Pushing for Success — Successfully
SightLife's WPFL Efforts Led to Nearly 10,000 Donor Designations
Reprinted with permission from the Update, the bimonthly magazine of the United Network for Organ Sharing. The original appeared in the July-August 2007 issue.
Cornea donor registry? How many times have you referred to your state's registry as an organ donor registry?
by Jennifer Knight,
SightLife™ regional
director, Montana
Well, for SightLife™(formerly the Northwest Lions Eye Bank) it's a cornea, tissue and organ donor registry. Based in Seattle, SightLife™ serves Washington, Montana and northern Idaho.
SightLife™ is bolstered by the knowledge that as individuals designate their decision to be a donor, having that wish fulfilled is more likely to happen through cornea donation than through organ donation since more patients are eligible for cornea donation than for organ donation. The eye bank is dedicated to ensuring that individuals' intent to donate is fulfilled whenever possible.
Joining the Collaborative
When Donate Life America's (DLA's) Donor Designation Collaborative (DDC) was launched last October in New Orleans–with the ambitious goal of adding 40,000,000 new donor designations by April 2008–SightLife™ wanted to join the effort. SightLife was one of the first–although not the only–eye bank to join the effort.
A ready-made opportunity was provided by the "12 Weeks of Giving" campaign, sponsored by the HHS' Workplace Partnership for Life (WPFL) initiative. The aim of the WPFL is to help businesses, institutions and organizations across the country create donor-friendly workplaces.
The specific goal for the WPFL's "12 Weeks" challenge was to provide ready-to-use resources to help workplaces increase donor designations by 400,000 within 12 weeks. That number would provide 1 percent of the DLA's goal of 40,000,000 new designations.
While the campaign was a major challenge for any organization–an intense effort over a short period during a busy time of year–it was a special task for an organization that had not led a WPFL campaign and had no staff position committed to public education.
And did I mention that the campaign was to launch in just a few short weeks? SightLife™ felt confident, however, in accepting the challenge.
Jumping right in
We were emboldened by a strong group of partners at the Living Legacy Foundation at LifeCenter Northwest and Northwest Tissue Center. We also had new friends at Montana's Office of Community Service, who view donation as an important personal decision of service to the community. Some members of the governor's staff had connections to donation, and they also were eager to support the cause.
The highlight of the campaign was the "Give 5-Save Lives" program, an initiative within the WPFL's "12 Weeks" campaign that encouraged workplaces to allow their employees to spend five minutes online at work to register as a donor.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer embraced the "Give 5" campaign, and on Feb. 12 he sent an e-mail to all Montana state employees encouraging them to register as organ and tissue donors. He also provided the link to the registry website.
The next day, more than 300 Montanans joined the Living Legacy Registry through online registration.
Enlisting workplaces
Other Montana workplaces also jumped on board, especially local medical centers, with whom we already had strong working relationships through our service as their organ, tissue and cornea recovery agencies.
In February, Kalispell Regional Medical Center included a flier promoting "Give 5-Save Lives" in all staff paystubs and further endorsed the campaign by posting Living Legacy Registry posters throughout the hospital and highlighting the campaign in company newsletters. St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula sent a letter and request to employees of the medical center to register their donation decision, and followed the request with a donor designation station at the hospital. Billings Clinic, Bozeman Deaconess Hospital and St. Peter's Community Hospital in Helena also joined the campaign, encouraging their staff to document their donation decisions.
Their efforts helped more than 397 Montanans register online in February 2007, as compared with only 13 during the previous February. Another letter from Gov. Schweitzer in May helped another 230 Montanans register online.
Our trust in our existing and new partners proved well-founded–our strong collaborative effort yielded 9,166 donor designations by the end of the campaign.
With the energy and success of the WPFL's "12 Weeks of Giving" campaign, SightLife, Living Legacy Foundation, Northwest Tissue Center and Montana's Office of Community Service are partnering to spread this success to more employers throughout Montana–and already looking forward to the next WPFL challenge.
For more information, including how to partner with the Office of Community Service in your state, call Jennifer Knight at (406) 449-6103 or send her an e-mail at .
Read more news archives from SightLife™ here.