Report 2009
The Sunflower Fund, founded in 1999, is a non profit organisation, with its Mission : “to educate and recruit a viable source of well informed potential bone marrow stem cell donors who are ethnically diverse, in an effort to save the lives of those needing a transplant when suffering from life-threatening blood disorders. It strives to maintain the associated donor records of the South African Bone Marrow Registry”.

Our strategy was fully implemented during 2008/09 and despite a very difficult economic climate, which made it our most difficult fundraising year since inception, we are still proud to report on the progress attained in this regard.

1 ) Regarding Awareness-raising, 101 events and talks were held nationally at Universities, corporates, schools.
Over R10 million in value of publicity was obtained nationally on Radio, TV and Print (this is exceptional as it is not easy to get)
18 403 Centre enquiries were received and 27 219 website hits were recorded as a result of the publicity and awareness talks.
An educational DVD was made, which will be used to educate the SA public at companies, schools, universities, shopping centres and any other places that our PR managers address the public and give awareness talks and recruit donors.
Miles4Marrow Cycle gear was stocked in Cycle Labs around South Africa with a % coming to The Sunflower Fund (cyclists creating awareness and information on all tags)
Educational literature was translated into 5 languages, including Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho.

2) With respect to Donor Recruitment, The Sunflower Fund tracking database for donor recruitment continues to work well and is able to monitor and evaluate the effective implementation of the strategic objectives. Last year a total of 3 413 donors were recruited via the call centre, of whom 39% were Black, Coloured or Asian origin.
Targeted drives were held in all regions: Gauteng 81% of 103 donors recruited were black, WCape 35% of 589 donors recruited were black and KZN 75% of 601 donors recruited were black.

3) Regarding Tissue-typing, the Recruitment Policy specified that ALL new Black, Coloured and Asian donors under the age of 40 years, as well as White donors under the age of 40 years who are stated active blood donors be DR typed, to a capped amount of R4.4 million for the financial year, thereby enabling the effective increase in the proportion of HLA-ABDR typed donors in the Registry from 6% in 2007 to (8%) in 2008, moving towards the international norm of sixty percent (60%). A total of 1 828 (54%) of the recruited donors were allocated for DR typing. The impact of this strategic objective on The Sunflower Fund was substantial – the cost to tissue type each donor rose from R250 for AB typing to R1000 for ABDR typing. The actual costs for tissue typing were R 1,393,749 with R 494,254 in bills still outstanding.   General donations were R 433,971 lower than expected and we were not able to test and recruit the number of donors we would have liked to, particularly at a DR level.  (During the year, the Board made a strategic decision based on difficulties in fundraising and poor Income performance, to reduce the anticipated cost of tissue typing by the equivalent underperformance in income.  Total Income was R2 293 136 lower than budgeted due to the staff shortages, the poor performance of Bandana Day and other events due to the tough economic climate.)

In conclusion, the outlook for the future is that The Sunflower Fund continues to operate from a very firm base but now faces the greatest fundraising burden since inception given the current global economic recession and the high cost of DR typing.  If The Sunflower Fund were able to continue and sustain the ideal goal of donor recruitment of an average of 500 per month, the implications with the increased cost of DR typing, are that it would cost up to R5,5 Million in tissue typing costs alone. Based on the relative proportional Cost of Sales and Operating expenses, The Sunflower Fund would need to raise a total of R8,4 Million per annum. The major source of funding has always been Public goodwill and events, but The Sunflower Fund will have to find some committed funders and look at innovative ways to expand the sources of funding into the future given the highly competitive environment where there are many competing demands for donations, as well as the emergence of donor fatigue.  The Sunflower Fund looks forward to the year ahead supporting the South African Bone Marrow Registry by continuing the focus on targeted campaigns to increase the ethnic diversity of the registry and to improve the level of tissue typing to DR level.  This will ensure that there is a solid Bone Marrow Registry in South Africa fulfilling our mutual objectives to “Share a little, to Save a Life”. 

We aim to continue raising funds which will be used for the following;
  • To promote public awareness of leukaemia and other life-threatening blood disorders through education and similar awareness programmes around South Africa.
  • To recruit donors for the National Registry of SABMR.
  • To meet the cost involved in tissue-typing samples provided by donors.
  • To assist in the regular and on-going updating of donor particulars on the National Registry database.
  • To assist, where possible, in meeting the costs of certain searches of the National Registry database.
The critical need for donors of all ethnic groups remains core to our strategy and we feel very passionate about not allowing donor recruitment to drop off in any way due to lack of funding.  I urge all South Africans who meet our criteria to consider becoming a donor by taking a step in the direction of helping to save a life.

I would also appeal to all corporates and funders not to wait until leukaemia or another life-threatening blood disorder affects someone you know and love – help us make that difference now – become a donor yourself and please consider sponsoring or funding others on our waiting list for 2009 and 2010.

Thank you for being prepared to SHARE A LITTLE, TO SAVE A LIFE.