The Sunflower Fund

The Sunflower Fund (Friends of the South African Bone Marrow Registry – SABMR) 

• Non-profit Organisation
• Formed in 1999
• Based in Cape Town, South Africa

Vision to give all South Africans diagnosed with leukaemia and other life-threatening blood disorders the chance of life, irrespective of their race and financial circumstances.

The Sunflower Fund’s core purpose is to educate, recruit and raise funds to build and sustain an effective SABMR as a viable source of well- informed ethnically-diverse potential bone marrow donors so as to meet the national and international requirements and improve the chances of life-saving transplants for serious blood disorder sufferers.

Sunflower Achievements

• Donor numbers on the SABMR have been increased from 1,200 in 1999 to over 65 500 in 2014.
• Over R4 million spent on Tissue Typing throughout SA since April 2013

Due to the 1:100 000 chance of finding a compatible donor, at least 100 000 donors are needed for a Registry to function effectively and in South Africa, the Registry should ideally have 400 000 donors representative of all ethnic groups.