Pilot program uses social networks to boost living kidney donations

A pilot program is testing whether social networks can help find living kidney donors by pairing patients with angel advocates who use their own networks to spread a patient’s story. The Great Social Experiment, created by Los Angeles filmmaker David Krissman, began this spring with 15 patients across three Pennsylvania hospitals and aims to accelerate the process for patients with limited social reach. The program will continue to recruit donors by turning patient stories into shareable videos and posts.

The Gift of Life Donor Program, which coordinates organ procurement in eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware, is backing the effort with a grant exceeding $100,000. So far, two of Temple University Hospital's five participants have found living kidney donors, with another patient at Temple preparing for surgery. Separately, a patient at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Harrisburg has already received a transplant. The approach at the three sites — Temple, UPMC Harrisburg and Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia — blends social media outreach with storytelling and intensified outreach to the patients' own networks.

Krissman, who launched the effort after a serious illness two decades ago, says the model could change how donor matching is done by expanding the recruitment pool beyond patients' immediate circles. He notes that many patients are too sick or overwhelmed to manage outreach themselves and believes the approach can be scaled.

Gift of Life's chief executive, Richard Hasz Jr., calls the effort novel and potentially a national blueprint. He says the project is the first of its kind he is aware of and that the foundation hopes to study it and publish findings to guide future programs. The foundation also helped Krissman identify five patients across the three hospitals to participate, with the aim of connecting them to a broader audience of potential donors.

The program's structure pairs patients with angel advocates such as Francis Beaumier, a 38-year-old donor from Green Bay who has previously helped match donors, and Holly Armstrong, a donor from Lake Wylie who hopes to inspire others to act. They view the effort as a way to make a tangible difference for people in need, not just a distant appeal.

The transplant landscape in the United States remains challenging. Roughly 90,000 people are on the kidney waiting list, and last year about 28,000 kidneys were transplanted, with living donors accounting for about 6,400 of those transplants. Living donor kidneys tend to last longer and can be scheduled to fit the donor and recipient, and donors are screened for health issues. Minimum ages are set by centers, with most requiring donors be at least 18, and some centers at 21; donors are screened for high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer, among other conditions. Many donors give directed donations, specifying a recipient, while others donate nondirected and remain anonymous in the exchange network.

Temple's context: the hospital serves many poorer patients who may struggle with understanding health issues; the program's organizers hope to reduce barriers to donation for this group. Ihlenfeldt says the aim is to build a network of supporters who can share patients' stories widely, helping to mobilize donors who might not be reached through traditional outreach.

During a kickoff event in a Harrisburg meeting room for Ahmad Collins, a 50-year-old city government worker who has relied on dialysis, friends and family listened as Krissman explained the plan and described the transplant process. Collins said the idea of strangers taking action to help someone in need could be transformative; he viewed donors as potential superheroes who could save a life.

The project is still in early stages, with the early results offering cautious optimism. The team emphasizes that even as donor matches emerge, the initiative's broader goal is to learn what kinds of messages and storytelling best motivate prospective donors. If the pilot proves successful, Gift of Life and its partner hospitals plan to expand the model to more patients in future years.