The summer is always a difficult time to attract blood donors due to school being out, family vacations and donors in general getting out of a routine donation schedule. The Central Plains Region also deals with harvest, which keeps many from donating. Given these factors and more, like most blood centers, we obviously cannot collect on a business-as-usual basis in the summer. We look for partnerships around the communities to help us create awareness. We reach out to our high school students and challenge them to become involved during the summer months. In addition, our marketing department creates a variety of summer promotions to entice people to donate – especially over those three holiday weekends. Summer is definitely a challenge in the blood collections world, but going in to it with a specific strategy can help keep donations up. Terri Dunaway Chief Executive Officer, Central Plains Blood Services Region American Red Cross
We begin planning for our summer promotional and recruitment activities in late winter/early spring, so that everything is in place prior to the start of summer. We concentrate a large portion of our advertising dollars (radio, TV, outdoor, email/text messaging, online/social) on this time of year, and through surveys/discussions with our donors, we try to identify incentive gifts that are of most interest to them. Marie S. Clemens, Corporate Director of Communications Miller-Keystone Blood Center
We capitalize on the popularity of the “World Champion” San Francisco Giants by partnering with them to give away t-shirts and game tickets. Having this strong promotion in June and July helps us avoid appeals and service disruption to the patients in the hospitals we serve. Donald Burghardt Recruitment Director Blood Centers of the Pacific the Drop - ADRP’s Quarterly Newsletter Spring/Summer 2013 / Page 27