Benefits to becoming a volunteer donor include but are not limited to the following:

• Volunteer donors' exams to determine if they qualify are paid for by the recipient of the healthy kidney. Their insurance has you fully covered automatically.
• Any volunteer, in the unfortunate event they themselves need a kidney transplant in the future, automatically puts them at the top of the waitlist.
• You will pretty much be saving a life. While people can live on dialysis for as many as 20 years, they are still generally ill and not very productive. A number of heath issues can arise from dialysis. The best option is an actual working kidney that is a close match to their genetics.

Most waitlist candidates are in the UNOS program, which is a kidney swap program. If you are a willing donor for someone of a different blood type or if your genetics are not a close match, UNOS finds a matching candidate for each. While your kidney will not go directly to them, you will still be greatly speeding up the process of them getting a kidney.

To qualify to be a volunteer donor, you must meet a number of qualifications. The donor:

• Must not be a smoker.
• Must be in good physical and mental health.
• Free from high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, HIV, hepatitis, or organ-specific diseases.
• At least 18 years old.