Charitable incentives for blood donation are promising, but require careful consideration

In outlining his proposal for a charitable incentive scheme for blood donors, Sass (2013) highlights the ongoing challenge of translating widespread public support for blood donation into actual donors. Sass rightly points out that a reliable and effective blood supply depends on regular donations, rather than sporadic surges in response to exceptional events like September 11. He argues that prospective donors might be more effectively motivated to donate if each donation is rewarded or recognized with a financial contribution to public health care services or medical research. Sass anticipates such “health-related charitable incentives” would encourage prosocial behavior by enhancing the beneficial impact of blood donation. The increased consequentialist value of each blood donation would strengthen preexisting prosocial motivations, and would augment the signaling value of donation as an altruistic activity. Unfortunately, Sass’s account of the donor–societal relationship is incomplete, due to his reliance on the traditional conception of donation as an act of unilateral altruism. He neglects to consider the potential influence of reciprocity and solidarity in motivating prosocial behavior and donation in particular (Sykora 2009), and the implications of these elements for ´ his proposal. In this commentary, I outline a stronger argument for his charitable incentive proposal and discuss some of the potential concerns the proposal may raise.