Lifeblood Gift’s Trial aims to improve donor sign-up and retention

Based on ABS Census Data it is estimated that 57.3% of 18-74-year-olds in Australia are eligible to donate blood. However, only 14.2% of those eligible reported donating blood within the previous 2 years leaving a huge demographic of eligible donors.

Many Australians need regular blood transfusions to treat a variety of medical conditions, such as the treatment of cancer, blood, stomach and kidney issues as well as severe blood loss from trauma.

Jeremy Weiss, Marketing Director for Lifeblood noted, "We get just over 100,000 new donors a year, and then about one-third of those don’t come back”.

Research has also found that almost 90% of our Australian blood donors do so because of impure altruistic tendencies. By donating blood to help others they enjoy the feeling of doing a good deed.

Blood Donation Eligibility Statistics in Australia (Laing, 2024)

Weiss says “Lifeblood in Australia subscribes to a code of voluntary non-renumerated donors”. However, Lifeblood wanted to recognise, celebrate and thank those who donate blood selflessly to those in need.

Because of this, a new gifts trial was launched by Lifeblood in November of 2022. This trial meant that all blood donors could receive Lifeblood branded merchandise such as t-shirts, mugs, and socks when they reach donation goals.

Weiss notes that when launched, this Lifeblood Gifts trial was only supposed to be a small opt-in trial with mixed reviews from donors, yet very quickly had 90,000 people sign up for the trial.

Lifeblood Australia was unprepared for this reaction, Weiss stated, “We hadn’t established our processes to support that level of volume, so we concluded the trial and then relaunched properly in June this year”.

“For these three months that it’s been live again we’ve added another 100,000 donors to the gifts program”. This is the equivalent of Lifeblood's average new donor sign-up amount in one ye

Weiss sees the benefits of the Lifeblood Gifts program in multiple ways noting that “We’ve also seen that the average time in between donations has improved from 44 days to 30 days for that cohort. Which will hopefully translate into more donations over time”.

For those who rely on the voluntary donations of blood from Australians the success of Lifeblood Gifts is a huge boost in confidence.