I Gave Hope: A Statewide Living Donor Campaign

Donate Life North Carolina wanted to change the way people think about living donation. Donating a kidney or part of a liver is often viewed as something reserved for exceptionally selfless people, creating distance between potential donors and the decision to give. The challenge was to make living donation feel more approachable and attainable while building meaningful statewide awareness with a limited media budget. Doing so required a strategy that could extend the campaign’s reach while connecting potential donors with transplant programs in their own regions.

Bell & Porter developed I Gave Hope, an integrated campaign featuring real living donors across out-of-home and social media. The work was informed by firsthand experience, with Bell & Porter co-founder Patrick Glace also a living kidney donor. To extend the available media budget, Bell & Porter worked with Donate Life North Carolina leadership to develop a partnership model for local hospital systems with transplant programs, sharing out-of-home costs and creating custom co-branded creative for each partner. Regional media opportunities were then identified within a practical driving distance of participating transplant centers.