LiveOnNY, a federally designated organ procurement organization, hosted its inaugural Luminaries and Legacies Celebration in New York City on April 16. While the organization has recorded a near-70% increase in lifesaving organ donations in the last three years, experts are backing community-level education and trust-building to sustain the growth.
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LiveOnNY honors the people behind the numbers
The evening recognized Dr. Robert A. Montgomery, chair of the Department of Surgery at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, as the inaugural LiveOnNY 2026 Luminary. Dr. Montgomery received a heart transplant in 2018 with his lived experience as both a transplant surgeon and a recipient shaping his advocacy for equity and access in organ donation.
Five hospitals across the New York metropolitan region received the 2025 LiveOnNY Legacies Award for outstanding collaboration in honoring donor wishes.
Garnet Health Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian, South Shore University Hospital, Stony Brook University Hospital, and Westchester Medical Center each received the award alongside individual Donor Champion honorees recognized for their frontline commitment during one of the most transformative periods in the organization’s history.
Deceased organ donations in the US declined in 2025 for the first time in more than a decade, making LiveOnNY’s 85% increase in donations over five years a significant outlier in a national landscape moving in the opposite direction. More than 105,000 people remain on the national transplant waiting list, with kidneys accounting for nearly 87% of all candidates.
“The New York metro region is one of the most generous communities in the world, and it’s our responsibility to always show up for it,” said Leonard Achan, President and CEO of LiveOnNY. “We show up in neighborhoods to educate and raise awareness, and we show up for families in their most difficult moments, asking an important question about donation while honoring and respecting every decision.”
The strategies behind the turnaround
Speaking with Charity Journal, LiveOnNY disclosed that its most effective approach centered on consistent and in-person community engagement rather than top-down institutional directives.
The organization brought together hospital staff and community partners through Painted Legacy events, Back-to-School nights, community runs, and charity bike tours, building donor registration as a cultural norm rather than an administrative transaction.
The largest gathering of organ donor families and recipients at St. Patrick’s Cathedral stands as one of the most visible examples of that community-first strategy. By convening the people most personally connected to donation and transplantation, LiveOnNY built the kind of trust that changes behavior over time in communities where skepticism about the healthcare system runs deep.
The five hospitals honored at the gala led their donation service areas in 2025, specifically through this collaborative model. The organization treats each hospital partnership as a shared accountability structure, with Donor Champions inside each institution serving as the connective tissue between the organization’s mission and the moment families face the donation question.
Investing in the next generation
Proceeds from the Luminaries and Legacies Celebration support the LiveOnNY Foundation’s Annual Scholarship Program, which awards up to ten scholarships each year to students pursuing careers in health and human services. Applicants must reside within LiveOnNY’s service area, covering New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Orange, Putnam, Dutchess, and Rockland counties, ensuring the investment stays within the communities the organization serves.
The program prioritizes dependents of organ, eye, and tissue donors and transplant recipients who demonstrate financial need. By targeting students personally connected to the donation ecosystem and reducing the financial barriers to entering healthcare, the scholarships aim to build a pipeline of professionals who arrive with a lived understanding of why this work matters.
For an organization that transformed from one of the lowest-performing organ procurement organizations in the country to a recognized national leader, the scholarship program is an investment in sustaining that transformation beyond its current generation of leadership.