Community Blood Bank logo

Tips for a Successful Blood Drive

Facts About Blood Donation

Many people don’t know why it’s important to donate or how it can affect them. Knowledge is one of the keys that can vastly change people’s minds and attitudes regarding blood donation. Below are facts you can use to inform your current and potential donors:

  • Only 5% of the population donates blood.
  • 45% of us will require blood or blood products in our lifetime.
  • 550 units of blood are needed every week to meet the needs of our local hospitals.
  • Much of today’s medical care depends upon the steady, safe supply of blood from healthy volunteer donors.
  • One unit of blood can be separated into several components (red blood cells, plasma and platelets). One unit could potentially save three lives.
  • We need to collect blood every day. Red blood cells have a shelf life of 42 days, platelets must be used within five days, and plasma can be frozen for up to one year.
  • Accident victims may require from 50 to 100 units of blood during their course of treatment.
  • Cancer, trauma and surgery patients require transfusions to survive.
  • 20% of our region’s blood supply goes to treating local cancer patients.
  • The rarest blood type is the type we do not have on the shelf.
  • In just 30 minutes, you will save up to three local lives. It’s quick, simple, and provides a lifeline to our community patients.
  • 1 out of every 83 deliveries requires a blood transfusion for mother, child, or both.-

Ways to Make Your Blood Drive a Success

Ask people to donate.

The primary reason people don’t donate is that they have never been asked.

Explain what happens when you donate.

We all fear the unknown. Non-donors are often afraid the procedure will hurt. Assure the individual the donation experience is safe, simple and will save lives.

Respect everyone's choice.

Please remember that donating blood is a personal choice, and respect that choice for those who say no. We ask donors to consider the impact they will provide to the patients receiving their special donation as they are being treated for a medical situation and relate this to the slight discomfort the donor experiences with their donation.

Remind donors of the drive.

Use email, social media and word of mouth. Make sure to mention that they need to bring an ID (preferably a driver’s license) and eat a hearty meal before donating.

Encourage donors to drink fluids, but remind them not to drink energy drinks or a lot of coffee. It makes the pulse rate rise too much, and they will not be able to give if it is too high. A pulse rate of 100 is the limit for donors.

Hosting FAQs

We welcome any organization, business, high school, college or university who would like to host a blood drive. For a half day’s drive, usually three (3) hours, we need a minimum of 20 to 24 appointments. For a full day’s drive, usually seven to eight (7-8) hours, we need a minimum of 45 to 49 appointments. Please see below for the Pre-Drive Interest Survey.
You can call the Community Blood Bank office at 605-331-3222 and ask to speak to the Program Coordinator, or email us at lauri.hoffmann@sanfordhealth.org. Please note that we schedule blood drives several months in advance to keep our community’s blood supply strong, and may not be able to accommodate a drive on short notice.
Hosting is easy! You can choose to use a hard copy sign-up form — usually the best option for locations where potential donors do not have ready access to a computer. You can also choose to have an electronic sign-up form, which we set up for you and monitor. The program we use is SignUpGenius.

SignUpGenius is user friendly, and you do not need to create a SignUpGenius account to make an appointment. If you have any issues, you can always call the Community Blood Bank office for assistance at 605-331-3222. Then it is just a matter of putting up posters, emailing potential donors in your organization, and encouraging everyone to donate.

In the planning packet you receive approximately a month before your drive, you will find posters, blood donor guidelines, and other information you can share to get people excited about the blood drive. See Tips for a Successful Blood drive above.

Find out as soon as possible where we can park the bloodmobile on the day of the blood drive, and where our staff will be able to sit (inside your building) to register donors. We will need to be near an outlet, but we also have an extension cord if necessary.

The bloodmobile runs off a generator, so we will not need the aid of outside power.
No worries! Very often, donors will wait to sign up until right before the drive. People are very busy these days, and do not always know what will happen with their schedules. If your schedule seems light, remember that you will likely get walk-ins, which we always welcome. Reach out to your program coordinator for other suggestions to help improve participation.
Blood drives can be either open or closed to the public. If you want just your employees at your drive, we will consider it closed, so that outside individuals will not have access to your sign-up form (if online). Just let us know when scheduling your drive.
Nothing! In addition, we provide the beverages and snacks for the donor base after they have completed their donation. The only thing we need is a place to park the bloodmobile, a location inside your building for our staff to register donors and, of course, donors!

Because we have various paper materials for donors plus a computer, we cannot be outside in the elements.
We prefer not to cancel drives, but in some cases we have to. These include:
  • Weather incidents that would impact travel and safety for staff and donors (i.e., blizzards, icy roads, dangerous summer storms)
  • The organization or business will be unexpectedly closed
If for some unforeseeable reason your blood drive needs to be canceled, contact the Community Blood Bank office immediately at 605-331-3222.
If you are interested in hosting a blood drive, use this document to find out how many people would be interested in donating. For a half a day’s drive, usually three (3) hours, we need a minimum of 20 to 24 appointments. For a full day’s drive, usually seven to eight (7-8) hours, we need a minimum of 45 to 49 appointments.