Make-A-Wish gaming – Ways Indies Can Get Involved With Make-A-Wish in 2026:
Most indie developers think about Make-A-Wish the way everyone thinks about it: a large charity that grants wishes for critically ill children, mostly connected to Disney, sports, or celebrity encounters. What fewer people know is that gaming has become one of the most active and growing areas of Make-A-Wish‘s work, and that indie studios of any size have real, concrete ways to be part of it.
Ian Wright, lead manager for gaming fundraising at Make-A-Wish America, and April Stallings, who runs gaming fundraising for Make-A-Wish International, joined Ash Cason on the IndieGameBusiness® podcast to talk through exactly how that works. What came out of the conversation was a surprisingly practical and personal picture of what involvement looks like, why gaming has become central to the mission, and why small studios are not just welcome but genuinely needed.
Who Ian and April Are and What They Actually Do:
Ian describes his role simply: he is the gaming guy for Make-A-Wish America. If it involves Make-A-Wish and video games in the United States, he is involved. His work covers content creators, game companies, brands, community fundraising campaigns, and occasionally the part of the job he loves most, actually granting gaming-related wishes.
April came to Make-A-Wish through a similar path. A lifelong gamer whose father owned a coin arcade, she spent over two decades in the nonprofit sector before landing the opportunity to build a content creator-led fundraising program for Make-A-Wish Canada at the start of the pandemic. She has since moved to Make-A-Wish International, covering everything outside the United States, which means nearly fifty countries.
The two organizations operate independently for practical reasons: different time zones, languages, currencies, legal structures, and cultures. But Ian and April work closely together, particularly on gaming, because they both understand that gaming is a global audience and treating it as a regional one misses the point.
The Wish That Started Everything:
Ian closed the conversation with the origin story of Make-A-Wish, and it is worth knowing. On April 29, 1980, a young boy named Chris Gricus in Phoenix, Arizona was diagnosed with leukemia. Chris had always wanted to be a police officer. His parents connected with the local police department, who gave him a uniform, a badge, and made him a Phoenix police officer for the day. He rode in a patrol car, wore his uniform, and when someone mentioned he loved helicopters, the officers did not just let him look at one. They flew him over the city of Phoenix.
A few days later, Chris told his mother he did not feel well. The next day, he was gone. His mother Linda looked at what had happened for her son and decided it could not just be for Chris. That conviction became the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Linda is still involved with the organization today.
Ian had the chance to sit with Linda one-on-one during his first year at Make-A-Wish. When he explained his work in gaming and how he raises money through content creators and industry partnerships, Linda reached across the table and said: thank you for telling Chris’s story to a new audience. That is the framing Ian carries into every conversation about gaming and Make-A-Wish.
What Make-A-Wish gaming wishes Actually Look Like:
The range of gaming wishes is wider than most people expect. Ian and April described requests that covered practically every genre and platform, including:
- Fortnite and Minecraft wishes, which remain consistently popular
- Roblox experiences and custom in-game moments
- Attending major esports events and gaming conventions like TwitchCon and VidCon
- Meeting favorite content creators and getting to play games with them
- Creating their own video game, which Make-A-Wish has facilitated with indie studios
- Visiting specific game studios, sometimes for games that came out years ago
That last point stood out in the conversation. April described a recent wish request from a child who wanted to visit a major Nordic studio. She assumed the wish was about the studio’s current high-profile title. It was not. The child wanted to talk about a game the studio made seven years ago. The studio was as surprised as April was, and equally moved.
The wishes are only limited by what a child can imagine. That unpredictability is exactly why Make-A-Wish wants to build a deeper network of contacts across the games industry, so that when an unusual wish comes in, they have someone to call.
How Make-A-Wish and Gaming Work Together:
Make-A-Wish runs gaming-related activity across several formats, and the entry points for indie studios vary depending on what a studio can offer. The main ways gaming companies and individuals currently get involved include:
- Fundraising campaigns. Developers can run time-limited fundraising events, charity streams, or in-game activations where proceeds benefit Make-A-Wish. These can be scaled to the size of the studio and the audience it has.
- Wish granting. Studios can participate directly in granting a gaming-related wish. This might mean hosting a child at the studio, creating a custom in-game item or experience, or helping a child design their own game. Ian and April have worked with indie developers to make this happen.
- Creator partnerships. Make-A-Wish works with content creators at every level to fundraise and spread awareness. Indie studios that have relationships with creators can help facilitate those connections.
- World Wish Month activations. April is World Wish Month, with April 29 designated as World Wish Day in honor of Chris’s wish in 1980. This is one of the highest-activity fundraising periods of the year and an obvious moment for studios to participate.
- Summer of Wishes. Make-A-Wish America runs a summer campaign covering June, July, and August. This is another structured period where studios can plug into existing campaigns rather than building something from scratch.
Why Indie Developers Are a Particularly Good Fit:
Ian and April were direct about this: indie studios are not a lower-priority partner because they are smaller. In some respects they are more valuable, because indie developers can move quickly, take creative risks, and have direct relationships with their communities in ways that large publishers do not.
April described the wish-granting network they are trying to build as a database of people and studios who have told Make-A-Wish what they can offer. When a wish comes in that requires something specific, they can go directly to the right person. An indie developer who makes a niche genre might be exactly the right fit for a child whose wish centers on that genre. Without that developer in the network, the wish either does not happen or takes significantly longer to arrange.
Ian added that he actively enjoys hearing unusual ideas and pitching them internally. If an indie developer comes to him with a creative proposal for a fundraising event or wish experience that he has not seen before, his instinct is to find a way to make it work, not to filter it out for being unconventional.
The Scale of What Make-A-Wish Does and Why It Needs Support:
Since 1980, Make-A-Wish has granted more than 650,000 wishes. The organization currently grants a wish approximately every thirty minutes somewhere in the world. At the same time, a child is diagnosed with a wish-eligible illness roughly every twenty minutes.
That gap, between the rate of wishes being granted and the rate of new children becoming eligible, is why fundraising and community involvement matter so much. Make-A-Wish reports that around sixty percent of wish children go on to live long lives. The wish itself is not a final gesture. It is something that carries forward. Ian and April both use the same phrase: not a last wish, but a lasting wish.
Make-A-Wish gaming | How to Get Involved as an Indie Developer:
Make-A-Wish has created a form specifically for indie developers and small publishers to tell the organization what they can offer. This is the most direct first step for any studio that wants to be part of wish granting or fundraising. The information goes into a working database that Ian and April can pull from when wishes come in.
Beyond the form, there are several practical ways to get involved:
- Fill out the Make-A-Wish developer interest form to get into their network
- Reach out directly to Ian Wright for Make-A-Wish America partnerships
- Reach out directly to April Stallings for Make-A-Wish International partnerships
- Connect through the IndieGameBusiness® Discord, where both Ian and April are active members
- Contact Ash Cason [Discord: Pebbster] through IndieGameBusiness® if you cannot reach Ian or April directly
- Plan around World Wish Month in April or the Summer of Wishes campaign for structured activation opportunities
Ian’s message to developers considering it was clear: reach out regardless of studio size. There is no minimum threshold for involvement. If you have an idea, even an unusual one, bring it. The worst outcome is a conversation. The best outcome is a child getting a wish that would not have been possible without your specific expertise or community.
A Community Built Around Something That Matters:
What came through clearly in the conversation was that this partnership between gaming and Make-A-Wish is not a corporate sponsorship arrangement or a checkbox exercise. Ian spent years in military nonprofits before Make-A-Wish. April spent over two decades in fundraising before finding a way to bring gaming into the work she cared about. Both of them got into this because they are gamers who believe the games community is capable of doing something genuinely meaningful with its size and creativity.
The games industry tends to be good at building community around shared passion. Make-A-Wish is asking that same instinct to show up for children who are navigating something no child should have to navigate. For indie developers who want their work to mean something beyond the screen, this is a direct and practical way to make that happen.
To get involved, fill out the Make-A-Wish developer interest form, connect with Ian and April in the Indie Game Business Discord, or reach out to Ash Cason at IndieGameBusiness®.
Want more insights like this?:
Join us for our IndieGameBusiness Deep Dive, taking place on May 27th from 9am – 5pm Eastern or hop into the IndieGameBusiness® Discord to connect with Ian, April, and other industry pros.
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