DonorUA: How the Synergy of the Civil Society, Business and IT Saves Thousands of Lives
DonorUA — the first automated system for recruitment of blood donors in Ukraine. By the end of 2017, the project engaged 15 000 donors, 1 500 recipients and blood donation requests were processed, 12 000 blood donations were made. These figures were achieved through the introduction of automation, chat-bots and forecasting system.
Of course, this result was unachievable without efforts of all concerned stakeholders — civil society, business and IT. Based on the DonorUA case we’ll show you how a project can impact the society, and how non-governmental organizations cooperate with business and IT community.
From an Excel table to the automated CRM-system
The founder and CEO of the DevRain Solutions project Olexander Krakovetskiy and the president of the Association of Young Blood Donors of Ukraine Iryna Slavinska met each other at the hackathon organized by SocialBoost. At the IDCEE-2014 hackathon the project received 100 000 UAH grant from the Focus magazine, as well as several other grants with a total value of 40 000 UAH. The project also attracted around 30 000 UAH in donations. In 2017 DonorUA was shortlisted among other top-10 finalists of the national IT projects’ contest Open Data Challenge.
At that time, there were people who wanted to do good stuff but used quite primitive tools — a common trend in NGO world. In 2013 the process of donors’ attraction was managed via the excel-file. It means that all contacts of donors were added to the same file. When coordinators received a request for blood, they contacted a donor in order to cross-check whether a person was still available for the blood donation. The effectiveness was something unachievable back then — the data in the excel database becomes outdated at the moment when it’s entered into the spreadsheet. Furthermore, this data isn’t analyzed and thus has questionable value.
Today, DonorUA is a big CRM-system which allows to manage information about blood recipients and donors, enter data about blood centers, their contact information and working hours.
The main aim of the system is to match the recipient with the blood donor. A number of factors including but not limited to the blood type, rhesus, gender, city, center, registration, history of blood donations and their frequency, etc. influence the selection of the donor.
The system has donor’s, administrator’s, regional coordinator’s and blood center’s cabinets. Currently, the team is developing the cabinet for doctor, who will be able to collect requests for donors’ blood. The project also uses open data — for instance, they publish the information on the number of donors per region.
In the past, the search for a blood donor took several days. Today it takes several hours or even record-breaking 15 minutes.
Technology stack of an NGO: DonorUA case
DonorUA is based on the Microsoft ecosystem of products. The website of the company runs on the MS Azure platform. The work of the team is organized with the help of MS Office 365 — email service and calendars. Files are stored on the Google Drive. The team also uses a convenient messenger Slack for internal communication. It can be integrated with other platforms and connected to chat-bots. Remote business negotiations are conducted via Skype.
Microsoft tools cost $0 for an NGO. The complete MS Office 365 stack for 300 individuals can be obtained for free via Microsoft for Non-profits program. TechSoup is the program’s partner in Ukraine. Though, in order to receive the stack, you have to confirm the NGO status first.
Fighting prejudice about the blood donation
In comparison with other countries, Ukraine has three times fewer blood donors than it needs. Not only myths, but logistical and legislative constraints suppress the development of the sector. Very often people don’t know where to go in order to donate blood.
There are three main reasons why people in Ukraine are reluctant to donate blood. The first one on the list is fear — widespread myths which influence peoples’ behavior more than facts. For example, the fear of needle and alleged insecurity of the procedure itself. Second obstacle is the blood centers’ working hours. They are open only on working days during the first half of the day. Convenience is obviously the priority here ;). The third issue is the lack of information — people simply don’t know that they can donate blood, let alone where to do it and how to prepare oneself for the procedure.
DonorUA works with all audiences. For instance, the project raises awareness through publishing of educational videos. Just with several clicks on the website of the project, you can learn about the blood donorship and donation procedure. There you can also get information on how to prepare yourself for the blood donation and what are the contra-indications. On a case-by-case basis, the team also organizes mobile brigades for those who prefer to donate blood during weekends, in the office or at the university.
Lifesaving comments. How DonorUA search donors in social media
How people today search donors? Here is a typical case: somebody posts on the social media something like: urgent, 5 blood donors with X blood type are required for tomorrow. That’s where issues start emerging. There are numerous social media platforms, not all donors are available online, and sometimes social media posts are open to friends but are hidden from the wider audience — thus donor simply doesn’t see that he or she is needed. The same happens when a person wants to become a donor but there is no match available at the particular moment — for example, the blood recipient has different rhesus-factor. Thus, in the majority of cases, such calls on social media remain unnoticed and ineffective.
That’s where automation becomes the solution. DonorUA cooperates with an external service provider on the monitoring of the social media. This tool tracks social media platforms, news, and Telegram. Every time when somebody writes something like “blood donors are needed”, the information is saved automatically. The project’s coordinator checks the requests for blood and liaises with the author of the message. Basically, it means that the service finds the person in need itself.
The chat-bot instead of the hotline
Bot — is a 24/7 helper and adviser for those who want to donate blood. It works in Viber, Slack, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and Skype. For example, if you were recently ill with tonsillitis and want to become a donor, tell the chat-bot about it. It will advise you to go for the blood donation not earlier than one month after the recovery.
Focus on the person instead of processes
Ukraine hasn’t yet shifted from development of process-oriented services to human-oriented ones. The DonorUA team carries out the development of the project on the human-centered service principle. For example, when a person donates blood, the system registers this and doesn’t send any notification to this donor for next 60 days. After this time has passed, the system resumes sending notifications. The donor can also choose how to receive notifications — through Viber, Telegram or e-mail.
