Donor Alliance Recognized for Healthcare Communication Excellence in 2015 Gold Leaf Awards

Donor Alliance, the federally designated not-for-profit organization that facilitates organ and tissue donation in Colorado and most of Wyoming, announced today that it received three awards for its My Hero Said Yes! advertising and marketing campaign at last week’s Colorado Healthcare Communicators’ Annual Gold Leaf Awards. Donor Alliance took home a gold award for the campaign’s educational brochure in the Collateral: Budget Over $10,000 category, a silver award for the overall campaign in the Advertising: Multimedia Campaign category and a bronze award for its Donate Life Colorado website overhaul in the Website: Budget Under $25,000 category.

The My Hero Said Yes! campaign, which has been honored with several other awards this year for its creativity and effectiveness, was unveiled in 2014 as an educational initiative to raise awareness of organ, eye and tissue donation for the

L-R: Donor Alliance Community Relations Coordinator John Romero, The Fletcher Group’s Tara Strazdas, Donor Alliance PR / Communications Director Andrea Smith, Donor Alliance Multicultural Outreach Coordinator Angelica Barajas and Donor Alliance’s Erin O’Brien

Donate Life Colorado and Wyoming registries. The campaign is a localized representation of the lifesaving impact of organ, eye and tissue donation, telling the inspiring, real-life stories of transplant recipients in Colorado and Wyoming and honoring their donors who made a selfless and heroic decision by saying “yes” to donation.

The My Hero Said Yes! advertising campaign was implemented in a variety of places including in print, online and outdoor ads on billboards and buses; driver’s license office materials; informational brochures; the donor registry websites; social media and much more. The campaign met and exceeded its goals including increasing donor designation, increasing the number of unique visitors and online registrants via DonateLifeColorado.org and DonateLifeWyoming.org and raising awareness amongst target groups by strategically placing donation-related materials in lower designating communities.

Two major components of the campaign, which garnered recognition at the awards ceremony, included the educational brochure and the Donate Life Colorado website overhaul. The trifold brochure was distributed to 93 driver’s license offices throughout Colorado and Wyoming, with enough copies to service the 1.45 million people who come through the offices each year. The brochure content was compelling and eye-catching and specifically targeted at those visiting driver’s license offices to obtain or renew a driver’s license. The process of obtaining a license is a perfect time to say “yes” to donation so it was important that the brochure contained all the necessary information to allow individuals to make an educated decision before they were asked whether or not they’d like to register.

By redesigning the Donate Life Colorado registry website to match the look and feel of the campaign, Donor Alliance created consistency between the materials that already existed and those that were developed specifically for this campaign. Donate Life Colorado is the state registry for those who wish to become organ, eye and tissue donors after death. Managed by Donor Alliance, Donate Life Colorado also aims to educate residents about the possibilities of organ, eye and tissue donation and transplantation. Coloradans can register their decision to be donors by saying ‘yes’ each time they obtain or renew a driver’s license or state ID, or at www.DonateLifeColorado.org anytime.

The Gold Leaf Awards ceremony took place on Thursday, October 29 at the Space Gallery, near downtown Denver. A panel of judges representing hospitals, nonprofit organizations and marketing and public relations professionals scored each entry based on the category-specific requirements as well as the four common categories of planning and goals, implementation, results and evaluation and overall excellence.

Hosted annually since the 1970s, the Gold Leaf Awards is Colorado’s. The awards, which have been hosted annually since the 1970s by Colorado Healthcare Communicators (CHC), is Colorado’s only competition and awards ceremony dedicated exclusively to healthcare communications. The categories include: advertising, collateral pieces, annual reports, communications programs, community relations, media relations, websites, presentations, writing, newsletters, new media and more.

About Donor Alliance

Donor Alliance is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to saving lives through organ and tissue donation and transplantation. As the organ procurement organization and accredited tissue bank for Colorado and most of Wyoming, Donor Alliance serves more than 5.8 million residents and more than 100 hospitals. The organization adheres to medical, regulatory and ethical standards: respectfully working with the families of organ and tissue donors, maintaining partnerships with hospitals, educating residents on the life-saving benefits of donation and inspiring them to sign up on the state’s donor registry. Colorado and Wyoming boast some of the highest rates of donor registration in the country, which directly translates to more lives saved through organ and tissue transplantation.

Donor Alliance is one of 58 federally designated organizations of its kind in the United States, and is also an American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB)-accredited tissue bank. For more information, please visit DonorAlliance.org or the Donate Life Colorado or Donate Life Wyoming Facebook pages.