Make-A-Wish America

Holistic, real-time media monitoring

Before Make-A-Wish partnered with Meltwater in 2018, it used other media monitoring platforms that couldn’t deliver on all of its needs. Along with regularly missing important media coverage, the platforms required Make-A-Wish to go through a representative whenever it wanted to update monitoring queries or search terms. That cumbersome process kept Make-A-Wish from being as efficient as needed.

“We wanted something that could adapt quickly because we're a big organization that gets a lot of coverage on a daily basis,” explains Jamie Sandys, Senior Manager of Brand Communications and PR at Make-A-Wish America. “Meltwater was the service that was the most flexible and easy to work with, where we could go in and, at a moment's notice, see exactly what's happening at any point across the country.”

Unlimited searches and keyword monitoring via Meltwater’s media intelligence solution let the organization stay on top of its coverage. At the same time, Make-A-Wish uses the platform’s digest reports to measure its progress over time and easily share that data with the C-Suite and other key stakeholders. Meltwater has not only improved internal communications between teams, but it’s also helped the organization more effectively meet its PR objectives. “It's helpful for us to have a tool that allows us to keep ourselves accountable to what the goals of our campaigns are,” says Sandys. 

Data strong enough to support corporate partnerships

In using Meltwater for media monitoring, Make-A-Wish realizes the added benefit of strengthening its corporate partnerships. The platform’s reliable, in-depth reporting capabilities allow it to prove its brand worth to current, potential, and new partners. 

“We use a lot of our coverage and reports tied to corporate partners to highlight the partnership and all of the successes we've had,” says Sandys. “That's not something that we'd be able to do if we didn't have the ability to go into Meltwater and pull that content.”

Make-A-Wish also uses publicity data to convey the strength of its brand and the trust that the public has in the organization in an effort to encourage other potential partners to give. As Sandys explains, Meltwater reports help to assure corporate partners that they made the right choice in considering Make-A-Wish. “Whether it's helping to keep our current partners happy or giving our sales team something it can use to excite prospective partners, having those statistics and examples at our disposal can go a long way.”

Agile media relations

For any organization, building strategic relationships with journalists is a challenge as media outlets undergo regular staffing changes. Meltwater’s media relations solution lets Make-A-Wish consistently connect with journalists at target publications that can amplify its stories. Plus, as the organization seeks to reach more children who are eligible for its programs, Meltwater’s media contacts database helps it find the journalists and conversation leaders who can best raise its visibility in diverse communities across the country.   

For Make-A-Wish chapters, this outreach often involves connecting with outlets that they may not immediately be familiar with. Meltwater helps those chapter users find the news sources that matter most to their target audiences. “Sharing stories through them allows families, social workers, and doctors who work in those territories to know that Make-A-Wish is an option if they know someone who's eligible for a wish,” Sandys says. He adds that the Meltwater Suite’s cost-effectiveness is the top reason that new Make-A-Wish chapters adopt it each year.