Senior Manager, Chapter Wish Relations

Position Summary: 

The Senior Manager, Chapter Wish Relations, serves as an embedded support system for chapters, providing direct assistance during staffing shortages, extended absences (such as maternity or medical leave), organizational transitions, or periods of increased operational demand. This individual integrates seamlessly into chapter teams to support the management and execution of wish-granting activities, ensuring alignment with national standards and best practices. 

This role requires a dynamic and adaptable professional who can quickly assess situations, build trust with team members and stakeholders, take initiative, and maintain the uninterrupted progress of wish-granting initiatives regardless of circumstances. In addition, this role will play a critical role in supporting enterprise-wide wish enablement efforts, supporting the strategic identification and movement of wishes across chapters to ensure timely fulfillment when local financial or staffing capacity is constrained.

Knowledge & Abilities:

• Deep expertise in wish granting operations, including travel and non-travel wishes, program development, child-and family-centered practices, and ensuring mission compliance within a federated nonprofit context.
• Possesses strong judgement and analytical skills with a child-first mission driven lens
• Exhibits proven consultative and advisory capabilities, establishing credibility and trust with chapter leaders, mission teams, and national colleagues through influence rather than direct authority.
• Displays excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills; able to build trust quickly with a demonstrated ability to influence without authority and operate within a federated model
• Brings robust project management and time management skills; adept at handling multiple priorities across chapters simultaneously.
• Effectively supports and collaborates with chapter leadership—including CEOs, mission leaders, and staff—by providing resources, tools, and strategic guidance to strengthen performance and mission outcomes.
• Ability to assess situations quickly and execute independently displaying adaptability and resilience in a fast-paced environment.

Duties & Responsibilities:

• Embedded Chapter Support and Wish Execution
  • Deployed into chapters as an interim resource, assuming responsibility for day-to-day wish granting functions as requested
  • Ability to manage: Qualification and Onboarding; Wish Discovery and Design; Family, Volunteer and Vendor Engagement; Budget Management; Documentation and Compliance; Coordination of Travel and Non-Travel Wishes
  • Rapidly assess chapter workflows, caseloads and risk areas and independently prioritize and execute work to stabilize and advance wish pipelines.
  • Conducts comprehensive assessments of chapter wish operations to identify opportunities for performance improvement, risk mitigation, operational consistency, and scalability.
  • Support chapters in effectively leveraging national in-kind partnerships, assets, and inventories to enhance wish quality, operational efficiency, and cost effectiveness.
• Wish Enablement and Cross-Chapter Collaboration
  • Support enterprise wish enablement efforts, including identifying, coordinating, and facilitating the transfer of wishes to chapters with available financial or operational capacity.
  • Partner with chapter leaders and Make-A-Wish America colleagues to remove barriers that delay or prevent wish fulfillment (wish, medical and volunteer). 
  • Ensure smooth handoffs and clear communication between originating and receiving chapters.
  • Track progress and outcomes of enabled wishes to support transparency and accountability.
• Transition and Capacity Support
  • Provide stabilization support during chapter leadership or staffing transitions, ensuring wishes continue to move without interruption.
  • Document processes, outstanding work, and transition notes to support long term chapter sustainability.
  • Serve as a trusted operational advisor to chapter CEOs and mission leaders during high change periods.
• Collaboration and Enterprise Alignment
  • Supports chapter mission leadership by providing strategic consultation and guidance related to program services.
  • Work closely with Chapter Relationship Leaders, Mission Advancement, Chapter Operations, Volunteer Engagement and chapter staff to align execution with Make-A-Wish America standards, policies, and strategy.
  • Represent national office with professionalism, credibility, and a solutions oriented‑ mindset while embedded in chapters.
  • Share insights, trends, and operational learnings to inform continuous improvement across the network.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in nonprofit management, business or related field, or equivalent experience required
• 5+ years of program management or shared services experience required; experience in a federated non-profit organization and/or Make-A-Wish chapter experience preferred.
• 2+ years in people management or leadership position.
• Excellent knowledge of nonprofit resources and best practices in the areas of program delivery, volunteer recruitment, training of Boards and staff, community development, budgeting/financial management, operations, finance, and nonprofit regulatory requirements.
• Demonstrated experience in project management, research, and data analysis, change management, program delivery, business planning and board/committee support.
• Salesforce and WVC proficiency required
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office applications required, including demonstrated expertise in Word and Excel

Work Environment:

• Ability to thrive in a remote environment.
• Travel required for internal and external meetings
• May require work outside a traditional Monday – Friday work week, and outside normal business hours. This includes weekends and early evening weeknights.