Hello everyone! We are Group 2 and we have chosen the Bone Marrow Donation Programme (BMDP) in Singapore as our organization.

But first, what is BMDP?

Well, BMDP is a non-profit organization that builds and manages Singapore’s sole registery of volunteer bone marrow donors. In addition to gathering potential donors and identifying each donor’s bone marrow, BMDP also works alongside a network of organizations to help match each patient with terminal blood-related diseases with their  potential match.

Each day 6 people are diagnosed with blood-related diseases.

Trust us, we were surprised too! With at least 50 patients waiting to find a matching donor, bone marrow transplants could be their only hope for survival. However, despite the slowly growing donor pool, the chances of finding a donor with a matching DNA profile is 1 in 20,000.

Due to previous misconceptions about the difficulty, pain, and inconvenience of the donation procedure, many individuals are reluctant to join the donor pool. For example, the misinformation about the ineligibility of donors from certain ethnic or religious groups as well as the supposed requirement that the donor and recipient must be from the same background continues to prevent many individuals from donating.

Fortunately, the procedure for bone marrow extraction has significantly advanced to the point where it is comparable to an extended blood donation. Therefore, individuals from all backgrounds in between the ages of 17 and 49 are now able to heroically give patients a second chance at life.

Great! So why isn’t everyone running to sign up for bone marrow donations?

Recently, BMDP has set a goal to increase its donor pool by 50,000 donors within the next three years. However, one of the major struggles that BMDP faces is tackling the misinformations we have previously mentioned. Therefore, through our research, we created a framework for BMDP’s target audience to help BMDP solve this problem.

Viewers -> Empathizers -> Doers

• Viewers:
  • People who have a neutral perspective of BMDP and are aware of the cause
• Empathizers:
  • People who have a positive perspective of BMDP and actively share information about the cause
• Doers:
  • People who have a positive perspective of BMDP and donate to the cause through bone marrow donations or monetary means

In addition, we created a breakdown objectives to achieve BMDP’s goal of 50,000 donors.

• Objective 1:
  • To improve the perception of bone marrow donation amongst the general public
• Objective 2:
  • To build a cause community that actively shares and spreads the word
• Objective 3:
  • To increase the sustainability of donations and strength volunteer networks

With our target audience and our objectives in mind, we created an integrated social media campaign to compliment BMDP’s current offline donor drives and road shows.

Testing, testing. One, two, three!

For our social media campaign, we have created three different strategies that will we would like to briefly share with you below.

• Fill Up A Life
  • For this strategy, we will challenge the public to help us fill up a room with 20,000 balloons. With each balloon being inflated as a result of either a $5 donation or 1 cheek swab, the final collection of balloons will symbolize the difficulty for patients to find the 1 in 20,000 match.

• SnapMatch
  • By leveraging Snapchat’s instantaneous nature, creating a BMDP Snapchat account will allow BMDP to reach its younger target audience by sending immediate updates as well as educational, step-by-step views of the bone marrow donation procedure. In addition, BMDP can also use Snapchat’s features such as Face-Swap to create interactive activities at its offline events.

• Matcha Matcha
  • With the creation of a mobile app, BMDP will provide a platform to address its volunteers, speak to BMDP followers, and inform individuals with FAQs and infographics. Furthermore, by featuring a flip the card game that simulates the stress that comes with finding a match within a short period of time, we hope that individuals will also be able to have a sense of what patients have to go through on a daily basis.

Sounds too good to be true!

Of course! However, there are always limitations to each social media strategy. For our strategies, some limitations include the growing trend of “slacktivism” where youths have been found to feel empathetic, but refrain from acting upon those emotions. This trend can reduce the effectiveness of our strategies if most of BMDP’s target audience remains as “viewers” and “empathisers” instead of making the transition to “doers.”

At the same time, through several case studies, we have found that this problem can be solved by integrating exciting, interactive, and engaging content in order to encourage BMDP’s followers to take action.

All in all, it is very important to realize that the desire and decision to donate lies within the intrinsic motivation and beliefs of the individual. Therefore, through our proposed strategies, we hope to help BMDP in its educational, outreach, and engagement efforts. As a result, we hope that the public will not only be able to notice BMDP’s impact on the lives of others, but will also take the initiative to become the key to survival of another individual.

How can I help?

We are glad to hear that you are interested in BMDP’s cause to help patients with terminal blood-related diseases. To help out, visit any of the links below to receive updates on BMDP’s next events and donor drives.

• Website: http://bmdp.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bmdp.sg/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BMDP