WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Few people realize that U.S. law forces organ donors themselves to pay the costs of giving life to others. Living donors typically pay an average of $5,000, but often as much as $20,000 out of their own pockets — a shocking fact that costs thousands of American lives each year.
Today, on Giving Tuesday — December 2 — the Center for Ethical Solutions will launch the first-ever U.S. charity to support living organ donors regardless of race, creed or income.
Operating initially as a featured non-profit of Charitable.org, the American Living Organ Donor Fund (ALODF) will help cover lodging, travel, and other organ donation expenses.
U.S. law allows living donors, under very limited circumstances, to receive money to defray the costs of giving life, but generally prohibits individuals, charities and even the government from compensating donors.
Over 120,000 Americans are now on waiting lists for organ donations, and thousands will die before they ever receive one — yet living donors could help 98% of them. ALODF will help all of them – kidney, bone marrow, liver, lung, intestine, and pancreas donors.
“Every single dollar we receive through this campaign will go directly to organ donors,” says Sigrid Fry-Revere, co-founder, President and CEO of the American Living Organ Donor Fund, and a 2014 TEDMED speaker. “We’re running it on a shoestring, and paying all the overhead ourselves.”
Though it will take several months for ALODF to earn its independent non-profit 501(c)3 status from the IRS, launching it as a project of the Center for Ethical Solutions, which is already recognized as a non-profit, public charity enables it to begin operations immediately.
The marketing and communications firm Iambic is representing ALODF pro bono.
POTENTIAL GUESTS FOR INTERVIEWS:
Sigrid
Fry-Revere (PRINT+BROADCAST)
Co-founder, President and
CEO of ALODF, and a 2014 TEDMED speaker. Publications: NYT, LAT, etc.
Virginia
Postrel (BROADCAST)
Kidney donor, independent political
writer. Publications: WSJ, etc.
Mike
Mittelman (PRINT+BROADCAST)
Vice President of ALODF,
3-time kidney transplant recipient, Chairman and CEO of PHmHealth.
The American Living Organ Donor Fund is a project of the Center for Ethical Solutions, a 501(c)3 non-partisan, non-profit, public charity, dedicated to educating and empowering members of the general public to make patient-care ethics decisions on their own.
