Visit AMASavesLives Register and select your state to learn how to register your donation decision in your state.

Send us your question related to organ donation by filling out our contact form here and we will either answer your question or put you in contact with your local OPO (Organ Procurement Organization) depending on the nature of your question on organ donation.

While we try to update numbers on our site on a regular basis, the best sources for updated statistics on organ donation include HRSA or United Network for Organ Sharing.

Organ Procurement Transplantation Network
OrganDonor.Gov
Donate Life America
Donate Life America’s Hispanic
United Network for Organ Sharing
Transplant Living (living organ donation)

Visit OrganDonor.gov or Donate Life for a donation glossary.

The number of patients now on the waiting list and other data are available at Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. The number of people requiring a life-saving transplant continues to rise faster than the number of available donors. Approximately 300 new transplant candidates are added to the waiting list each month.

No. The donor family pays only for medical care and funeral costs, but not for organ donation. Costs related to donation are paid by the recipient, usually through insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid.

All individuals can indicate their intent to donate (persons younger than 18 years of age must have a parent's or guardian's consent). Medical suitability for donation is determined at the time of death.

Donation does not interfere with having an open casket service. Surgical techniques are used to retrieve organs and tissues, and all incisions are closed.

Yes! Transplant professionals will evaluate the condition of your organs at the time of your death and determine if your organs are suitable for donation. You should consider yourself a potential organ and tissue donor, indicate your intent to donate on your driver's license, donor card, or state donor registry, and discuss your decision with family members.

Patients are matched to organs based on a number of factors including blood and tissue typing, medical need, time on the waiting list, and geographical location.

There are no age limitations on who can donate. Whether you can donate depends on your physical condition, not age. Newborns as well as senior citizens have been organ donors.

No! The medical team trying to save your life is separate from the transplant team. Every effort is made to save your life before donation is considered.

Transplantation is the act of surgically removing an organ from one person and placing it into another person. Transplantation occurs because the recipient's organ has failed or has been damaged through illness or injury.

The organs that can be transplanted include: liver, kidney, pancreas, heart, lung, and intestine.

While this project is not focused on living donation, you may want to learn more about this type of donation. For more information, go to www.transplantliving.org/livingdonation.

This project is funded by a federal grant from the U.S. Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The project is managed by the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Organ Procurement Organization and Applied PhD Research, LLC. The project is also sponsored by the Collegiate American Marketing Association including their sponsorship and funding of awards given as part of the competitions of the AMASavesLives Project.

Any American Marketing Association Chapter member registered with the Collegiate Headquarters is eligible to participate in the competitions. You can recruit other students on your campus to help you out as well even if they are not registered AMA members.

AMA stands for the American Marketing Association. You can learn more about this organization and its professional and collegiate activities by visiting Marketing Power.

There are several reasons we asked the American Marketing Association (AMA) to join us in this important campaign. First, your chapter and other AMA chapters are regularly involved in community service projects. We know firsthand of the many great things your chapter does for raising awareness and money for causes. Second, as a marketing organization, we thought AMA members would be the perfect group to help communicate our message and even come up with some new marketing strategies. Part of the project involves a video competition for AMA Chapters and will include awards given at the AMA International Conference in Spring 2010.

If you are not a Collegiate AMA member that is ok. You can still get involved in the AMASavesLives Project by sharing information with your family and friends about organ donation that you find on our website. You can send links to different videos you like and/or that share your viewpoint. Don’t forget to register your donation decision by clicking on the Register link. Feel free to submit videos to the site as well and assign them to a certain AMA Chapter.

If your question is not answered here, you can fill out our contact form.

You can leave us feedback on the website or if you experience an error by going to our feedback form.