Over 300 people are waiting for an organ in Finland. Every year dozens die waiting. These deaths could be prevented if more people said yes to organ donation. You need to state this in your will, because when someone dies, your family will be asked if your organs can be donated. If your own will is not archived, your family’s opinion will decide. And then someone in need of an organ might not be rescued.

All Finnish TV news showed up. We got seven prime time news reports, four reports on the radio and dozens of national newspaper articles. Estimated value of this media is 239 000 €. And even more people said yes to organ donation.

We needed to tell this issue to as many people as possible. Because of the limited budget we couldn’t afford any media. We had to earn it. Until now, an organ donation card has been the only way to archive people’s wills. We came up with a new way: We asked people to write ”Yes to organ donation” as their political view in their Facebook profile. This way their opinion will be archived and could easily be checked by the family when needed. We then formed a symbolic organ donation line of 300 people on a square in Helsinki.

The line was formed in Helsinki on a cold October day. Passers-by were given a chance to say Yes to organ donation either by filling in the traditional organ donation card or by the new tool, Facebook. For each by-passer who said yes, one person from the line was released. The line was gone in less than two hours.