A Dream Before Dying

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But dreams aren't always easy to grant. "I've heard 'no' many, many times," says Thomas Rollerson, a former sales executive who founded Dream Foundation in 1994. NASCAR racer Jeff Gordon, for instance, frequently grants wishes to terminally ill children but seldom to dying adults. Rollerson acknowledges that granting children's wishes is more appealing to most companies. "Kids are irresistible, and understandably so," he says.

Keeping the dreams going requires a lot of corporate-sponsorship pitches, auction galas and creative fund-raising tactics. Making Memories, for instance, has sold nearly 10,000 wedding dresses donated from manufacturers, designers, bridal shops and brides themselves during its Brides Against Breast Cancer sales in dozens of U.S. cities annually.

All the fund raising enables wish granters to fill a basic need: they give critically ill people a chance to make a choice that's not about their medical care or funeral arrangements. "When you're in the process of dying, you lose a little control every day," says Stevie Ball, CEO of the Fairygodmother Foundation. Dreams are an opportunity for the dreamers "to control one of the last pieces of their lives." Though all the groups vie for funding from individuals and companies, "it's the kind of business that really isn't competitive," Ball says. The world needs as many dream providers as it can get.