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Donor Awareness FAQ 

1. In what ways can I increase living donor awareness?
One way is that you can start a bone marrow donor drive of your own.  This might be in honor of a local, or not-so-local patient in need or simply to raise general awareness.  If you are in college or work for a medium-sized to larger company this would help your drive off to a good start.   Applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 60 to join the registry.

• Start by contacting the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) at 1 (800) MARROW2 (1-800-627-7692).  Find out which organizations are responsible for helping organize drives.  The Red Cross commonly does this so you may want to call them as well.  You can also obtain pamphlets from the NMDP.

• You will need volunteers to help you--friends, family, coworkers.  Volunteers will help you with the responsibilities and other aspects as you will be quite busy during the drive.

• You will need to choose a place to hold your drive.  Your local library, school or church is usually a great place to hold a drive.  make sure the place you choose will have at least 2 rooms. Four separate rooms would be ideal:

  1. Orientation Room: Have a volunteer present to explain what being a bone marrow donor is all about, and the responsibilities and expectations of a bone marrow donor.

  2. Paperwork Room: Have a volunteer present to hand out paperwork and answer any questions a potential donor may have. 

  3. Blood Withdrawal Room: Staffed with trained phlebotomists.

  4. Recovery and Refreshment Room: Have a volunteer present to hand out refreshments.  You should have adequate seating for potential donors to sit down for 10 or 15 minutes and offer them a snack such as fruit juice (orange, apple, cranberry, and grapefruit juices are common) and cookies as well.  Also have bottled water on hand.  Refreshments help restore any energy a potential donor may feel they have lost during the blood withdrawal.  It also gives them the opportunity to rest a minute and converse with other potential donors. 

• Purchase or ask for donations of cookies, orange and apple juice and other juice, cups and other supplies for the aforementioned refreshment room.  

• Promotional Materials: See if a local print shop or Kinko's will donate materials and time to help you make copies for fliers for your drive.  If you have your own print shop program and a printer you can make these yourself.  Remember: You should begin promoting your drive at least a month in advance.

• Funds: You will need to raise money which covers the testing supplies.  Testing for non-Caucasians is usually free but Caucasians, since there is a surplus of white donors, usually do not have their fees waived.  Local businesses may wish to cover these fees or you may wish to ask for a special grant or even raise the funds other ways. You might wish to approach local restaurants such as McDonald's or others to donate a percentage of that day's earnings to the drive to cover the costs.  Another good way to obtain testing funds is simply asking the donor for it.  Explain to the potential donor, if you do not have the funds for testing, that it is a n necessary step in getting started.  Explain to them if you do not have the funds to cover their testing costs. Just be sure to mention this on the flier if you will need additional funds to cover testing costs.  If you suddenly throw this in their face not only might you lose them as a donor, you may create a a hostile crowd which might scare other potential donors away.  All it takes is one jerk shouting "This drive is a scam!"  Also, let them know that these expenses are tax deductible.

• For more information please read "Conducting Successful Bone Marrow Drives" by Wendy Beltrami.  Kudos to Wendy for creating one of the most sincere and comprehensive step-by-step tutorials for starting your own bone marrow drive!

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