Case Study: Make-A-Wish UK extends Salesforce with Ascent Inventory Management to provide a 360° view of a wish

About Make-A-Wish UK

Make-A-Wish UK is a nonprofit organization based in Reading, England. What started in 1986 as a single wish granted by four volunteers to a terminally ill child, has blossomed into a global nonprofit network of regional chapters that have provided over 550,000 wishes for eligible children.

Opportunity

Make-A-Wish UK had a vision to significantly increase the magnitude of wishes provided to eligible children in the United Kingdom. In 2023 the organization was able to provide 1,200 wishes but the number of eligible children in the region was well over 6,000. In order to achieve its lofty goal, the team identified technology as a critical lever to provide more wishes at scale. Specifically, the idea was to create a virtual marketplace for eligible children, donors/suppliers, and volunteers that would empower Make-A-Wish UK to grant 5x more wishes per year.

Another challenge was the complexity of knowing that every wish is as unique as the child who makes it. Thus, there was also a need to map and prioritize wishes based on various factors such as a child’s location, schooling, treatment, and prognosis timeline.

Solution

Make-A-Wish UK consulted with leading technology experts and selected Salesforce as the platform to accomplish their digital transformation initiative. Given the unique nature of wishes, and the physical components to many of them, Make-A-Wish needed a solution to extend Salesforce CRM for stock/inventory management. Ascent Solutions provides native cloud ERP technology on Salesforce and collaborated with system integration partners Pracedo and JPMorgan to make the vision a digital reality by incorporating a flexible stock/inventory management system within Salesforce.

Further, the flexibility of Ascent Apps 360 and Salesforce APIs facilitated the ability to have the system do the heavy lifting while providing an efficient and user friendly interface. The Ascent Buy to Order extension package allowed for tracking of wish specific procurement, such as purchase orders and requests for donations.

Make-A-Wish customization requests and a unique data strategy was ideal for Ascent’s flexible data model, which allows for the use of standard or custom objects with out-of-the-box reports and dashboards to glean as many insights as possible for the journey of each wish. Ascent technology is well suited for the hybrid use case of tracking wishes, donations, physical items, negotiated contracts, purchase orders, gift in kind requests and promises.

How can we help you?

Get in touch with our expert team to find out how we could help your organization with your ERP requirements. Call 908-981-0150 or complete our contact form to see how we can reach your vision.