Writing style guide

In This Section: Best Practices | Capitalization | Disclosing Illnesses

I wish to be a ballerinaNatalie, 8cystic fibrosis
Photo credit: Erin Shimazu Photography

writing style guide

Make-A-Wish International uses the Associated Press Stylebook as their official style guide with the exceptions noted in the following sections. Affiliates should follow relevant national style guides and language rules, as applicable.

Note: In corporate documents prepared by legal counsel, some style rules may not apply.

best practices

Simplify

Write out what you want to say in its entirety and then simplify. Choose your words carefully. Cut out anything that doesn’t get you to your point. Revise, revise, revise.

Cause and effect

Our success depends on our ability to paint a picture of great need and impact, while demonstrating to our audiences how their actions will make a difference. When writing wish stories, start from before the wish; ideally start from when the wish child was experiencing a normal life, then demonstrate the negative impact and feelings that diagnosis and medical treatment had on the child and their family, so that the positive impact and feelings of the wish and the Wish Journey that will follow will leave a more powerful impression. This way the need, the reason of Make-A-Wish to exist and the problem we are trying to solve will be much more clearly communicated and come across to the audience. By telling the complete story you can engage the audience more and develop the emotional connection needed to convert inaction to action depending what your goal is (donation, volunteering, referral, subscription to your newsletter etc).

Know your audience and your goals

Is this content intended for donors? For volunteers? For children? What my communication is trying to achieve? Make sure that your language is directed in a way that invites that particular audience in and leaves them with the main messages that are most important and relevant to them.

Know your medium

Adjust your story to short, medium and long form depending on the medium and channel you will be using. Choose to keep the right components of the story that space allows you and which will enable you to leave the desired impression and take-aways to your chosen audience.

We vs. you

When talking to Make-A-Wish employees, it’s fine to use “us” and “we.” But when it comes to donors, volunteers or children, change your pronouns from “we” to “you.” This places your audience directly into your story.

Active voice vs passive voice

Don’t distance your reader from the action. Make sure your messaging is direct, clear and powerful. For example, “Debbie was referred for a wish by her doctor” should instead be, “Debbie's doctor referred her for a wish.” Passive voice sentences often use more words, can be vague and can lead to a tangle of prepositional phrases.

Possessive form

Avoid making Make-A-Wish possessive (correct “the Make-A-Wish message” vs. incorrect “Make-A-Wish’s message”).

capitalization

Make-A-Wish does not recognize wish child, wish granter, etc. as proper nouns, therefore those terms should not be capitalized (unless national style guide or language rules require capitalization of all nouns, e.g. German).

The full titles of our boards of directors and any of our committees are capitalized:

Make-A-Wish International Board of Directors
Affiliate Relations Committee

Formal names of the organization are capitalized:

International Office
Board of Directors
Foundation (when used in conjunction with the legal name, Make-A-Wish Foundation)

Names of departments and divisions are capitalized in our own publications (however, journalistic style is to write such names in lowercase):

the Fundraising team
Brand Advancement

Illnesses, disease and syndromes are always lowercase except for any proper names that are part of the term:

degenerative joint disease
Ewing sarcoma, Wilms tumor
Hodgkin disease

In titles and sub-brand names and logos, connecting words should not be capitalized. Examples:

Women for Wishes
Walk for Wishes
Shop for Wishes

The name of our supporters' community and World Wish Month campaign:

WishMakers (in writing it is one word with capital W and M in the middle; in graphic design logos though can be written with all lower case letters)

disclosing illnesses

First reference of the nature of our children’s conditions is always “critical illnesses” (similar meaning terms that are culturally appropriate can be used instead, e.g. “life-threatening illness”).

We share featured wish children’s medical conditions to give an accurate understanding of who we serve. However, be careful to avoid causing confusion about the nature of the medical condition.

For instance, not all children with spina bifida will qualify for a wish. To avoid misunderstanding, use a generic term such as “skeletal malformation.” This ensures we do not reduce the urgency of our mission or harm the public perception of our service population.

I wish to be a runway modelChesi, 16cancer

I wish to have a train-themed birthday partyLiam, 5Wilms tumor

“It is the most enriching thing I’ve ever been involved with in my entire life.”

— Sue, longtime Make-A-Wish volunteer and Liam's wish granter

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