"Just" blood donors? A study on the multi-affiliations of blood donors

Background: The present work proposes to explore a phenomenon well known in the world of blood donation, but little explored by literature: multi-affiliations. By that term, in this paper we mean blood donors' engagement in multiple associations of various natures (donation, recreation, sports, etc.) simultaneously.The first objective proposes to explore the phenomenon of multi-affiliations in descriptive terms; the second is to look into the differences-in terms of motivations, family-work-volunteerism reconciliation, life satisfaction, and membership satisfaction-between those who "only" carry out blood donation activity and those who instead participate in multiple associative realities concurrently. Method: Participating in the research were 2674 donors from the Italian Association of Blood Donors (AVIS) (age range 18-65; 66.6% male) to which a self-report questionnaire was administered in the waiting rooms of numerous blood donation centers. Results: Regarding the first objective, it emerged that only 35.9% of the participants "only" donate blood, while a good 64.1% is engaged also in other associations. Regarding the second objective, statistically significant differences emerge regarding many of the variables considered: social, values, ego-protection, and career motivation; capacity to reconcile family-volunteering and work-volunteering; life satisfaction; and membership satisfaction. Conclusions: The study offers precious information to the agencies that handle recruiting and retaining of donors. The agencies in fact can take away information on how to improve the multi-affiliations of their donors, an aspect that can facilitate their long-term retention.