Published by Kendal on 17 May 2010 at 12:36 pm
Chime In! – How will you bolster your Summer Blood Supply?
Congratulations to Lance Bandley from ARUP in Salt Lake City who won our iPad in this contest!
Chime in with your response by June 4th… and you could win an iPad (details below)…
In my 17 years of donor recruitment experience, I’ve heard some great ideas for bolstering the summer blood supply!
One client has a cool program designed to get high school and college students in-bank and into community blood drives in July. They invest heavily in the program–because not only does it get a priceless July donation, it helps a student find a donation location that will sustain them after graduation!
Another client has High School Reunion blood drives. They leverage the desire among students to see each other during the summer by having a fun reunion drive at the school, in July.
And then there are the myriad summertime promotions!
What is your plan for summer? Add it as a comment to this blog post… and read other great ideas while you’re there!
On June 4th, our DonorGifts.com team of bloodbloggers will choose a winning idea to Save Summer. And the author of that idea will win an iPad!
There aren’t many rules. Post as often as you’d like. Comment on other comments! Let’s have fun with this!
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Kendal Summers - Chief Creative Officer |
Amy on 17 May 2010 at 2:57 pm #
We have an annual blood drive the first weekend in August called Blood-a-Thon. We have it at 6 local malls over 4 days – pretty much every person in Recruitment or Donor Services works it! We always try to come up with a good theme. The past few years our local sports teams have been doing very well, so we have been leveraging that. This past year it was “Black and Gold” because the Saints were doing well and the season was about to kick off. Since we won the Superbowl, we are doing “Black and Gold” again. Jill got us the awesome “Who Dat” flip-flops, which I know will be a hit! Now if I could just get our HR Department to allow flip-flops in our dress code…
Bonnie on 17 May 2010 at 3:08 pm #
We plan on doing a “Christmas in July” promotion, where visitors can register to win a Wii. Also we have shirts in colors for the summer instead of plain white tees. We’ll be hitting the festivals, health fairs and community events hard to make up for schools being out too. Good luck everyone!
David on 17 May 2010 at 4:13 pm #
We hold a three-week promotion beginning mid-June through the weekend of the Fourth of July called “Salute A Veteran.” The promo focuses on honoring veterans and active-duty service men and women. Each donor that comes to a blood drive or donor center during the event may bring in the name and address of someone they know who has served, and we’ll send them a card in their honor. The donor receives a great patriotic T-shirt, honors our armed services, and helps save lives – all in a single visit during the summer!
David on 17 May 2010 at 4:16 pm #
Getting donors to give more than once in the summer is a real trick. We accomplish it with our “Triple Crown” program. Donors sign up to give three times during the latter part of April. They can then give around Independence Day and Labor Day holidays to complete their Triple Crown. We track their donations with punch cards which they use to redeem their special gift at their last donation. Each year, we sign up around 500 donors and the program has around a 65% fulfillment rate. It’s a great way to boost the summer holidays!
Lisa Medley on 17 May 2010 at 4:20 pm #
My partner in crime and fellow recruiter Jeff Houghton came up with the idea for the Bloody Battle of the Bands last summer. He got a summer intern (pre-colleg) student to help him with the viral marketing and recruitment of the bands. Entry to the show was a blood donation. Every donor got a great Battle of the Bands promo shirt and chances to win one of many donated door prizes during the show. He ended up registering 190 donors and collecting 147 units August 5 by recruiting summer high school students in the local area mostly through Facebook and texting. It was a big hit and is back on the schedule this summer and in for 200 units!
Joe Zimsen on 17 May 2010 at 4:24 pm #
At Memorial Blood Centers, we are working with our high schools to sponsor a summer drive – either at the school, or other location they can arrange. Some of our biggest high school sponsors have responded favorably, too! We are offering drawings at each drive for tickets to local concerts, amusement parks and water parks. The kids are getting into it by working to book bands to play during the drive, finding sponsors to provide food and treats, and connecting with friends to pump up the interest.
We’ve tried “Reunion” blood drives in the past, attempting to attract high school donors to our fixed sites during the summer, but these drives were entirely run by our rectruiters and marketing departments. They were fun, but under-attended. Our new format should work better!
I’d love to talk to others in Seattle this week about their ideas to fill summer drives!
Kristin on 17 May 2010 at 5:19 pm #
We have a summer H-E-B grocery store challenge where all local stores compete for prizes based on units collected at their store blood drives the week leading up to July 4th. They get real competitive and we have special t-shirts and other prizes for them as well. It’s a great boost for a hard holiday to book blood drives on.
Sarah on 18 May 2010 at 4:22 am #
I work for the Irish Blood Transfusion Service. As we are a small country we have quite a small budget!!! We also come under E.U. Legislation whereby we cannot reward any donor with anything worth more than one euro!!! Creativeness is what gets us through the summer. We run our summer campaign from May till July. Along with advertsing on TV and Radio we make a special effort to get out and meet the donors. We will have on-street promotions for World Blood Donor Day, and we are also running a blue tooth campaign through out some of our major train stations and streets in Ireland. People can download info for free diret from us on nearby clinics!! We always have a new piece of Merchandise on clinic – this year we have a beach ball to give away – hopefully we get the weather!!! We will push this through our facebook page which has over 13,000 fans in the last year!! our launch is fast approaching and we are doing a photoshoot on Sandymount Beach with 150 people spelling out the words give blood. We have red umbrellas for all and our tag line will be “come rain, hail or shine….give blood!!! ”
Hope everyones Summer goes well and blood stocks stay up!!!
Susan on 18 May 2010 at 9:57 am #
At one of my corporate locations we have had a annual battle of the sexes. Guys versus Gals. It is so competative. The ratio of men is quite a bit more than the women so we do it by percentage. The women won the first year, so that fired up the men and they came back to win the next year and the question is who is going to win this summer. The event covers about 10 weeks.
We have special shirts for them to wear as walking billboards every wednesday. It did increase female donations by 25%.
Lance on 18 May 2010 at 10:22 am #
I think summer time has to have a balance with very good planning far ahead of time. It depends for our center what days the holidays fall on during the week so we can carefully plan around the slow days. We use a combination of fun events, effective giveaways, and strong donor recipient stories to get a 2nd visit later in the summer. We used to do big giveaways like car leases or tv’s but found that donors actually liked having very small rewards that everyone could enjoy and since we made that switch the last two years we have seen an increase of 30% during the summer months at our donor center locations. That basically helps with the loss of the high school drives.
The summer starts with the Memorial Day weekend and we partner with a local sports radio station the Friday before that brings in free golf passes and car wash passes.
June isn’t a very tough month. We usually get enough blood drives, but we do ice cream giveaways to all our in-center donors during that month. At the same time we flood our donor centers with new pictures and stories of children and baby patients from the hospitals that have received blood and platelets. Those stories are very helpful in getting a return visit in 56 days when you get a little card with someone’s picture on it and a sticker for your calendar on your next eligibility date.
July is movie month and we partner with the local theaters to give away movie tickets all month long. We also partner with the local amusement park for day long events where a few local radio stations broadcast at our main center and we give away tickets to the amusement park for that one day only. We celebrate two holidays in July and it’s a huge boost right before the 4th and 24th. Special events that only happen a couple times of years really makes a big push and it’s also fun for the telerecruiters and collections staff to do something different.
August can be a grind. We try to get churches and community groups to really focus on that month. We push hard to get those June donors back in towards the end of the month before Labor Day.
Like I said before the right combination of planning, giveaways, donor stories, and more have really helped us boost our donor center collections 30%. We used to do big, giant community events that cost a lot, but really the small simple and fun things have been more productive during the summer time and have helped us increase first time donors and turn them in to repeat donors.
Bonnie in ABQ on 19 May 2010 at 11:44 am #
In Albuquerque we have a few programs.
Movie Blood Drives – We have our bloodmobiles at movie theatres over a blockbuster opening weekend. We can draw anywhere from 75 – 100 units over a Thursday – Sunday. We also call and invite past donors, high school students and lots of walk-in traffic. Donor incentive is a voucher for a movie ticket.
Mega Hotels – We have a huge 1 day blood drive at a large hotel, usually at a Marriott, Hyatt or Casino Hotel. We have to work a little harder on promotions and giveaways. Radio play and vouchers/coupons/t-shirts help. 60 – 100 units in one day. We invite past donors and surrounding businesses. We usually have some radio play.
Motorcycle Rallies – We have a huge one in Northern New Mexico over a three day weekend. We usually go one day (Friday) and draw 40 units. This summer however, we are teaming up with a local hotel and going for 75 units. We invite past donors and call all community members, plus lots of walk-in traffic.
I hope that helps! Please contact me if you would like more info!
Laney Harlow on 19 May 2010 at 2:34 pm #
For the past two years we have been the Presenting Sponsor for our area’s Light The Night (LTN) Walks with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). This is a great partnership for a blood center to have. The walks are in September and allow us to be very visible to a large amount of people who care about supporting those with blood cancers, which goes hand in hand with blood donation. While the walks are in September, we hold a promotion with LLS/LTN in August which helps with our Summer collections. All donors who are registered to walk, who donate blood, will receive a $25 credit towards their fundraising goal. This also helps LTN get more walkers registered which also enhances our partnership. Some donors who aren’t registered to walk hear about the promotion and then gain interest in the walk, sign up, and raise money for LLS. It also works the other way around. LLS advertises the promotion with their contacts, walkers, etc. Some who are not blood donors will then decide to try it out in order to help raise money. The promotion took place at all of our fixed sites or mobile drives for the entire month. Last year, we got three new blood drives out of this promotion, one of which has already had two more blood drives since their initial one. The total number of donors who registered under the promotiion code last year was over ten times the amount the previous year!! It’s only going to get better and better with the strenthening of our partnership.
Sher Patrick on 20 May 2010 at 11:02 am #
I can’t say as we won’t announce it until June. :)
Bruce on 21 May 2010 at 2:27 pm #
I think summer time has to have a balance with very good planning far ahead of time. It depends for our center what days the holidays fall on during the week so we can carefully plan around the slow days. We use a combination of fun events, effective giveaways, and strong donor recipient stories to get a 2nd visit later in the summer. We used to do big giveaways like car leases or tv’s but found that donors actually liked having very small rewards that everyone could enjoy and since we made that switch the last two years we have seen an increase of 30% during the summer months at our donor center locations. That basically helps with the loss of the high school drives.
The summer starts with the Memorial Day weekend and we partner with a local sports radio station the Friday before that brings in free golf passes and car wash passes.
June isn’t a very tough month. We usually get enough blood drives, but we do ice cream giveaways to all our in-center donors during that month. At the same time we flood our donor centers with new pictures and stories of children and baby patients from the hospitals that have received blood and platelets. Those stories are very helpful in getting a return visit in 56 days when you get a little card with someone’s picture on it and a sticker for your calendar on your next eligibility date.
July is movie month and we partner with the local theaters to give away movie tickets all month long. We also partner with the local amusement park for day long events where a few local radio stations broadcast at our main center and we give away tickets to the amusement park for that one day only. We celebrate two holidays in July and it’s a huge boost right before the 4th and 24th. Special events that only happen a couple times of years really makes a big push and it’s also fun for the telerecruiters and collections staff to do something different.
August can be a grind. We try to get churches and community groups to really focus on that month. We push hard to get those June donors back in towards the end of the month before Labor Day.
Like I said before the right combination of planning, giveaways, donor stories, and more have really helped us boost our donor center collections 30%. We used to do big, giant community events that cost a lot, but really the small simple and fun things have been more productive during the summer time and have helped us increase first time donors and turn them in to repeat donors.
Lesli on 27 May 2010 at 2:43 pm #
We have several events happening this summer. Our kick off will be MT’s Biggest Blood Drive in June and the a Twilight Eclipse release.
July brings our H.S. kids back with “A Hero Returns” promotion.
We always do a Donor Appreciation event in August.
All of these promotions are geared towards lapsed donors with the exception on Donor Appreciation.
Carol on 27 May 2010 at 4:16 pm #
We have several promotions planned including Battle of the Badges (police and fire) and KC Royals week. Our newest summer program will be our Gallon Grad program that we started last fall. We will be contacting all of the students we signed up during the year and inviting them in to donate during the summer. I will have a dedicated week for a couple of my bigger high schools to come into one of our walk in centers. All of the students that signed up for Gallon Grad will be notified of our special event weeks as well as a “Gallon Grad” week.
Liz on 27 May 2010 at 6:31 pm #
We have had similar success with many of the same themed blood drives as previously stated.
This June we are hosting a Twilight Blood Drive. Donors receive a movie ticket for a private screening of Eclipse. Last November for our Twilight New Moon blood drive we had over 270 donors!
In addition we also host events focusing on World Blood Donor Day, a High School Reunion, Lunch for Lifesavers (twice a week), Dinner for Donors (once a month), Pint for a Pint blood drive with a local favorite ice cream shoppe and Bloodstock (to commemorate Woodstock).
Michelle on 27 May 2010 at 8:31 pm #
Our largest blood drive of the year is a 4-day Community Wide Blood Drive which leads into the 4th of July weekend. We have 5 prize packages that donors are entered to win (packages include sports tickets, travel vouchers, gift cards, etc. all donated). Each donor also recieves a t-shirt but I think the real draw is the theme, always patriotic, and the education we do through the media regarding blood needs during the critical summer months. We suspend all of our mobiles, only open our fixed collection centers extended hours. We have a community group we invite in each day to wave to cars on the street and add to the festivities. We shut down a portion of the parking lot to create a neighborhood sytle bar-b-que atmosphere. We invite in Barbershop Quartets to sing, Classic Car Clubs, Biker groups, youth groups, fire & police, and of course, our military partners too! When all is said and done we see about 1600 donors leading into the 3-day weekend.
Michelle on 27 May 2010 at 8:37 pm #
We also have a summer high school program that has proven very successful. Each year during the spring blood drives the recruiter attends the high school drives in their area. They ask each student if we can contact them to come in over the summertime, usually mid-July. If the student schedules an appointment to come in to the center over the summer to donate they are entered to win an iPod when they appear to donate. If they bring in a friend or donate platelets they get double entry. The first summer we did this we had nearly 100 students who came in from 2 schools. This year we are on task to see close to 300 students during July to our main center. We are hoping to expand the program to our satellite centers as well for the month of August. The iPods are donated so there is little cost to the program. We email each student a consent form the week prior to the drive and then follow-up with a phone call.
Amy on 28 May 2010 at 9:23 am #
Every year we do a Memorial Weekend blood drive (it used to be “MASH Bash” but that has fallen out of favor) and try to have a really good theme to kick off the summer. As you know, it’s very tough to come up with something new and different every year! This year we got the Audubon Zoo to donate free passes for our donors. We sent out really cute zoo-themed media kits and came up with a great poem-style radio ad. We also have great animal-themed table decor.
Lance on 02 Jun 2010 at 8:43 am #
Just an update to my May 18th blog. We have started our first events with the Memorial Day weekend and it’s off to an amazing start. We had our local sports radio station here for 3 hours on the Friday before Memorial Day and were slammed with donors for four hours.
Instead of car washes the station brought the golf passes and movie tickets and we had to set up extra donor chairs to get everyone through.
We started pint for a pint that day as well and our in-center donations for whole blood have doubled since we started. We even had 20 donors on Memorial Day at one of our centers which is 15 more than normal for a holiday.
The summer is off to a great start!
Andy K on 03 Jun 2010 at 8:20 am #
We are doing 2 different “Summer” events.
The First is running from July 1st to July 31st and is called Bankers Blood Challenge. We are challenging our local banks to get involved in spreading the word about donating blood. Some banks will be hosting blood drives, and some will be posting our local drives up in their lobby for customers and employees. We are going to have donors vote for their bank of choice at the end of their donation. The winning bank will be awarded the official “Bankers Blood Challenge Month” plaque.
The 2nd event is Battle of the Badges that runs from August 11th to September 11th. This is an event that gets the local Fire, Police, and EMS invovled in blood donations. In this event blood donors also get to vote on which “Badge” they would like, and we award the group with the most votes winner of the “Battle of the Badges.”
Jennifer on 03 Jun 2010 at 10:23 am #
Our biggest traditional summer promotions are MASH Bash in July (thirteen years running!) and Baskin-Robbins Pint-for-a-Pint in August.
MASH Bash is mostly a fixed-site promotion, and many of our locations hold cookouts and themed military days around July 4th to kick-off the month. It’s a more effective promotion for older donors than kids, but we have very faithful participants who look for the new t-shirt every year to add to their collection. This year we posted designs on Facebook and had fans vote for the shirt. We had good responses from younger donors who are not typically MASH Bash material who now think it’s cool and vintage.
When we started Baskin Robbins Pint-for-a-Pint 20 years ago August was our lowest collections month in the year. Now it’s one of the highest. Free ice cream is always popular when it’s 105 degrees and humid. The interesting thing is that the idea of ice cream is more important than the actual treat: coupon redemption is only 20-25%.
So June was our challenge, and this year we’re kicking off a new event called Donor Fest, with free food, music, kids activities, and, of course, a blood drive! We’re using the event to recognize all of our donors and kick-off celebration of World Blood Donor Day. We’re supporting the event with TV and radio advertising, and we’ve engaged corporate sponsors to underwrite the costs. Wish us luck.
Thanks to all who have shared great ideas here!!
Maureen on 04 Jun 2010 at 2:11 pm #
The most important thing we did was begin planning for the summer 6 months ahead of time. We know it’s a tough time so we tried to get a head of the curve in combating the summer collection issues. We did a summer blitz with our recruitment team with a theme and prizes to get everyone pumped up. We booked over 800 units in that one day alone.
The next most important thing we did was to create a new attitude about summer. Everyone seems to dread summer because it’s hard to book drives, people are busy and it’s hard to predict the numbers, so I start telling everyone “Hey did you hear – summer is a great time to have a blood drive. Pass it on.” I tried to get this spread throughout the organization so we could look at summer in a different way. We created posters and put them up everywhere and in every recruiter’s cube to help us embrace our new love the summer theme. After all, summer is a carefree time with great weather and lots of fun activities. If we believe this we can convince others that this is a great time of year for a blood drive. We’re working it. In May we increased our collections over the previous year by 6%.
Lastly, we implemented a t-shirt program where any blood drive that would go twice from May 17 thru September 10th would receive t-shirts at one of their summer drives. If they booked the drives the day before or after a holiday they will get shirts for both drives. This helped us fill some hard to collect days.
Jamie on 10 Jun 2010 at 1:18 pm #
I am not a donor recruiter so I will answer this as a blood donor who was defferred due to travel and have not gotten back on track yet. I asked myself, “what would get me to donate this summer?”. Incentives are always appreciated but as a parent of four kids I would be drawn to something that I could do with my entire family that included some summer fun and a chance for my kids to see mom and dad saving lives through donating blood. As parents during the summer, we are always looking for fun community events and would jump at the chance to take our kids to some type of festival or fair that involved blood donation. We live in a densly populated area and I cannot ever remember seeing a blood mobile at local summer festivals and events. If I were a donor recruiter I would look through the local community calendar for family events and partner with the organizers to include blood donation. To further draw in parents and their kids you could offer fun summer snacks (ice cream or watermelon) and have face painting or something like that help the kids to have a great experience while their parents donate. Good luck this summer!