they would have in the live auction. That’s something we had not experienced before.”

Make-A-Wish Arizona also leaned on OneCause to streamline their live auction. Whether it was managing paddle assignments or accurately capturing bids in real-time, the live auction—raising nearly $350,000 in proceeds—was yet one more successful part of their fundraising event.

But the benefits of switching to OneCause didn’t stop when the auction closed. Rather, the platform made things easier at item pick-up. “In the past, people would forget to pick up items and you end up taking back 90% of what you brought,” Kelly noted.

“But just as we used text messaging to remind people to bid during the auction, we reminded them to pick it up their item after the auction. The work doesn’t stop after the event is over, so having one less thing to worry about is so helpful.”

Reconciliation & CRM Integration

Compared to past years, Make-A-Wish Arizona now enjoys a simpler reconciliation process with the OneCause Fundraising Platform. Jodi explained, “We have to close out the books relatively quickly, and OneCause helps us avoid outstanding collections and missing data that would keep us from exporting data to our CRM.” Kelly shared,

“Reconciliation is so different than a few years ago. What used to take months is now lightning speed in comparison. And being able to transfer that information to Salesforce has been huge.”

And if there ever was a question, the Make-A-Wish team was confident they had the support they needed. “The staff at OneCause is extremely helpful,” noted Jodi. “Knowing we had the AI Guide and that we had the team at OneCause when needed was just beyond helpful—exponentially helpful,” Kelly quickly added. “The customer service, the updates—everything has been amazing. We were beyond lucky to have the support.”

Results

The 2025 Wish Ball witnessed record-breaking success with the OneCause Fundraising Platform, including:

Automating online sponsorship sales, tracking & invoicing
Reducing total check-in time by 30 minutes for nearly 1,000 guests
Driving higher participation in both auctions, raising $526K
Leveraging a paddle raise to drive $2 million Fund-A-Wish
Raising a total of $3.3 million (122% of the event fundraising goal)

With streamlined operations, better data tracking, and a frictionless guest experience, Make-A-Wish Arizona elevated their Wish Ball and maximized their fundraising impact, helping them grant even more life-changing wishes to children across Arizona. Following the success of the 2025 Wish Ball, Make-A-Wish Arizona is already looking to expand its use of the platform.

“We use OneCause for nearly all of our events at this point,” shared Kelly. “It’s made a night and day difference with our guest experience. It’s designed to set people up for success. Behind it is a team that obviously cares about the success of your event. And that’s the difference.”

“It’s the software that I have enjoyed working with the most. You can streamline your events by replacing other fundraising tools, support multiple events throughout the year, and enhance your results,” concluded Jodi.