We created an online experience that would make these letters to Santa more easily available to a broader audience. On the platform, people could browse and choose from handwritten letters to respond to with gifts. Using handwritten letters on the site rather than retyped letters helped create a personal connection between the reader and writer. On the back-end, we built a secure database that provided adopters with the information they needed to buy a gift while protecting the identity of those receiving the gift. We devised an 11-digit ID system that allowed us to monitor who was adopting which letters and would also allow Postal Service employees to see and create the mailing label.

After adoption, our Santas were given instructions on how to shop for, wrap and ship the gifts. We created instructional materials, provided documents and sent reminder emails to make the process easy from start to finish.

The pilot program launched online for the New York City area around the holiday season. Physical letters were vetted, assigned an ID, then uploaded to the website. As the website was shared by participants, news outlets and influencers on social media, it was easily accessed and navigated from any device. Once letters were picked, adopters would receive contact information and instructions on how to proceed. Purchased gifts were brought to the Post Office, where employees would use the letter’s unique IDs to print shipping labels and mail packages on behalf of Santas around the city.

The website was hugely popular and letters were adopted at a faster rate than we could supply them. The site ran out of letters a few times, until no letters were left to upload. By the third week of the program, nearly every letter was adopted. We created a smooth process to receive, label and send the gifts once they started rolling in. Gifts were delivered to families across New York City. The digitization of Operation Santa was covered by news organizations and shared widely across social media. Because of the pilot program’s success, Operation Santa will be available online across the country, at Post Offices nationwide, in 2018. That means more letters will be answered, and more children will keep believing in Santa.

Before this program, Operation Santa letters were only available for adoption at some local Post Offices around the country. The program wasn’t largely publicized or well-known and was on the verge of extinction. By expanding Operation Santa to the digital world and developing a full user journey — spanning from the Post Office’s reception of a letter to a person’s adoption of a family to the Christmas Eve delivery of the gifts — we made an interaction with the U.S. Postal Service enriching from beginning to end. We helped expose a large population of people to a worthy one-to-one cause.

We scanned every letter, pulling key data points to show people what was needed to fulfill a wish. Sensitive information, like last names and addresses, was encrypted, used only by the Postal Service for delivery later. Our system allowed us to receive two different letters at two different times from a brother and sister, then instantly pair them together for adoption. Letters grouped by household would be adopted together to ensure all children in the same home got a response. By creating a website that connected a visitor with a handwritten letter, we appealed to a big-hearted population that was always connected and preferred one-to-one donations to get more letters answered.

Every holiday season, the U.S. Postal Service receives millions of letters addressed to Santa Claus. Most are written by needy children asking for help with basic needs. The Postal Service felt a responsibility to deliver these letters — letters written in the hope of having a happy holiday. Our challenge was figuring out how to take these undeliverable letters, full of heartfelt hope, and turn them into tangible, deliverable packages. We needed to build an end-to-end program that used the Postal Service infrastructure, digital media and the goodwill of thousands of New Yorkers.