How to Add Organ Donor Status to Facebook

Facebook yesterday announced a unique feature thats hitting profiles: the capability to note your status as an organ donor.

“Facebook is really about communicating and telling stories,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts in an interview that aired yesterday. “We think that people can really help spread awareness of organ donation, and that they want to participate in this with their friends. And that can be a big part of helping solve the crisis thats out there.”

ABC News reports that since yesterday’s announcement, 10 states have reported as many new volunteer donors as they typically see in one month. California saw a 700 percent increase over the number of volunteers on a typical day.

Right now, the feature is available only to Facebook users in the U.S. and U.K. To add your organ donor status, navigate to your profile and click the “Life Event” button in the update status box. Then, select “Health and Wellness” from the drop-down menu and click “Organ Donor.”

Once you fill out the form—and change the privacy setting of that update, if necessary—click save.

If you’re not registered as an organ donor, click the link in the form to sign up with the appropriate registry. Facebook will bring you to the “Donate Life America” Facebook page where you can choose your state and register to become a donor. For more information on becoming an organ donor, click “Learn More” on the form above.

[Want more tips, tricks and details on Facebook privacy? Check out CIO.com’s Facebook Bible.]

For the full interview with Mark Zuckerberg, check out the video below.

Kristin Burnham covers consumer technology, social networking and enterprise collaboration for CIO.com. Follow Kristin on Twitter @kmburnham. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline and on Facebook. Email Kristin at kburnham@cio.com