The Australian government is now operating in accordance with the Guidance on Caretaker Conventions, pending the outcome of the 2025 federal election.
Dear DonateLife team,
It’s hard to believe that another DonateLife Week has already come and gone. There’s always so much planning that goes into DonateLife Week right across the network. It’s a mammoth effort across Australia, so my sincere thanks and appreciation to everyone involved.
This DonateLife Network Update is a special DonateLife Week wrap up edition. Read more below and find results, including brand awareness, how many registrations we achieved, media reach and events that took place across the country. We’ll return to the regular features in November.
In the meantime, we’re keen to know what you think about the DonateLife Network Update – whether you enjoy this format, whether you find it useful overall, and what you’d like to see in it going forward. Please let us know what you think by completing a quick survey – it will only take a few minutes of your time, and will help us make sure this channel is meeting your needs. Complete the survey.
Now, back to DonateLife Week. I was in Melbourne to kick things off. I joined the Commonwealth Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, The Hon Ged Kearney MP, at the national media launch. This took place at the Royal Children’s Hospital on Sunday 28 July. It was wonderful to meet 4 families of children who have received transplants at the hospital, and it was especially wonderful to meet Madison, Aru and Leila who were all happy, healthy and super cute! I was touched by the stories they shared and delighted to see the girls in such good health. The cameras and crowd were a little scary for them, but the absolute hit were the special plushies of the organs they had received. Little Harlen, who was a star in our DonateLife Week campaign was unable to make it, but his dad made a very heartfelt speech telling their story and the absolute thanks they had for their donor family.
 |  |  |
Associate Professor Helen Opdam, Assistant Minister the Hon. Ged Kearney, and OTA CEO Lucinda Barry AM at the launch of DonateLife Week at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. | Assistant Minister the Hon. Ged Kearney MP with transplant recipients Madison, Aru and Leila at the DonateLife Week launch at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. | Matt Busuttil, the father of 2-year-old liver transplant recipient Harlen, telling his family’s story at the DonateLife Week launch at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. |
Another highlight of the week was attending 3 events hosted by some of the OTA’s 2024 community partners. The first was a sold-out concert in St Kilda headlined by The Oz Transplants. All members of the band have received a transplant or are living donors, and support acts included some brilliant African and Indigenous musicians. I did have my moment on stage with the microphone... but luckily it was not to sing! I spoke about the importance of raising awareness and registration – asking everyone in the room to help us spread the word.
The Oz Transplants (supported by DonateLife VIC staff) perform at their DonateLife Week concert, held at the Memo Music Hall in St Kilda. |
The second event was a luncheon with Chinese community leaders, organised by the Rejoice Chinese Christian Communication Centre. The event launched the Grace to Others booklet and a DonateLife Week exhibition in Box Hill Baptist Church, aiming to raise awareness of organ donation in the Chinese community. Nina Seng, Regional Nurse Manager for DonateLife Victoria, gave a beautiful speech in both English and Mandarin at the event. We’ve recorded this speech and look forward to sharing it with you.
 |  |  |
Lucinda Barry (far right), with Rejoice Chinese Christian Communication Centre chairman Raymond Chow (second from left) and members of the Rejoice community. | Lucinda Barry and event VIPs cut the ribbon to open Rejoice Chinese Christian Communication Centre’s DonateLife Week exhibition. | Nina Seng, Regional Nurse Manager for DonateLife Victoria, gave a speech at the Rejoice Chinese Christian Communication Centre’s event. |
Lastly, I attended an event run by another community partner, the African Women and Families Network. I was joined by Assistant Minister Kearney and OTA Advisory Board Chair Helen Szoke AO. I took part in a Q&A panel together with recipients and a donor family to address myths and misconceptions about organ and tissue donation.
The Q&A panel at the African Women and Families Network event: Lucinda Barry; epidemiologist Dr Michael Muleme; donor family Kelly Anderson; kidney recipient Hussein Ahmed; and Ahmed’s sister and nurse, Ikram Ahmed. |
I was also delighted to attend Melbourne Storm’s DonateLife Match Day and see AAMI Stadium light up magenta again. We had LED signage, big screen ads, banner messages, a half-time activation and messages on all the food and beverage screens.
We also had the opportunity to inspire the players leading up to match day. Donor family John Lowe went to the Storm’s training session and shared his story. He told how he and wife Louise had discussed donation, which meant when Louise suddenly died, he knew what she wanted. Louise saved many lives by donating her organs and tissues, including a 5-year-old boy. Everyone in the room was very moved.
 |  |
Lucinda Barry speaks about DonateLife Week at Melbourne Storm’s DonateLife Match Day. | Lung transplant recipient Mason (front middle) with his brother Connor, baby sister Eloise, and mum Tatiana at Melbourne Storm’s DonateLife Match Day. |
Of course, even with DonateLife Week underway, we continued with our regular activities. During July we held our second Eye and Tissue Advisory Committee meeting for the year; the Transplant Advisory Group took place; and we hosted a workshop with members of the National Indigenous Kidney Transplantation Taskforce. In August, we held meetings with our Clinical Governance Committee, Jurisdictional Advisory Group and Vigilance and Surveillance Expert Advisory Committee, and held a joint workshop with Kidney Health Australia.
Finally, some significant news in August was a joint announcement by the Attorney-General, the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC, and Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon. Ged Kearney. The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) will undertake an inquiry into human tissue laws across Australia. It has been almost 50 years since the human tissue acts in each state and territory were enacted. These acts have not kept pace with social, technological and scientific changes, and all governments have recognised the need to review and harmonise human tissue legislation. Please reach out to your Agency leadership team if you need more details.
Warm wishes
Lucinda
| Date | Activity |
Tuesday 1 - Sunday 6 October | Australian Transplant Games, Canberra |
Thursday 17 - Friday 18 October | Australian College of Critical Care Nurses (ACCCN) Annual Education Meeting (AEM), Hobart |
Wednesday 23 - Sunday 27 October | American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Kidney Week 2024, San Diego USA |
Tuesday 29 October | OTA Eye and Tissue Advisory Committee (ETAC) meeting |
Thursday 7 November | OTA Family Support and Advisory Group (FSAG) meeting |
Tuesday 12 November | OTA Data and Audit Working Group (DAWG) meeting |
Wednesday 13 November | OTA Clinical Governance Committee (CGC) meeting |
Thursday 14 November | OTA Jurisdictional Advisory Group (JAG) meeting |
Sunday 17 November | DonateLife Thank You Day |
Wednesday 20 November | OTA Transplant Advisory Group (TAG) meeting |
| Tuesday 26 November | OTA Advisory Board meeting |
Preserving the Donation Opportunity
The NSW Organ and Tissue Donation Service invites you to its annual Clinical Symposium.
Date: Wednesday 27 November 2024
Time: 8:30 am–4:30 pm (networking drinks 5 pm–7 pm)
Venue: Rydges World Square, Grand Ballroom, 389 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW 2000
RSVP by 25 October via the online registration form
Research-based lessons: Barriers and solutions to deceased donation
On Monday 30 September, an online webinar shared insights from Dr Britzer Paul’s PhD thesis into the socio-ecological factors affecting deceased organ donation. The talk was followed by a Q&A and an expert panel discussion on how the findings and outcomes are applicable across the deceased organ donation programs of the wider Commonwealth.
Hear from world-class researchers about the innovative projects they are working on to improve outcomes for lung transplant recipients.
Date: Wednesday 16 October 2024
Time: 9:30 am to 11 am
Venue: The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne or online via Zoom
Register to attend in person
Register to attend via Zoom
The presentation will be recorded and available for viewing on the Lungitude Foundation website by the end of October.
The 17th biennial ISODP congress will be held in Kyoto, Japan, from Wednesday 3 to Saturday 6 December 2025. Make sure to mark these dates in your diary – more information and registrations to come.
The International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement (ISODP) have changed the name of the society to the International Society of Organ Donation Professionals.
If you are interested in becoming a member of ISODP, membership can be applied for or renewed online
This year we implemented a new, phased strategy for DonateLife Week.
Research tells us that only 20% of those registered are actively encouraging others to do the same. Yet 70% of those registered said if we asked them to do something to help us, then they would. Phase 1 was all about turning these passive advocates into active advocates.
This then led to Phase 2, where we used the groundswell of support to generate awareness and encourage those who were not registered to take action.
Our DonateLife Week 2024 creative featuring Mia, a liver recipient |
By the numbers:
We started phase 1 of the campaign by hosting 2 inaugural webinar supporter information sessions to provide information to volunteers and staff about ways they could get involved. There were more than 100 attendees and feedback was positive.
We updated the resources page of the DonateLife website to be more user-friendly and added some new additions, such as flyers for our volunteers to take to their local club or workplace. This was a big success, with 5,202 resources downloaded.
We continued our coffee cup activation with cafes from previous years. Our supporters helped distribute coffee cup stickers to cafes across the country and encouraged cafes to sign up. We were happy to see coffee cup registrations grow to be bigger and better, with a 104% increase on 2023 results. We distributed one million stickers and many cafes posted their involvement on their social channels.
It was also wonderful to achieve a 37.5% increase in lighting up the nation magenta, with 66 monuments lighting up around the country during DonateLife Week, compared to 48 in 2023.
Monuments across the country lit up magenta for DonateLife Week. |
We use a YouGov pulse survey to test our brand awareness with the Australian community.
This year, we conducted an awareness survey before and after DonateLife Week. This gave us the ability to test whether the campaign was being noticed by the community.
Post-DonateLife Week:
When asked where people recall seeing advertising about organ and tissue donation in the past 2 months, the top answers were:
By the numbers:
Despite DonateLife Week falling within the same timeframe as the 2024 Olympic Games, our media and PR results were excellent.
We focused on sharing powerful donation stories and compelling messages via media, advertising, organic social media and media partnerships. This prompted supportive Australians from awareness into action, in the lead up to and during DonateLife Week.
Some of the major news stories were:
WIN News & New Idea, Friday 19 July: When adventurer Stephen Jackson died in a Canberra car crash, fiancée Jenn knew he wanted to become an organ donor.
The Project ran a story for DLW featuring 3 donor families and transplant recipients. |
Paid media
For the first time, we advertised on TikTok, Reddit and Snapchat during DonateLife Week. We mostly used these channels to raise awareness with youth.
By the numbers
There were 52,503 new registrations on the Australian Organ Donor Register (AODR) during the campaign period (June – August). This is a 1% increase on 2023 registrations and a 37% increase on registrations in the 3 months prior to DonateLife Week.
| State/Territory | Registrations (June - August 2024) | Difference to 2023 |
| ACT | 1,058 | -11% |
| NSW | 12,706 | -10% |
| NT | 298 | -24% |
| QLD | 10,923 | +4% |
| SA | 11,813 | +45% |
| TAS | 1,180 | +5% |
| VIC | 10,610 | -10% |
| WA | 3,915 | -15% |
| Total | 52,503 | +1% |
By the numbers:
Social media highlights:
Talent-led:
Community Awareness Grant events:
 |  |
Heart recipient Willo runs out on the field with the Western Bulldogs during DonateLife Week. | The ‘Grace to Others’ booklet developed by our community partner, Rejoice Chinese Christian Communication Centre. |
DonateLife ACT launched DonateLife Week with an intimate, invite-only morning tea at the Canberra Hospital. Attendees enjoyed the event and shared their positive feedback with us. It was a great opportunity to bring supporters of DonateLife together to share the important work of DonateLife.
Throughout the week, the following events and activities also took place:
 |  |
DonateLife ACT team members at the stall outside the stadium for the Canberra Raiders DonateLife round. | DonateLife team members and volunteers spoke to FM 91.1 during DonateLife Week. |
DonateLife NSW’s launch event for DonateLife Week was an event in partnership with Leaping Livers. The event brought together partners, media, and the community to raise awareness about organ and tissue donation. Attendees enjoyed the event and gave lots of positive feedback.
Throughout the week, the following events and activities also took place:
 |  |
Attendees at DonateLife NSW’s Leaping Livers DonateLife Week launch event. | The Hon. Ryan Park MP, NSW Minister for Health and Minister for Regional Health, speaks at the DonateLife Week press conference at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. |
DonateLife NT launched DonateLife Week with the premiere of the Giving Life animation. Aboriginal Liaison Officers from Alice Springs Hospital designed, wrote and narrated the animation. The launch was held at Akeyulerre Healing Centre in Alice Springs, with National Indigenous Television (NITV) attending to film and run a news story. It was an excellent event that involved local health stakeholders. It received good coverage and promotion in local media, NT Health broadcasts, and on social media. The animation is available in 3 Indigenous languages on YouTube.
Throughout the week, the following events and activities also took place:
 |  |
Attendees at the launch of the Giving Life animation. | Alice Springs Hospital ICU staff celebrating DonateLife Week. |
DonateLife QLD launched DonateLife Week with the Walk to DonateLife – a fun day for staff, family and supporters. Attendees enjoyed a 2km walk around the Roma St Parkland, a scavenger hunt for all ages along the walk, and a free sausage sizzle and coffee van. Nova 106.9 FM ran live crosses and games, interactive and competitive games for teams, and prizes for best dressed and best energy. It was fantastic to see the turn out of supporters and media, and to bring everyone together to share and celebrate how organ and tissue donation has touched them.
Throughout the week, the following events and activities also took place:
 |  |  |
Shannon Fentiman MP speaks at DonateLife QLD’s Walk to DonateLife launch event. | Supporters dressed up to celebrate the DonateLife QLD Walk to DonateLife launch event. | Queensland Central Hospital staff celebrated DonateLife week with cupcakes and other goodies. |
DonateLife SA’s launch was a Step Up to Save Lives walking event. The event was a great success, with over 300 people attending. South Australia’s police commissioner Grant Stevens advocated for organ and tissue donation in a series of TV and radio interviews in the lead up to this event. Grant and his wife, family and friends also attended.
Throughout the week, the following events and activities also took place:
 |  |
Supporters walking for the cause at the DonateLife SA Step Up to Save Lives launch. | Volunteers and DonateLife SA staff at the Step Up to Save Lives launch stall. |
DonateLife TAS launched DonateLife Week with a media doorstop, which is when speakers address the media at a public place, answer questions and give the opportunity for interviews. This engaged the media and led to coverage of DonateLife Week both on launch day, and throughout the week. Transplant recipient Brendan Ross Hunter spoke at the event alongside State Medical Director Andrew Turner, and the result was some excellent coverage across nightly news bulletins.
Throughout the week, the following events and activities also took place:
 |  |
State Medical Director of DonateLife Tasmania, Dr Andrew Turner, speaks to gathered media at the launch of DonateLife Week. | Donor family member Michele and Launceston Mayor Matthew Garwood stepped out to see the magenta lights in honour of DonateLife Week. |
DonateLife VIC launched DonateLife Week with a free public concert headlined by The Oz Transplants, one of our community partners. The sold-out concert featured a variety of musicians from various backgrounds, with The Oz Transplants taking centre stage as a band made up of living donors and transplant recipients. The event received great media support, with strong coverage across radio stations. The event was a great celebration and the attendance was outstanding.
Throughout the week, the following events and activities also took place:
 |  |
The Oz Transplants raised the roof for organ and tissue donation. | Phoebe from DonateLife Vic at the DonateLife stand at The Oz Transplants’ concert. |
DonateLife WA’s launch event was a Gift of Life walk, which was extremely successful despite the pouring rain. Over 200 attendees showed up for the 5km walk around Lake Monger.
In addition to the launch event, DonateLife WA ran a ‘writing to your donor’ workshop with Transplant Australia WA during the week, which was very successful. The team is looking to repeat this workshop for future DonateLife Weeks, and throughout the year.
 |  |
Supporters and volunteers (plus a special canine friend) at the DonateLife WA Gift of Life Walk. | People of all ages turned out for the DonateLife WA Gift of Life Walk, despite the rain! |
The network shared case studies in national media in the lead-up to, during and following DonateLife week. In addition to national media, the DonateLife communications teams in each state and territory worked to place local news stories throughout DonateLife Week.
DonateLife agencies worked with a variety of organisations to promote DonateLife Week across the country this year, by hosting events, sharing social media or sharing stories. These included:
If you have an update to share, contact your state or territory communications rep or email the OTA communications team: communications@donatelife.gov.au.
These updates are distributed to DonateLife staff across Australia, via the contact details within the DonateLife Learning Site. To update this distribution list, please speak to the education coordinator in your jurisdiction. We thank you for not sharing this update with anyone outside of the network.
