Help Bud for Blood Solve the Blood Shortage!
Donation protected
Hello! My name is Kristen Yoder. I've been in the Los Angeles cannabis industry for 17 years. I host the CannaBS Detector Podcast and have an apparel brand, Cynical Stoner.
In January of this year, the American Red Cross , and American Hospital Association , American Medical Association , and American Nurses Association announced a critical shortage of blood donations.
Due to the pandemic, appointment cancellations, and an aging donor population, among other reasons, there is a severe need to reach and encourage a new generation of blood donors.
Since cannabis consumption has no impact on donor eligibility, Bud for Blood is here to educate and inspire cannabis consumers to roll up their sleeves and be the compassionate and proactive members of their communities we know them to be. Not only do we believe that stoners would make great donors, but we also have statistics on our side!
Younger Donors - A recent poll of U.S. adults showed that only 15 percent of those aged 18 to 34 donated blood in 2020*. Millennials are the largest cannabis customer age group by a vast margin, supplying nearly half of all US cannabis sales last quarter**
Diverse Donors - Less than 1% of all blood donations come from African-Americans. According to a 2019 SAMHSA report- 30.5% of cannabis consumers are biracial, and 20% are African American***
Large Potential Donor Pool - There were 3.43 million recreational cannabis users in the United States in 2020. By 2025, this number is set to almost double****
In the past 2.5 months, I've gotten 54 companies on board, and 35 people to donate
blood, and I'm just getting started!
I've put a lot of thought into this, so let me break it down for you!
Here are the details:
Bud for Blood
Mission
Solve the blood shortage by infusing new blood into the blood industry by educating and motivating an unconventional yet ideal (diverse, younger) demographic: Cannabis Consumers
Goals
- Support cannabis companies/conferences that want to host blood drives by providing connections to blood bank partners, as well as materials for social media, outreach, appointments, promotions etc at NO COST
- Connect blood drives with B2B conferences to utilize the foot traffic, get donors used to donating at conferences, travel to conferences to help recruit donors to host drives back home, or encourage employees to donate blood back home
- Connect and support blood banks and blood drives through the facilitation of new partners and promoting blood drives to a new demographic
- Connect sickle cell foundations with a larger audience to educate about the need for POC donors. Connect POC cannabis events with blood drives. POC cannabis media coverage to educate and share personal stories about SCD.
- Connect the VA with medical cannabis veteran associations to help organize/host drives and drive donations at the VA’s. We imagine this as a way to meet in the middle of the road - no agenda to push cannabis on the VA, strictly only to help serve as an asset to their blood supply. With time, we hope a recognition will grow between the two factions to show cannabis does not make people less capable of being active/reliable community members; rather, it enables them to show up for others, like the VA.
- To bring the cancer/cannabis connection full circle to educating and motivating cannabis consumers to become regular plasma/platelet donors to help cancer patients and researchers save lives. Cannabis has shown so much promise in cancer research and as a safe treatment for the side effects of chemotherapy. We imagine cannabis consumers, especially medical cannabis consumers or those who know others positively impacted by cannabis use, will be receptive to this need. We see plasma/platelet donations as a common ground between medical cannabis professionals/organizations and conventional medical professionals/organizations to come together and build relationships.
Our Vision
Serve as a bridge between the conventional medical establishment, the cannabis industry, and cannabis consumers to serve an urgent and shared purpose, saving lives via increasing blood/plasma/platelet donations.
We see this as a way for professionals to get to know others they may have never met had they not come together to solve a universal need. The cannabis industry, and cannabis consumers, are so much more than the tax revenue they create. They are good people that show up when there is a need.
How the Funds Will be Used
Administration - $5k/mo
- Outreach (blood banks, foundations, donors, sponsors, supporters, social media)
- Content - creation, scheduling, management
- Communications- marketing, email, internal, press
- Strategy- marketing, email, socials, press
- Build out operations for scaling
- Bookkeeping
- Fundraising
- Operating costs
- Internet
- Phone
- Email Marketing (Mailchimp)
- Website related costs(server, SEO, etc)
_____
Other Estimated Expenses
Legal Expenses $5k-$10k (EST)
- Entity advisement
- Entity creation(TBD)
Events $2k/event (EST)
- Travel
- Accommodations
- Food
- Marketing/Promotional materials
Organizer
Kristen Yoder
Organizer
Los Angeles, CA
