Crowdsource For Life

Our Purpose

CrowdSource for Life Will Raise Awareness of Kidney Donation

Why Awareness of Living Kidney Donation Matters

The skyrocketing rate of kidney disease, the enormous annual cost of dialysis and the human suffering of end stage renal disease are the face of America’s kidney deficit. It’s one of the most complex medical issues facing our society. While complex problems require complex solutions, experts agree that increased awareness about living kidney donation is a broad solution that can trigger widespread positive change. The kidney transplant/donation community is rallying around Abundant because our film about selfless giving features living kidney donors. It’s expected that this kind of attention will begin new conversations about living kidney donation in diverse communities around the country. With greater awareness, it’s believed progress can be made on these enormous challenges.

The Kidney Deficit

The Federal Government estimates about 13 people on the kidney wait list die each day waiting on a kidney that never arrives. Economists who study kidney donation and transplant say the true number of Americans who die from the kidney shortage is about 110 per day and exceeds 40,000 each year. Roughly 128,000 Americans begin dialysis each year while 39,000 Americans are added to the kidney wait list each year. Meanwhile, with approximately 100,000 Americans on the kidney wait list, hundreds of thousands with kidney disease represent the next wave in this health care crisis. The numbers simply don’t add up to solve America’s kidney deficit. Only 3 in 1000 people die in a way that allows for an organ transplant, meaning if everyone in the U.S signed the back of their driver’s license to be a deceased organ donor, there still would not be enough donated kidneys to eliminate the deficit. Experts agree an increase in living kidney donation is the only way to turn this issue around.

The Racial Disparity

Many factors contribute to the racial disparity in kidney transplant. Statistics show white persons are four times more likely to receive a kidney transplant than an African American person. This is the case despite African Americans having higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure than other racial cohorts. Those are the health conditions that put people at further risk for organ failures. Additionally, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans, have more than double the likelihood of receiving a kidney transplant than African Americans. Once a person is on the kidney wait list, equity is assured. It’s documented and verified. The problems the cause the racial disparity in kidney transplant occur before a person reaches the waitlist. Many roots of this equity problem are the same systemic and cultural issues we see in our other institutions. An improvement in cultural competency when working with patients from diverse communities has proven to reduce racial disparity statistics.

The Economics

Medicare covers most of the cost of dialysis. When this entitlement was established in 1972, roughly 10,000 people were on dialysis treatment. In 2020, more than 500,000 Americans were on dialysis. However, dialysis is not a cure; it only keeps people with endstage renal disease alive. In 2018 Total Medicare-related expenditures for beneficiaries with kidney failure rose to $49.2B. Meanwhile, leading economists point out that the value of a kidney transplant to a patient on the kidney waitlist is $1,100,000 and taxpayers save $400,000 every time a kidney transplant is performed. A complicated healthcare system for kidney transplant with more than 150 transplant centers, 52 organ procurement organizations and hundreds of transplant surgeons all contribute to the status quo where there is no short answer that is easily communicated to the public on how to receive or donate a kidney. Activating educated, informed potential living donors can drastically impact the financial cost of this status quo.

Our Solution

Abundant has the potential to reach a general audience because our content addresses ideas we all think we understand: generosity and giving. Abundant features the CrowdSource for Life cast, who create a rare and interesting hook for the film: They are all living kidney donors and the majority of them are non-directed living kidney donors.

Our society is fascinated with these extreme altruists who have given kidneys to complete strangers. These unusal people come from many walks of life, but their common choice to give a kidney away causes us to want to know what makes them tick. This is the basis for a compelling film.

Elevating a Message for a Mass Audience

To reach a mass audience, a film needs mass appeal. Abundant has that through by incorporating elements that appeal to many different audiences into one production. This is called cross-topic appeal. And Abundant will have plenty of elements and stories that appeal to a general audience, not just a kidney donation audience.

CrowdSource for Life‘s cast may all be living kidney donors, but their stories are interesting in different ways. Each of their stories was selected for its unique themes, narratives, and perspectives. Our story development and performance processes will turn our cast of amateur storytellers into profound, expressive writers, their stories into stage performance pieces and their performances into memorable moments of connection. The result will be a set of varied and compelling stories, each with a different meaning, purpose and direction. A wide range of people in a general audience will relate to and connect with our cast’s stories.

CrowdSource for Life will be staged in Dallas, Texas before a live theatre audience. Our production team will record the storytellers’ monologue performances with six cameras in a classic theatre setting brought to life by innovative set design and staging. This will make Abundant a colorful, watchable journey through the topic of giving, which will keep viewers engaged.

But what will keep an audience engaged is that, at its most basic, storytelling creates connections. As fundamental human communications, stories have brought people together in a tradition that predates history. Stories are present in every culture. When a listener connects to a story and recognizes their experiences or perspective in the story, irreplaceable human connection forms: the understanding that “I am not alone.” This is why Maitri River Productions selected storytelling as the format for CrowdSource for Life and Abundant. We want the audience to be inspired by the selfless giving and empathy of our cast.

With all these elements in play, Abundant will engage and entertain a broad audience and gently introduce the value of living kidney donation. In this way, the film will cause a great increase in awareness about living kidney donation.

Wide Support in the Kidney Donation and Transplant Community

Maitri River Productions is proud to say we have broad support among kidney donation advocates and organizations. More than a dozen kidney community entities have sponsored our production to make CrowdSource for Life and Abundant happen.

See a full list of our sponsors here.

Join us! Make a tax-deductible donation to our project here.

Be on our team! View Sponsorship Opportunities here.