To find living donors for kidney transplants, a pilot program turns to
social networks
[December 17, 2025]
By MARK SCOLFORO
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Fernando Moreno has been on dialysis for about
two years, enduring an “unbearable” wait for a new kidney to save his
life. His limited world of social contacts has meant that his hopes have
hinged on inching up the national waiting list for a transplant.
That was until earlier this year, when the Philadelphia hospital where
he receives treatment connected him with a promising pilot project that
has paired him with “angel advocates” — Good Samaritan strangers
scattered around the country who leverage their own social media
contacts to share his story.
So far, the Great Social Experiment, as it was named by its founder, Los
Angeles filmmaker David Krissman, hasn't found the Vineland, New Jersey,
truck driver a living kidney donor. But there are encouraging early
signs the angel advocate approach is working, and there's no question it
has given Moreno new optimism.
“This process is great,” said Moreno, 50, whose own father died of
kidney failure at 65. “I'm just hoping there will be somebody out there
that’s willing to take a chance.”
Moreno is part of a pilot program with 15 patients that began in May at
three Pennsylvania hospitals. It's testing whether motivated, volunteer
strangers can help improve the chances of finding a life-saving match
for a new kidney — particularly for people with limited social networks.
“We know how this has always been done, and we're trying to put that on
steroids and really get them the help that they need,” Krissman said.
“Most patients are too sick to do this on their own — many don't have
the skills to do it on their own.”
Seeking a blueprint for the future
The Gift of Life Donor Program, which serves as the organ procurement
network for eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware, is
supporting the pilot program with a grant of more than $100,000 from its
foundation.
So far, two of the five patients in the program through Temple
University Hospital have found kidney donors, and one is preparing for
surgery, according to Ryan Ihlenfeldt, the hospital’s director of
clinical transplant services. One of the five patients at the University
of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Harrisburg has also undergone a
transplant.
The approach Krissman has developed is something new, said Richard Hasz
Jr., Gift of Life's chief executive, and may help identify the types of
messages that attract and motivate potential live kidney donors.
“This is the first of its kind that I’m aware of,” Hasz said. “That’s
why, I think, the foundation was so interested in doing it -- studying
it and hopefully publishing it — so we can create that blueprint, if you
will, for the future.”
Gift of Life agreed to fund a broader test and helped Krissman identify
five patients each at Temple, UPMC-Harrisburg and Jefferson University
Hospital in Philadelphia.
Hasz said the pilot program's approach combines social media outreach
with Krissman’s storytelling talents and aggressive efforts to mobilize
the patients’ own connections.
“We know that patients who are waiting don’t always have the energy or
the resources to do this themselves,” Hasz said.
There have been other ways for patients to set up “ microsites ” where
they can tell their stories and seek a donor match. But the pilot
program currently underway in Pennsylvania aims to connect patients with
a wide universe of potential donors and produce videos and other ways to
spread their message.
Potential to ‘snowball’
Krissman's bout with an illness about two decades ago inspired him to
tackle the sticky challenge of increasing live kidney donations. He was
debilitated for more than a year before medication helped him recover,
explaining, “It gave me my life back. And I never forgot what it's like
to be chronically sick.”
After producing a podcast on kidney transplantation, Krissman recruited
four patients through Facebook who were waiting for kidneys. He was able
to help two of them. A second effort, a pilot program with three
patients in North Carolina that ended last year, helped match all three
with living donors.
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Ahmad Collins, a city government worker and former Penn State
linebacker, prepares for his nightly dialysis at his home in
Harrisburg, Pa., Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
 Becca Brown, director of transplant
services at UPMC-Harrisburg, thinks it might be a game changer.
“There’s potential for this to really snowball,” Brown said. “I’m
anxious to see what happens and if we can roll it out to other
patients.”
Some 90,000 people in the United States are on a list for a kidney
transplant, and most of the roughly 28,000 kidneys that were
transplanted last year came from deceased donors. Living kidney
donations are hard to come by — about 6,400 were transplanted last
year. Thousands die each year waiting for an organ transplant in the
United States.
Living kidney donations can be a better match, reducing the risk of
organ rejection. They allow for surgery to be planned for a time
that is optimal for the donor, the recipient and the transplant
team. And, the foundation says, living donor kidneys, on average,
last longer than kidneys from deceased donors.
The National Kidney Foundation says living donors must be at least
18 years old, although some transplant centers set the minimum age
at 21. Potential donors get screened for health problems and can be
ruled out if they have uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes or
cancer, or if they are smokers.
Many living donors make “directed donations” to specify who will get
their kidney. Nondirected donations are made anonymously to a
patient.
A way to make a difference
Francis Beaumier, a 38-year-old information technology worker from
Green Bay, Wisconsin, came into contact with the angel advocate
program after being a double living donor — a kidney and part of his
liver.
He sees the program as “a great little way for everyone to make a
small difference.”
Another angel advocate, Holly Armstrong, was also a living donor.
She hopes her efforts will plant a seed.
“Some people might just keep scrolling,” said Armstrong, who lives
in Lake Wiley, South Carolina. “But there might be someone like me,
where they stop scrolling and say, ‘This boy needs a kidney.’”
A study released last year found that people who volunteer to donate
a kidney are at a lower risk of death from the operation than
doctors had previously thought. Tracking 30 years of living kidney
donations, researchers found fewer than 1 in every 10,000 donors
died within three months of the surgery. Newer and safer surgical
techniques were credited for dropping the risk from 3 deaths per
10,000 living donors.
Temple serves a large cohort of poorer patients who can have
difficulty understanding health issues and who suffer from
uncontrolled hypertension and diabetes, Ihlenfeldt, who works there,
said.
“What David’s trying to do is coalesce a network of support around
these patients who are sharing the story for them,” Ihlenfeldt said.
Rallying for Ahmad
At a kickoff event in a Harrisburg meeting room for kidney patient
Ahmad Collins, a couple dozen friends and family listened with rapt
attention as Krissman went over the game plan, answering questions
and describing the transplant process.
Collins, a 50-year-old city government worker and former Penn State
linebacker, has needed 10 hours a night of dialysis since a medical
procedure left him with damaged kidneys late last year.
His mind was on the strangers who might decide to pitch in.
“They can be a superhero, so to speak,” Collins said. “They can have
the opportunity to save somebody's life, and not too many times in
life do you have that opportunity.”
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