DoSomething.org, DKMS and Be The Match Recruited Thousands of New College Age Donors Through the “Give a Spit about Cancer” Campaign

NEW YORK, NY – February 1, 2012 – DoSomething.org, DKMS and Be The Match® teamed up to get college students to “give a spit about cancer” by hosting bone marrow donor registry drives on their campuses this past fall.  More than 200 college campuses participated across the country to organize bone marrow drives where students were provided with free cheek swab kits from DKMS or Be The Match, as well as one-on-one support in the planning process.  The campaign ended with over 15,000 college students registered to host and participate in drives on campus and over 9,000 new donors formally added to the registry to date. The campaign ran October 1 through December 16.

Blood cancer kills more children in the US than any other disease, and is the second leading cause of all cancer deaths in the United States. Many blood cancer patients might be cured with a bone marrow transplant if they can find a matching donor. That’s why DoSomething.org, Be The Match and DKMS teamed up to recruit the critical 18-24 year old population. Television stars Aziz Ansari, Chris Pratt, Andrew Jenks, Manish Dayal, and Gillian Zinser also supported the campaign to get the message out.

After receiving his cancer diagnosis, tech entrepreneur Amit Gupta took to Twitter to help find a bone marrow donor. Campaign spokesperson Aziz Ansari took particular interest in Amit's challenging search for a match. People of South Asian descent are underrepresented on the Be The Match Registry®, and Aziz asked people to swab in honor of Amit. Over 500 people joined and organized Give a Spit drives on Amit's behalf.

DoSomething.org also joined forces with ChaCha, the real-time answers platform, to promote the Give a Spit campaign. Utilizing over 1.2 million donated impressions from ChaCha, across SMS, MMS and web, Do Something.org created a call to action for users to sign up for Give a Spit to save Amit Gupta's life. ChaCha generated 504,895 mobile impressions and 521,299 online impressions.

 “It never fails to surprise me how passionate teens can be when it comes to helping others,” says Melanie Stevenson, who heads up the campaign for DoSomething.org. “These teens proved they care about their peers and want to step up to help save lives.”

“This campaign was a huge success and we were thrilled to see so many college students on campuses across the country step up to get swabbed,” said Katharina Harf, COO of DKMS Americas, the world’s largest bone marrow donor center. “We hope that teens continue to be motivated and get swabbed to help save lives!”

“We were amazed to see all of these students take the time to get a quick swab of the cheek to join the Be The Match Registry,” says Nadya Dutchin, national account executive, Be The Match, the global leader in marrow transplantation. “We hope to continue to reach even more students in the future.”

To thank members for their efforts, campuses that recruited more than 200 new potential donors, who also text SWABBED to 38383, were rewarded with a $100 gift certificate for a pizza party to celebrate their success. Also, the University of Pennsylvania campus registered the most new potential donors and is receiving an awesome on-campus pizza party.

To learn more, visit www.dosomething.org/spit or text SPIT to 38383.

About DoSomething.org

We love teens. They are creative, active, wired…and frustrated that our world is so messed up. DoSomething.org harnesses that awesome energy and unleashes it on causes teens care about. Almost every week, we launch a new national campaign. The call to action is always something that has a real impact and doesn’t require money, an adult, or a car. With a goal of 5 million active members by 2015, DoSomething.org is one of the largest organizations in the US for teens and social change. Join us at www.DoSomething.org.

About DKMS

The DKMS mission is to save lives by recruiting bone marrow donors for blood cancer patients. More than 29,000 DKMS donors have helped save lives by donating their bone marrow. DKMS is the largest bone marrow donor center in the world with over 3 million registered donors. DKMS Americas is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization. For more information about DKMS and to learn more about registering as a bone marrow donor, please visit www.getswabbed.org.

About Be The Match^®

Be The Match helps patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other diseases who need a marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant. People can join the Be The Match Registry^® – the world’s largest listing of potential marrow donors and donated cord blood units – contribute financially and volunteer. Patients and their families can also turn to Be The Match for support and resources before, during and after transplant. Be The Match is operated by the National Marrow Donor Program^® (NMDP), a nonprofit organization that matches patients with donors, educates health care professionals and conducts research so more lives can be saved. For more information, visit BeTheMatch.org or call
1 (800) MARROW-2.

About ChaCha

ChaCha is the leading source for free real-time information and answers. Through its unique “ask-a-smart-friend” platform, ChaCha has answered nearly 2 billion questions since launch from more than 25 million unique users per month via online (ChaCha.com), mobile text (242-242), iPhone app, Android app, and voice (1-800-2-ChaCha™). ChaCha is one of the fastest growing mobile and online publishers according to Nielsen, comScore, and Quantcast and was recently named one of Forbes Most Promising Companies. Follow ChaCha on Twitter: @ChaCha.