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Donate Life Midwest

Donate Life is the national brand for the lifesaving and healing cause of donation. Managed by LifeSource, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives through organ, eye and tissue donation in the Upper Midwest.

The Project

Donate Life Midwest Awareness Campaign

The Challenge

Increase the number of people registered as organ, eye and tissue donors in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and western Wisconsin and inspire conversations about the topic and benefits of donation.

The Solution

Discussing organ, eye and tissue donation doesn’t come easy. By sparking conversation, challenging stereotypes and normalizing the topic, we began to educate people that anyone can check the box and register to be a donor. Myths are commonly held as truth around donation and many wrongfully disqualify themselves as eligible donors due to reasons such as age, lifestyle, health and religion. By featuring real people, donors, recipients and their families, we highlighted the power of personal stories and the fact that despite their differences, people are often united by their humanity. It’s as simple as checking the box.

70% of the campaign participants have been directly affected by donation as either recipients or family members of recipients. Everyone featured is a registered organ donor.

The campaign ran in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota with media placement on television, radio and OOH accompanied by a digital and social media strategy.

Donate Life Midwest website design

The campaign launched with a newly designed website to honor Donate Life Month.
The website features powerful donor stories and simple tools to register online.

“Organ donation is a very personal subject that hits at the core of what it means to be human. With this spot, we wanted to flip the script, challenge perceptions and most importantly inspire people to see that at the end of day we are all united by our desire to live and help one another. What makes this campaign so authentic is the people behind it. The clients, the participants, the crew and the creatives all came together as one to create something bigger than any individual and share it with our community.”

Boriana Strzok, Creative Director, 5IVE
Donate Life Midwest awareness campaign
Donate Life Midwest awareness campaign
Donate Life Midwest awareness campaign

6 month post-launch campaign results

  • 15,596 register online clicks
  • 9.97% register online CTRs
  • 18,650,763 social impressions
  • 30,549 social clicks
  • 139 million GDN impressions
  • 110,092 GDN clicks
Donate Life Midwest awareness campaign

“Our new campaign, Check the Box, is the result of a strong collaboration between LifeSource and 5IVE. 5IVE took the time to learn about donation and transplantation and brought their new ideas to life vibrantly and sensitively, exceeding our expectations in the process. I’m confident our partnership will result in more people registering as donors and more lives being saved.”

Rebecca Ousley, Former Communications Director, LifeSource

Next Project:
Dakota County Library Campaign