MAVIN Foundation

MAVIN Foundation is the nation's leading organization serving mixed heritage people and families. MatchMaker was created in 2001 as the only national program dedicated to mixed race marrow donor recruitment and education. Each year at least 140,000 people* in the US will be diagnosed with diseases that are potentially treatable or curable with a ma... rrow or blood stem cell transplant. Because the factors that determine a match are inherited, and only some 30% of patients find a match within their genetic family, the rest must rely on registries of unrelated volunteer donors. Usually patients will find a match with someone of a similar ethnic origin. MatchMaker was established to help meet this urgent need, because multiracial people have great difficulty finding matching donors: only 2% of the 7 million potential donors currently registered are identified as mixed race and only some 25% are minorities. To date, MatchMaker has registered over 10,000 people and found potentially life-saving matches for dozens of waiting patients.Read More