Donor Alliance encourages communication between the families of donors and transplant recipients. It is up to family members of donors to choose contact recipients or respond to communication received from the recipients.* The role of Donor Alliance in the communication process is to facilitate written correspondence and to keep the identities of donor family members and the recipient’s confidential until you both decide you are ready to communicate directly.
You may or may not receive a response from your loved one’s recipients. Just as donor families are not obligated to respond to recipient letters, recipients may choose not to write back. Silence from recipients doesn’t diminish their gratitude for the gift they were given, and in no way does it lessen the lifesaving impact that your loved one had on them.
There are two ways to write to your loved one’s recipients: