faqs

One Simple Wish is an online platform that brings awareness to the foster care system and empowers you to spread love, hope, and joy to individuals impacted by foster care by granting their wishes. Our approach is simple. We work with over 2000 social service agencies throughout the United States to collect wishes from kids and young adults who have been impacted by the child welfare system, including those who are aging out or have already aged out and other young people in under-served communities.

One Simple Wish grants wishes to individuals impacted by foster care and crisis throughout the US.

One Simple Wish operates with remote staff and serves children and families throughout the United States.

One Simple Wish supports children throughout the US. The best way to bring One Simple Wish’s services to your area is to contact local foster care agencies, foster care and youth advocacy groups, group homes, Court Appointed Special Advocates or GALs or your local state or county child welfare department and encourage them to become a Community Partner. Once they become a partner, they can submit wishes for the individuals they serve.

When you grant a wish, approximately 85% or more of that donation goes directly to the item or service. The other 15% covers shipping, tax (where applicable), program support, and merchant fees.

If you are in foster care or were in foster care and would like to submit a wish to One Simple Wish, please contact your caseworker or social service agency representative for more information.

If you are an organization that would like to make a wish on behalf of a child or young person in need, click here.

It is extremely important to us that we grant wishes for EXACTLY what has been requested. Advocates who submit wishes include a link or details to the specific item or service requested, and we use that as the base price for the wish. We then add credit card processing fees, program fees (about 10-12%), shipping, and tax where applicable.

Yes, One Simple Wish is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. EIN #26-3128590. All donations are tax-deductible. We will provide you with a donation receipt for tax purposes for all donations over $250, as required by law. If you do not receive a receipt for your donation over $250 within 60 days, please contact us. If you donate online, please use the automated donation receipt you receive for tax purposes.

For our team to be able to serve over 30,000 individuals a year, we need to follow the efficient and effective process we have established, which ensures that not only is the recipient getting exactly what they ask for, but that if they do not, we have a process in place to address this. We also must always be sure that items sent to our kids are safe, and if we accept in-kind donations, they would first need to be sent to our team and then sent back out once cleared. Again, this would make it much more challenging to help so many people with such a small team and would make our overhead much higher than it is.

YES! It’s simple: find a wish you want to grant, click “Grant this wish,” and you’ll see your Wish Cart. Click on “Browse to add more wishes” to continue adding to your cart until you’re ready to check out!