Your Ideal Donor Search Team

If you are in need of a kidney and you are looking for a living donor, you will need help in your search. Searching for a donor requires a great deal of work, and you should be focused solely on your mental and physical health prior to transplant.

Your ideal donor search team should include:

• An administrator to manage all insurance matters, medical records and other paperwork. This is incredibly important as these things must be well organized.
• A caregiver to oversee your medical needs (drive you to the doctor, remind you about medications and diet, track your blood pressure, etc.) and help you stay healthy and positive. This role will grow significantly after your transplant is complete.
• One or more recruiters or “champions” to focus on finding potential donors for you. This can be as simple as sharing your story and your need for a kidney through in-person conversations and on their own social media accounts, or as involved as running your social media accounts and organizing events.
• A microsite coach to help you navigate your search and create your microsite, which is a free personal website designed to help patients find a living donor. Microsite coaches are donor search experts who have found themselves or a loved one a kidney through a donor search. They can help their assigned patients write their sites, navigate the many programs the NKR runs and use social media to find a living kidney donor.