“We might be looking for the only matching donor worldwide that could save a patient’s life.”

Lisa Cawley, Donor Liaison Manager
Anthony Nolan

The customer

Anthony Nolan is a UK stem cell transplant charity with 50 years of expertise in uniting science and people to push the boundaries of what can be achieved for blood cancer and blood disorder patients.

The challenge

Transplanting stem cells could save the lives of patients with blood cancer and blood disorders. But first you need the correct stem cells. That’s where Anthony Nolan’s donor database comes in.

When a donor’s tissue type matches that of a patient in need, the charity must act quickly to confirm the match via a blood test. But out of date contact details can make this impossible, which could mean a patient won’t survive.

The solution

“Time is of the essence,” says Lisa Cawley, Donor Liaison Manager at Anthony Nolan. “We might be looking for the only matching donor worldwide that could save this patient’s life . Without a transplant, patients will die . Getting donors to update their contact details is a real struggle, especially younger people – who are also our best donors.”

The donor register holds over 915,000 records, including alternative phone numbers, GP details and contacts for relatives. Even then, many donors remain elusive.

To trace them, the charity previously used basic Electoral Roll look-up tools and sent letters – with disappointing results. In 2010, Anthony Nolan adopted GBG Investigate.

Holding over 1.5 billion enhanced, interlinked consumer and business records, GBG Investigate’s powerful, intuitive search tools traced donors that were previously impossible to locate.

“GBG Investigate’s verified phone numbers and emails transformed our donor tracing,” says Lisa. “Credit data, previous addresses and linked information like cohabitants or business directorships provide more channel contacts and also help us confirm we have traced the right person.”

The outcome

Fast-forward to 2023, and the charity decided to thoroughly clean its register. Work started with a database healthcheck.

“More and more contacts were incorrect,” explains Lisa. “GBG’s report helped target our verification efforts, for example, by showing that younger donors’ data quality was the worst. We score how likely a donor is to be a match based on factors like age, sex and ethnicity; this also helped prioritise who to contact.”

GBG flagged incorrect contacts, so the charity is using any alternative phone numbers or emails to request updates from donors. Text campaigns to non-responders will begin shortly. This is also helping the charity learn which channels its donors prefer for future communications.

One day, Anthony Nolan hopes to help everyone who needs a lifesaving transplant. With GBG’s assistance, they are getting there.

“Their support over the last 15 years has been incredible,” says Lisa. “GBG Investigate is easy to use, and they are always improving it. We’re now starting our data quality journey and GBG’s advice is invaluable.”

“GBG Investigate’s verified phone numbers and emails transformed our donor tracing.”

Click here if you would to sign up / donate to Anthony Nolan