HELLO FROM GB4G!
It’s hard to believe we’re already into October! This year has been a landmark one for Give Blood 4 Good (GB4G) – from inspiring fundraising efforts and the impact of our #BloodyBrilliant Uni Squads, to welcoming our very first paid staff member and being discussed in the Scottish Parliament. Looking back to this time last year, we could hardly have imagined being here today. None of it would have been possible without our amazing community - thank you to each and every one of your for all of your support on our journey so far.
Read on to catch up on our latest news and what’s ahead for GB4G.
October so far has been HUGE for GB4G
Our work, especially our Young Ambassador Programme, was debated in the Scottish Parliament, where MSPs from all parties came together and agreed that what we’re doing is essential to reach the next generation of blood donors.
They also recognised so much of what we’ve built over the last six years, from our #BloodyBrilliant Uni Squads to impactful blood drives like Rachel’s, they praised the number of lives already impacted through our work and the difference our community continues to make every day.
A massive thank you to Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, for his belief in our mission and what we’re trying to achieve - we’re so grateful for all of your support so far.
This marks an incredible step forward for us, and we’re so excited to keep these conversations going with MSPs and Scotblood to bring our Young Ambassador Programme to even more schools across Scotland.
The debate was a powerful reminder of the legacy we’re building in Patrick’s name, and we couldn’t be prouder of what’s ahead.
Watch the full debate here.
Blood Ball planning is well and truly underway
We’re delighted to share that preparations are in full swing for Blood Ball 2026, taking place on 2nd May 2026 at Prestonfield House, Edinburgh. After the success of last year’s event, we can’t wait to bring our community together again for another unforgettable evening.
If you attended our fundraiser back 2024, you’ll soon receive early access to pre-sale tickets. With demand already high, now’s the time to start organising your tables so you don’t miss out!
New T-shirts coming soon!
This June, we celebrated Blood Donor Week with our first-ever T-shirt design competition – and the creativity was outstanding! We were thrilled to reveal the winning design by India Rankin a couple of months back, which perfectly captures the spirit of GB4G.
Production is about to begin, and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on the new shirts. Keep your eyes peeled!
We’re delighted to introduce you to Kiara Walsh, our new Finance Coordinator!
Having first discovered GB4G while studying at the University of Edinburgh, Kiara’s been a familiar face at our events, from fun runs to pub quizzes, she now joins us in an important role to support driving our mission forward. Learn more about why she wanted to join our team:
“I’m really excited to be joining Give Blood 4 Good as their new Finance Coordinator at such an exciting time for the charity. I first came across GB4G during my time at the University of Edinburgh and was immediately drawn to their mission to inspire more young people to donate blood across the UK. Since then, I’ve been involved in a number of events with the charity, from fun runs to pub quizzes, all focused on bringing people together and supporting this amazing cause. Blood donation is something I care deeply about, and I’m looking forward to giving back to the community in a new way through this role!”
We’re excited to see what you achieve in your work with us, Kiara!
Would you like to join our team?
We’re always looking to grow our team, so if you would be interested in volunteering with us in any capacity, we’d love to hear from you. Contact hello@giveblood4good.org to learn more!
2025 has been a huge step forward for GB4G
Earlier this year, we were awarded a generous grant from The Weir Charitable Trust, which has allowed us to recruit our first-ever paid member of staff - a Programme Development Officer to help us grow our Young Ambassador Programme across Scotland.
We had a huge amount of interest in the role from fantastic candidates, and we’re delighted to announce that Lauren Spence joined us at the beginning of September, and she has already hit the ground running.
“I’m thrilled to be joining GB4G as their new Programme Development Officer. From the moment I connected with the GB4G team, I was immediately impressed by the positive impact the YAP was already making. Their mission of raising awareness and inspiring more young people to give blood is so important and inspiring.
With my background in education, I’m passionate about helping young people develop their leadership, teamwork and enterprise skills. The YAP encapsulates all of this and more, while empowering young people to make a positive difference! I’m excited to build on the already incredible work of the YAP and to support GB4G through this exciting period of growth.”
We're thrilled to now have Lauren on board to help our programme reach its full potential, so that we can encourage even more schools to get involved and inspire more young people to become lifelong blood donors.
A huge thank you to The Weir Charitable Trust for helping us to create a culture that empowers young people to start their blood donation journey as soon as they’re eligible at 17.
Lauren, we’re beyond excited to have you on the team and can’t wait to see what you do in this role!
Our #BloodyBrilliant Uni Squads have had another incredible year!
It was another fantastic year for our #BloodyBrilliant Uni Squads (BBUS) across Scotland. Combined, they encouraged over 795 blood donations, which included ~500 first-time donors - that’s 2,400 (!!) lives saved or improved. Each individual BBUS and volunteer had an incredible impact; read on to learn more about what they did.
Glasgow
Now officially two years in, our Glasgow squad has continued to go from strength to strength, and this year’s highlights speak for themselves:
- Ran a brilliant blood drive and competition with Glasgow University Sports Association (GUSA), offering up GUSA Ball tickets as a prize to the winning sports club - we saw a surge in pledges thanks to this!
- This included the first on-campus blood drive since 2019, where we managed to fill every single appointment with Scotblood
- In total, our squad encouraged 130 pledges to give blood
Aberdeen
Our passionate group of Aberdeen volunteers made a huge impact on campus this year. Here’s what they got up to:
- Ran two on-campus blood drives in partnership with Scotblood
- In total, encouraged 168 people to give blood, including 114 first-time donors
- Held a number of awareness events and talks to spread the word about blood donation among their peers
Stirling
Starting from scratch last September, our Stirling BBUS has built a passionate group of six committed student volunteers, laying solid foundations for #GB4G in Stirling. Since then, they’ve been hard at work raising awareness, encouraging donations, and planning for the future. Here are some highlights from their amazing first year:
- Hosted their first-ever student-led blood drive, in partnership with Scotblood, resulting in 68 donations, including 40 first-time donors
- That’s a 54% increase in new donors and a 21% rise in donations from under-24s compared to the on-campus blood drive held the previous year!
- Ran two education stalls on campus and supported a university-wide outreach stall to spread the word and grow engagement
Edinburgh
And last but certainly not least, our Edinburgh BBUS inspired an amazing 429 pledges to give blood this year, impacting nearly 1,300 lives! Some standout highlights include:
- A pub quiz at Dropkick Murphys in January with a brilliant turnout, raising £340
- Raising awareness at the Super Bowl event with the American Football Society – complete with face painting and chats about the importance of donating as a young person
- Supporting our 5k Fun Run in The Meadows followed by coffee and cake, where we raised £230
- Organising nine student blood drives, including with Gaelic Football, Lacrosse, Hockey, Rugby, Mountaineering, Chemistry, Psychology, and Trampoline clubs
To every student who gave blood, signed up, helped at a stall, or simply spread the word: thank you. You are a huge reason our charity continues to grow. And to our BBUS squads - you are, quite literally, #BloodyBrilliant.
Congratulations to the award winning Sheffield SU LGBTQ+ Society!
We’re thrilled to celebrate the Freshers Blood Drive organised by We Are Donors and the Sheffield SU LGBTQ+ Society, which was named Community Initiative of the Year a few months back at The Queer Student Awards!
The LGBTQ+ community is often underrepresented in blood donation, and this incredible initiative helped challenge misconceptions and inspire more people to give blood. The blood drive encouraged 32 sign ups, which included 26 people giving blood for the very first time. That’s an amazing impact, equivalent to saving or improving up to 96 lives.
The judges said… “The blood drive not only benefits the student body, but the NHS more widely. This is a creative way of overcoming medical fears in LGBTQ+ individuals, which is all too present in today’s society. The entry demonstrates how, when a community organises, how much benefit can come from it. Long may this initiative last and hopefully we will see similar drives at universities around the country.”
We’re so proud to have supported organising this brilliant initiative. Congratulations to everyone involved for showing how powerful student-led action can be.
Join our BBUS!
If you’d like to join one of our BBUS’ in the 2025/26 academic year, we’d love to hear from you. You can learn more and apply via our website: https://www.giveblood4good.org/bbus
We’re so proud of our Young Ambassadors!
Three #BloodyBrilliant schools completed our Young Ambassador Programme this past year, and we’re excited to spotlight the fantastic work the students did to raise awareness of blood donation in their communities.
Spotlight on Jordanhill School
This past academic year, a brilliant group of students from Jordanhill took part in our Young Ambassador Programme, and they absolutely smashed it.
From leading peer-to-peer education sessions and assemblies, to donating blood for the very first time, they showed the incredible impact young blood donation advocates can have in their schools and communities. We couldn’t be prouder of what they achieved!
Spotlight on The Glasgow Academy
Back in March, The Glasgow Academy hosted a give blood session on campus, where 39 amazing donors rolled up their sleeves, including 31 first-time donors. We were thrilled to see so many of our Young Ambassadors give blood for the first time - hear what they had to say:
💬 Cara shared, “I was a wee bit nervous, but it was really easy, and the donation itself only took six minutes!”
💬 Vita added, “I will definitely give again—it was nice to know you were making a difference.”
Since each donation can save or improve three lives, this incredible session could impact up to 117 people across Scotland. What an amazing achievement!
Spotlight on The Anderson High School
And last but not least, The Anderson High School up in Shetland created a range of fantastic educational materials to raise awareness of the importance of blood donation among their fellow students.
They took over the school computers and left infographics around the school, which is a wonderful way to engage more young people in blood donation. Well done to all of the students involved!
We’ve also kicked off our Young Ambassador Programme for the next academic year
We’ve had some fantastic talks to hundreds of S5/6 students at George Watson’s College, James Gillespies and Jordanhill to tell them all about the importance of blood donation and encourage them to take part in our Young Ambassador Programme this year.
It was a privilege to speak with so many students, and we can’t wait to hear how the schools get on with our programme this year. With our new Programme Development Officer, Lauren, now on board, we’re also excited to grow the programme into even more schools.
If your school would be interested in a talk or getting involved with GB4G, we’d love to hear from you. Email us at hello@giveblood4good.org to set one up!
And last but not least!
Celebrating our incredible Edinburgh Marathon Festival (EMF) runners
Back in May, we were thrilled to have 10 amazing runners take part in the Edinburgh Marathon Festival (EMF) in support of GB4G, where our fundraisers not only raised over £2,500(!!) for us, but raised awareness of the importance of blood donation. As a small charity, their support means everything.
Thank you Sam, Murray, Emily, Olivia, Bianca, Maddie, Maisie, Colette, Georgie and Mylo. Your efforts genuinely help us reach more people through the work we do and ultimately save more lives. We’re so grateful that each of them chose to run for GB4G and we think you’re all #BloodyBrilliant!
If you’d like to follow in the footsteps of our EMF runners and fundraise for GB4G, we'd love to hear from you! You can get in touch by emailing hello@giveblood4good.org.
Would you be interested in fundraising for Give Blood 4 Good?
As a small charity, donations like these have a huge impact on the work we can do to encourage more young people to give blood. If you’d like to follow in our EMF runners' footsteps and do something to encourage others to give blood, we’d love to hear from you.
Our first ever Fun Run was a huge success!
Ahead of EMF in May, we hosted our first ever Edinburgh Fun Run in Edinburgh, which was a huge success. It was the perfect day to bring together our amazing GB4G community, and thanks to your energy, kindness, and support, we raised £230 to support our work encouraging more people to give blood across Scotland.
A big thank you to everyone who joined us, and to those who brought along the most delicious post-run bakes and treats - here’s to the next one!
Come and give plasma with Ollie Smith!
To celebrate Blood Donor Week back in June, Ollie created a video to show everyone just how quick and easy plasma donation is. The process of giving plasma is very similar to blood donation, however there are a couple of key differences:
🩸 You can donate plasma every 4 weeks, compared to 12-16 weeks for whole blood donation, meaning you have more chances each year to impact people’s lives
⌛Plasma donations take a little longer. In Ollie’s case, his 4th donation took 31 minutes, compared to the average of 5-15 minutes for blood donation
🍪 You’ll be offered treats before, during AND after your donation - compared to just after at a blood donation!
Watch Ollie’s full video here: www.giveblood4good.org/ollies-plasma-donation
This year, we’re supporting Scotblood to recruit 1,000 new plasma donors in Scotland by the end of the year. If you have O+, B+, AB+ or AB- blood, you could be eligible; so if you’ve been inspired by Ollie, contact Scotblood at scotblood.co.uk/contact-us/ to book your appointment. We can’t wait to hear from you!