Make-A-Wish grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. Founded in 1980, when a group of volunteers helped a young boy fulfill his wish of becoming a police officer, the foundation is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona and is one of the world's leading children's charities, with 61 chapters serving every community in the United States and its territories. With the help of donors and nearly 25,000 volunteers, it grants a wish somewhere in the country every 38 minutes and has granted more than 250,000 wishes since its inception.

Make-A-Wish wanted its 61 chapters to work from a standard suite of nonprofit fundraising, finance and CRM software rather than separate local systems. Centralizing those services at the National Office promised time savings for chapters, but the shared platform needed a reliable and stable data center environment to run on.

The foundation also needed to free its own technology staff to focus on operational initiatives and chapter support rather than running and troubleshooting infrastructure, and it had to do so with cost-effective solutions.

To deploy the centralized platform, Make-A-Wish needed a technology partner that could help it plan the software platform, identify the infrastructure it would require and manage the transition out of its old data center without disrupting the chapters that depend on it.

phoenixNAP provided a colocation environment within its Arizona data center, giving Make-A-Wish the stability and infrastructure required to support the initial implementation of its centralized software suite.

The engagement went beyond rack space. phoenixNAP staff helped the foundation identify what infrastructure the new technology platform would require, planned the transition from the old data center and made sure the move was completed quickly and, in the words of the foundation's chief financial officer, done to perfection. phoenixNAP also provided two years of rack space and hosting services to the charity free of charge.

With the platform running in phoenixNAP's facility, the consistent reliability of the environment has allowed Make-A-Wish's technology staff to step back from infrastructure concerns and concentrate on new initiatives and support for chapters, while the National Office runs the time-saving centralized chapter financial services the platform was built to deliver. phoenixNAP has provided consistent and reliable service, which Make-A-Wish says has helped it maintain focus on what matters most: achieving its vision of granting every eligible child's wish.

• No service outages or problems since moving to phoenixNAP, improving uptime for chapters
• 42 chapters had record fundraising years in 2013 after centralized chapter financial services launched
• Make-A-Wish raised 11 percent more funding than in the previous year
• Two years of rack space and hosting services provided free of charge
• Technology staff freed to focus on new initiatives and support for the 61 chapters