Key Takeaways

• The “We Give Blood” campaign is a Big Ten–wide, Abbott-sponsored initiative that promotes blood donation through intercollegiate collaboration.
• Universities act as organizing hubs, coordinating students, alumni, and communities with accredited blood collection partners.
• Donations are verified, logged, and tracked publicly through leaderboards to encourage sustained participation.
• Each donation is treated as potentially helping up to three people, making impact measurement central to the campaign.
• In 2025, the campaign recorded over 83,000 donations and awarded a $1 million health grant to the winning university.

Zariq Siddiqui is a Chicago-based healthcare executive and sales director with Abbott Laboratories, where he oversees national sales operations, purchasing coordination, and distribution strategy for nutrition products that serve consumers at every stage of life. Zariq Siddiqui joined Abbott in 1999 and has advanced through progressively senior leadership roles, including senior manager of sales operations and strategy, earning recognition such as the company’s President Award. In his current role, he has helped design and implement a results-focused sales structure while working closely with group purchasing organizations across the country.

Holding a bachelor of science in forensic science from SUNY Brockport and accreditation as a certified medical representative, Zariq Siddiqui also emphasizes ethical leadership, integrity, and community engagement. His professional background aligns with public health initiatives that rely on coordination, accountability, and measurable outcomes. These principles provide relevant context for understanding how large-scale efforts like the “We Give Blood” campaign operate, mobilizing university communities and healthcare partners to address ongoing blood shortages across the United States.

How the ‘We Give Blood’ Campaign Expands Access to Life-Saving Donations

Ongoing blood shortages across the United States have made voluntary donation a national public health priority. Universities are emerging as key partners in this effort. The “We Give Blood” campaign is a seasonal, corporate-sponsored public health initiative that promotes blood donation through intercollegiate collaboration. Running each year during the Big Ten football season, typically from late August through early December, it encourages students, alumni, and local communities to donate blood and expand access to life-saving resources.

The campaign launched in 2024 as a partnership between Abbott and the Big Ten Conference. In its first season, it showed how school communities could contribute meaningfully to public health. By the end of 2024, the initiative had recorded about 20,000 blood donors, and campaign materials estimated that these donations could help save as many as 60,000 lives. In 2025, the University of Wisconsin-Madison led the second year of the campaign as donations climbed across the conference.

Big Ten universities coordinate the campaign alongside participating blood centers and donation sites, including organizations such as ImpactLife and other accredited collection partners. While universities and athletics partners help drive awareness and coordinate campus participation, trained staff at the collection sites handle donation procedures and on-site screening.

The campaign welcomes anyone who meets standard blood donation eligibility rules set by each collection site. Donors include students, faculty, alumni, and supporters. They give blood at campus-based clinics, mobile units, or local partner sites. Donors typically schedule an appointment during the competition window and then log their donation so it counts toward their chosen school.

Beyond donation logistics, universities play an active role in publicizing the campaign. Student ambassadors and campus partners, including athletics programs and local blood centers, coordinate outreach through targeted events and social media. These efforts raise awareness and make participation convenient and visible.

Donors submit proof of donation through the campaign website or by text and select the Big Ten school they want to support. Campaign organizers use those records to credit each university for every completed donation. They aggregate this data and share it through public-facing tools such as campaign leaderboards and total trackers. The leaderboard format helps maintain friendly competition and encourages sustained participation throughout the season.

Campaign organizers treat each completed donation as having the potential to help up to three people. This serves as the campaign’s core impact metric. In 2025, the competition recorded 83,043 blood donations across the Big Ten, which campaign announcements estimated could help save up to about 250,000 lives. In recognition of this impact, the campaign awarded a $1 million grant to the winning university. The prize goes to the institution rather than individual donors.

After winning the 2025 challenge, the University of Wisconsin-Madison received this $1 million grant to advance student and community health, and university communications describe it as supporting health initiatives that align with the campaign’s goals.

The “We Give Blood” campaign centers on blood donation and community health, leveraging school rivalries and limited-time perks to encourage participation throughout the season. By pairing donation-site eligibility rules with verified logging and public progress updates, the campaign shows how other campus health drives can track participation and outcomes.

As more institutions look to support public health beyond their campuses, the “We Give Blood” campaign offers a model for how student-led programs can deliver measurable outcomes without compensating individual donors financially. Its success shows that universities can act as operational hubs for large-scale health initiatives, blending visibility, verified data, and peer engagement into a format others can adapt across communities.

FAQs

What is the “We Give Blood” campaign?

The “We Give Blood” campaign is a seasonal public health initiative launched by Abbott and the Big Ten Conference to encourage blood donation during the college football season.

How does participation get counted?

Donors give blood at participating sites and then submit proof through the campaign’s system to credit a chosen university. Verified donations appear on public leaderboards.

Who can donate?

Anyone who meets the standard eligibility rules of participating blood collection organizations can take part, including students, staff, alumni, and community members.

How is the campaign’s impact measured?

Organizers count each verified donation and estimate that each one can help up to three people. Totals and progress are shared publicly throughout the season.

What happened in the 2025 season?

The 2025 campaign recorded 83,043 donations across the Big Ten, estimated to help up to about 250,000 people. The University of Wisconsin-Madison won the competition and received a $1 million grant.

About Zariq Siddiqui

Zariq Siddiqui is a sales director with Abbott Laboratories, where he oversees national sales operations for nutrition products and collaborates with group purchasing organizations across the United States. With more than two decades at Abbott, he has held leadership roles in sales strategy and operations and earned company recognition for performance and innovation. He holds a BS in forensic science from SUNY Brockport and is an accredited certified medical representative.