A Chicago area native, Laurie Lee donated her kidney to a stranger as a non-directed donor in 2016 at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, sparking a 6-person kidney chain.  She was compelled to become a donor after her father, Dan Dickinson, received a lifesaving liver transplant from a deceased donor in 2011.  Laurie felt passionate about giving back through kidney donation to a system that ultimately saved her father’s life.  For a decade, Laurie has been at the forefront of several advocacy initiatives, promoting living donation and helping families in need of a lifesaving transplant.

Laurie is a founding member of Transplant Village NFP, a group united in their mission to support the future of organ transplantation at Northwestern Medicine.  She facilitates a monthly workshop at Northwestern called the Donor Champion Program which teaches kidney patients and their families strategies to attract a living kidney donor.  She loves this work and, with her Transplant Village team, has helped dozens of patients find a living donor by leveraging their network and utilizing social media to tell their story.

Laurie enjoys working on projects in the transplant world that make an impact!  She was one of the organizers of the 2018 Donor Rally which resulted in a Guinness World Record for the largest number of Living Organ Donors (410!)

One of Laurie’s favorite things about being a living donor is getting to meet and spend time with other living donors.  She is on the board of the National Kidney Donation Organization (NKDO), and served as a mentor through NKDO’s Donor Connect Program, where she mentored and educated those considering living donation.  This community of donors is extremely important to Laurie and she is grateful to be part of such a tight knit group of living donors.  She says it’s the best club she has ever had the privilege to be a part of.

Since joining Matrie River Productions in 2019 as Producer and Content Expert for CrowdSource for Life and Abundant, Laurie launched a podcast called Donor Diaries.  The podcast first aired in 2021 and has educated and entertained thousands of listeners by providing a 360-degree view of information about living organ donation. Over the course of the podcast’s first two seasons, she has tracked the entire donor experience and covered a wide range of topics with an impressive guest list of transplant industry experts.

Laurie recently co-founded an organization named GiftWorks with partner, Amber Khan.  GiftWorks is a robust program that supports both patients and donors.  The GiftWorks program has three pillars; education, patient support, and living donor advocacy.  Each pillar is designed to serve both transplant recipients and living donor candidates.  GiftWorks operates with the philosophy that living donation works best when both the recipient and the donor feel equally supported, empowered, and part of an amazing exchange that is both lifesaving and beautiful.  GiftWorks is currently partnered with the University of Utah Health.