Bmycharity blog

Living by Giving: Donation and the benefits of altruism

Should Bmycharity encourage more people to become blood and organ donors?

Last night I attended an event at the RSA where Professors AC Grayling, James Neuberger and Dr Chris Rudge spoke about altruism and the triggers and barriers to organ donation (audio files of the event will be available shortly through the RSA website).  The event was chaired by Matthew Taylor, CEO of the RSA, and supported by NHS Blood and Transplant.

Some of the key points from the panel discussion were:

• 3 people die every day for want of a donated organ
• 50% of potential donors (1000 people each year) don't donate
• The most common reason for non-donation is family objection
• Smokers make up only 25% of the population, but 70% of organ donors
• NHSBT is aiming to build the organ donor register to 25 million
• Ensuring that the family of registered donors support transplant is very important

The panel explored the social, medical and philosophical implications of assumed consent and trading in organs, and two beneficiaries of organ donation shared their experiences of awaiting and then receiving organs.

After the panel discussion, I spoke to Sally Johnson, Director of Organ Donation and Transplantation at NHSBT, and her colleague Emma Harbour about the profile of blood and organ donors, and whether we may be able to help them in their objectives of increasing the size of the donor register and raising awareness so more potential donors become actual donors.  Raising general awareness is vital since it is in the immediate aftermath of death that families need to be able to confirm the wishes of the donor.

So, should we add a panel or banner to Bmycharity pages inviting people to register?  People who give time and money to charities are very likely to be disproportionately responsive to non-financial requests for altruistic action.  But we don't want to put people off donating funds, and we don't want to pressure people.

Perhaps a discreet panel pointing out that 3 lives could be saved every day if more donors were available and encouraging people to discuss their wishes with their family - what do you think?

Snowball gifts - gifts that grow in giving

Some gifts make a really big difference, but cost little or even nothing to give.  Just as a snowball starts as a handful of snow but can grow and grow, a gift can become much much more important as it rolls downhill...

Inspired by the cold weather that's sweeping the UK at the moment, we're inviting people to share their ideas of snowball gifts.  Here are a couple from us to get the snowball rolling - please post a comment below to add the snowball gifts you would like to give or receive - or examples you've come across:

• A smile :) - perhaps the ultimate snowball gift - the only cost is a little muscular effort, but the rewards for those around can be enormous - especially if there is tension in the air
• A blood donation - a pin-prick and a few minutes lying down lying down can save lives

Boost your fundraising by £50 each week by spreading the good news

Here's a simple way to boost your fundraising total by £50 each week - and help save charities £11 million in commission charges in 2010 - by recruiting other fundraisers to set up Bmycharity pages.

We're campaigning to eliminate commission charges from fundraising so fundraisers don't have to run 1.3 miles of their Marathon just to pay for their fundraising page (as they do on Just Giving) - and we're asking for your help to spread the word.

Each week we'll add £50 to your fundraising page if you persuade enough of your friends to set up fundraising pages of their own with Bmycharity.  All you need to do is invite them to click your personal competition link, and we'll keep track of how many of them sign up and how much they raise.  If your recruits raise the more than anyone else's in a week, we'll give you £50 towards your own fundraising.

Here's how you create your link: just take the last bit of the address of your own page (the bit after the "/") and add it to the end of this address (after the "=") -

    www.bmycharity.com/home.aspx?a=

So if your page is at www.bmycharity.com/peterexample, your personal recruiting link is www.bmycharity.com/home.aspx?a=peterexample.

If you don't win in a particular week, don't worry because your friends may get much more active later
on...

All you need to do to get started is create your personal recruiting link and then ask your fundraising friends to click on it.  Don't forget to remind them that fundraising with Bmycharity is commission-free.  If you're in a running club, sports team or company fundraising team you can get off to a flying start by asking your team-mates to register through your link.

Each Tuesday we'll post a list of the top recruiters and the leader will get a £50 boost!