How Apple Tree Answers built a Make-A-Wish programme for employees

Executive overview

Most companies focus on profit, customers, and the bottom line. Apple Tree Answers asked a different question: what if a business existed to serve the people who work for it?

The company adapted the Make-A-Wish charity model for its own employees — granting personal dreams, from family honeymoons to once-in-a-lifetime experiences for terminally ill relatives.

Granting employee dreams creates loyalty and meaning that no salary or benefit can replicate.

The Dream On programme in practice

• Employees submit a personal dream they cannot afford or achieve alone
• The company reviews and selects dreams to grant — no fixed criteria given
• Dreams range from extravagant birthday parties to end-of-life family trips
• Recipients describe the experience as among the most significant of their lives
• The programme mirrors Make-A-Wish but is funded and run internally by the company

Impact on employees

• One employee received the honeymoon she had always dreamed of but could never afford
• A father got his daughter the birthday party he couldn't provide after his wife lost her job
• An employee's terminally ill mother was taken on a family trip — her daughter's lasting memory is seeing her mother smile without a care
• A man with terminal cancer was surprised with a trip to see his favourite band, the Eagles, and met the team after the game — it gave him hope when he had been told he wouldn't see Christmas

Impact on leadership and retention

• CEO John Ratliff describes the programme as a pivotal, game-changing moment for the company
• Experiencing what employees go through personally changed how he leads
• Employees report feeling proud to work for Apple Tree — and unable to imagine leaving
• One employee said the experience shifted her from having "a job" to having "a career"