Kidney Research UK and Give a Kidney have joined forces to launch this website and the Make Your Mark campaign as part of the Robert Dangoor Partnership for Living Kidney Donation.
This website has been launched by Kidney Research UK, the country’s leading kidney research charity, and Give a Kidney – a charity devoted to living kidney donation – as part of the Robert Dangoor Partnership for Living Kidney Donation. Together, our aim is to raise awareness of living kidney donation and help more people understand what it means to be a living donor, as well as supporting and guiding them through their donation journey.
In the UK, more than 6,000 people are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant at the time of writing. Despite ongoing work to encourage donation, around six people die every week in need of a kidney. With this five-year partnership, we want to shorten the waiting list, save lives and improve the wellbeing of countless people.
David Dangoor CBE is a British businessman and philanthropist, and the founder of the Robert Dangoor Partnership for Living Kidney Donation.
He spent his early life in Baghdad as part of Iraq’s Jewish community, arriving in the UK with his parents and his brothers in the 1960s, where he was educated at Carmel College and Imperial College London.
He spent his early life in Baghdad as part of Iraq’s Jewish community, arriving in the UK with his parents and his brothers in the 1960s, where he was educated at Carmel College and Imperial College London.
He then worked as a systems analyst at IBM, before joining the family property business.
David’s philanthropy, through the Exilarch’s Foundation, is focused on healthcare/medicine, education and promoting inter-faith harmony.
In 2019 David donated a kidney to his brother Robert, whose kidneys had been damaged by medication for another illness
In 2019 David donated a kidney to his brother Robert, whose kidneys had been damaged by medication for another illness. Sadly, Robert died in 2022 but David and his family remain committed to honouring his legacy and helping others benefits from living kidney donation.
Discussing the project, David Dangoor said:
“The growing rate of kidney disease here in the UK and across the world means that every day, lives are lost to this awful condition.
“Having donated a kidney to my brother, I know first-hand that it is perfectly possible to do this and to carry on living a normal life.
“Through this partnership, I hope that more people can learn about the possibilities of living donation and may be inspired to take that step and change the life of someone living with kidney disease. Our ultimate vision is that no one should die waiting for a kidney.”
Kidney Research UK is the leading charity in the UK focused on funding research into the prevention, treatment and management of kidney disease.
The charity’s vision is the day when everyone lives free from kidney disease, and for more than 60 years the research it funds has been making an impact. But kidney disease is increasing. As are the factors contributing to it, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity, making its work more essential than ever.
Kidney Research UK works with clinicians and scientists across the country, funding and facilitating research into all areas of kidney disease. We collaborate with partners across the public, private and third sectors to prevent kidney disease and drive innovation to transform treatments. Over the last ten years, we have invested more than £58 million into research.
The charity’s vision is the day when everyone lives free from kidney disease.
The charity also works closely with patients, ensuring their voices are heard and are at the centre of everything we do, from deciding which research to invest in, to how to plan priorities and work across the charity.
Give a Kidney is a national charity that aims to raise awareness of non-directed (also known as altruistic) living kidney donation in the UK, supports prospective and past living donors and works with NHS partners to improve living donation pathways. Its overarching objective is to ensure that no one is waiting for a kidney transplant for want of a kidney.
The charity was set up in 2011 by a group of non-directed living donors and clinical professionals involved in kidney transplant, all sharing a commitment to raising awareness of living kidney donation.
Give a Kidney works closely with NHS organisations to influence change and to ensure that its work is aligned with, and complementary to, the NHS. The Charity also collaborates with other kidney related charities, most recently through the Robert Dangoor Partnership with Kidney Research UK.
No-one should wait for a transplant for want of a kidney.
The Charity’s awareness campaigns have reached millions of people, some of whom have gone on to donate a kidney to someone on the transplant waiting list as a direct result. Give a Kidney has also been instrumental in contributing to research of living donation and has played a key role in improving the donor experience by representing the donor voice on a number of strategic national programmes.
The first successful living kidney donation took place in 1954 in the USA between two twin brothers. Since then, tens of thousands of people have become living kidney donors across the world. In the UK alone, approximately 1000 living kidney donations take place each year. Most of these are from donors who know their recipients, known as directed living kidney donation, however some people choose to donate a kidney to someone they don’t know, which is called non-directed kidney donation, or altruistic donation.
The number of non-directed kidney donations has been growing each year in the UK. Back in 2007/08, six people donated a kidney to a stranger, with only around 10 donations a year expected. Since then, the numbers have increased dramatically. At the time of writing, between 80-110 people donate a kidney to a stranger in need every year in the UK.
We work closely with NHS Blood and Transplant and other healthcare professionals on this campaign.
All medical content on this website has been reviewed by a panel of healthcare professionals from across the UK to make sure everything is factually correct at the time of writing. Some of the information, facts, and figures that we feature has been collated from the NHS Blood and Transplant website.
We would like to thank the NHSBT for their ongoing support and contributions.
One of the first pieces of legislation about organ donation was the Human Tissue Act of 2004. This Act came into force in September 2006, and led to the establishment of the Human Tissue Authority (HTA), to regulate all uses of human tissue, including organ transplantation.
By then, it was decided that donations to strangers should be allowed, after positive experience in the United States and in response to pressure from surgeons and others working in the transplant field.
Today, the HTA approves all organ transplantations involving living donors, whether they are related to the recipient or not. All donors are assessed by an independent assessor, to make sure the donor understands what is involved, is not under any pressure to donate, and is consenting freely and voluntarily. Non-directed donations (where the donor is not donating to a specified person) are then considered for approval by a panel of HTA members.
the HTA approves all organ transplantations involving living donors
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