One organ donor can save up to 8 lives. Which means each and every person has more to give. To raise awareness on this, we needed ambassadors whom the people look up to. So we partnered with the amputee veterans of the Indian Army who had lost their limbs fighting for the nation. In spite of losing their limbs and giving everything for the nation, they pledged their organs and showed that they still had more to give. This powerful act pricked the conscience of the people and exposed the indifference they were showing towards the issue.

We partnered with the amputee veterans of the Indian Army, who had lost their limbs fighting for the country. We photographed them and made them the faces of an extensive outdoor campaign. The campaign was launched at a press conference where these veterans pledged their organs. We then tied up with India’s leading news network, NDTV and created several prime time talk shows to raise awareness the issue. International celebrities like Irrfan Khan, Priyanka Chopra and other government dignitaries joined in. Heads of all major religions came together and dispelled myths and taboos surrounding organ donation and even pledged their organs on national television.

Online engagements supplemented the ‘More to Give’ microsite, twitter handle and facebook posts promoting the launch and the following events.

We organised massive on-ground events like walkathons, corporate workshops and donation

kiosks that engaged people across the country.

The More To Give campaign was a resounding success. The campaign spurred the interest for the cause online by 500%. This further led to 28 million social media engagements. But the result that really mattered was that there was an astounding 1500% increase in pledges for organ donation. Within weeks, 22,000 people pledged their organs and raised the organ donation rate from 0.5 to 0.8 donors per million people.

The More To Give campaign was designed to appeal to young and old alike to snap out of their indifference towards the problem of organ donation. The outdoor campaign with the brave army veterans spurred people to act by pledging their organs. The results of the campaign was the number of pledges the campaign garnered over its course.

Our Insight: People have MORE TO GIVE even when they think they don’t.

People seemed to have developed a blind spot towards communication for the cause. To shake them out of this slumber we needed to connect with them at a personal, emotional, almost patriotic level. We found this perfect narrative in a set of people who’ve been a constant source of pride and inspiration for the nation and yet are relatable and recognizable to all social strata in the country the defense personnel of India.

These real-life heroes, who had lost a part of their body in the service of the country, stood up and proved to the country that they had much more in their hearts by pledging to donate their organs. And if they, who’d already given so much to the nation, still had More to Give, then what stopped the rest of India from doing so?

India has the worst organ donation rate in the world at 0.5 donors per million. More than 500,000 die every year waiting for organs. In spite of multiple awareness campaigns by celebrity ambassadors worth millions of dollars, the nation had turned a blind eye towards this grave problem.

Since India follows an opt-in process for organ donation, the onus of pledging and giving consent for organ retrieval lies in the hands of the people. But not enough people are active about registering for organ donation, which leads to an acute shortage of organs for those in need. In a country of 1.2 billion people, there were only 314 deceased organ donors in 2014. 94% of people surveyed are aware of the concept of organ donation, but only 0.01% have pledged to be organ donors.

The brief was to raise awareness about the issue and get people to pledge their organs.