a random thought about blood donations
Apr. 14th, 2017 06:43 pmA random nice thing the Red Cross sometimes does is tell you what happened to your blood donation.
For example, I recently received the following email:
Dear LIZ,
Thank you for giving blood with the American Red Cross on 3/16/2017. After first ensuring that local needs were met, your blood donation was sent to University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY to help a patient in need. Your donation is on its way to change lives!
Every day, patients receive blood for a variety of conditions including life-threatening illnesses, blood disorders and traumas. Your blood donations are critical to helping save patients' lives.
On behalf of the hospitals and patients we serve, thank you for being a Red Cross blood donor.
I think this is both a nice gesture of acknowledgement and a really effective way to make people want to donate again, because it puts a tangible result -- your blood went to this place to help an actual human being who needed a transfusion -- onto what is otherwise a very open-ended, giving-to-the-void sort of activity. So kudos to the Red Cross communications team members who came up with this idea. I will even forgive you for trying to make me sign up for a half-dozen blood drives while I am still in the ineligible eight weeks after my previous donation. *wry*
For example, I recently received the following email:
Dear LIZ,
Thank you for giving blood with the American Red Cross on 3/16/2017. After first ensuring that local needs were met, your blood donation was sent to University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY to help a patient in need. Your donation is on its way to change lives!
Every day, patients receive blood for a variety of conditions including life-threatening illnesses, blood disorders and traumas. Your blood donations are critical to helping save patients' lives.
On behalf of the hospitals and patients we serve, thank you for being a Red Cross blood donor.
I think this is both a nice gesture of acknowledgement and a really effective way to make people want to donate again, because it puts a tangible result -- your blood went to this place to help an actual human being who needed a transfusion -- onto what is otherwise a very open-ended, giving-to-the-void sort of activity. So kudos to the Red Cross communications team members who came up with this idea. I will even forgive you for trying to make me sign up for a half-dozen blood drives while I am still in the ineligible eight weeks after my previous donation. *wry*
(no subject)
Date: 2017-04-15 04:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-04-15 07:14 pm (UTC)They like me a lot because I have good veins and because I'm O+ -- I'm actually kind of afraid of the number of "come donate again!!!" messages O- people must get.