PR CAMPAIGN FOR NATIONAL MARROW DONOR PROGRAM

The Minneapolis-St. Paul office of Weber Shandwick this week kicked off the second year of a campaign for the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP). Weber Shandwick is supporting the organization’s Thanks Mom campaign to recruit bone marrow donors who can provide life-saving transplants.

For thousands of people with leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases, a marrow transplant offers a second chance at life. Thanks Mom, which runs May 5 – May 19, urges people to join the National Marrow Donor Program Registry online or in person at drives across the country. This year’s goal is to recruit 46,000 new donors.

To support the project, Weber Shandwick is conducting national media relations as well as local outreach in 20 markets across the country. The agency is also conducting outreach to faith-based community leaders and launching a strong online strategy to direct traffic to www.marrow.org, the NMDP’s Web site.

"We're proud to continue our work with the NMDP," said Sara Gavin, president of Weber Shandwick’s Minneapolis-St. Paul office. "This campaign not only provides our team an opportunity to do unique and creative work, but also to truly impacts thousands of lives."

Last year's highly successful Thanks Mom campaign recruited 43,000 new donors to the Registry, more than double the campaign goal of 20,000. The 2007 campaign has garnered several industry awards including PRWeek’s Healthcare Campaign of the Year, the IABC MN Pinnacle Award and the IABC Gold Quill.