BANKS are going head to head to deposit blood in the Australian Red Cross Blood Service’s Summer Heroes Blood Rush challenge.
According to the last tally on January 20, title hopefuls National Australia Bank and BankWest were placed second and third with the ANZ, Commonwealth and Challenge banks all in the top 30 with four weeks remaining.
However, the banks face a tough time beating the WA Police Service which has led the blood rush virtually from the beginning.
The police were leading the last tally with 166 donations. NAB and BankWest had 81 and 63 donations respectively.
NAB employee Anthony Grassi has been helping to coordinate the bank’s charge for summer blood rush glory.
Mr Grassi said the bank’s assessment policy had allowed him to become more involved with the Red Cross Blood Services donations and this had been an extension of that.
"A component of our assessment each year is the community work we do," he said.
"One of the things I’ve taken on is to get people in the bank involved in making blood donations."
Mr Grassi arranges for a bus to come every three months to pick up NAB workers and take them to the Red Cross Blood Service donation point.
With the summer competition he organised some incentive for all WA NAB staff.
"We’re running an internal competition to promote the blood rush. Every member from the NAB’s staff that donates blood has their name recorded. At the end of the competition those names will be put into a hat and four people will win $100 Myer vouchers," Mr Grassi said.
There is also an internal blood competition that the bank runs throughout the year to see whether the business sector or the personal banking sector holds the blood donor bragging rights.
The NAB also gives its staff two days a year to go and do community service.
"One thing I did was to go and serve tea and coffee in the lounge for blood donors," Mr Grassi said.
BankWest, on the other hand, has managed to reach its high total without any one staff member leading the push.
A BankWest spokeswoman said there was nothing formal that the bank or any of its staff members were running to get people involved in the blood donation campaign.
"Staff have an option to nominate which charity they will support or volunteer for," she said.
The Summer Heroes Blood Rush campaign is aiming to gather 3,000 donations this year after its 2,590 last year.
As at January 20, the tally stood at 2,007 and there are only four weeks to go.
Those donations are much needed to help the Red Cross Blood Service meet the demand on its blood supplies.
Each week WA requires about 2,000 blood donations to meet demand.
The campaign runs from November 10 to February 29 and targets corporate groups, public services, sporting clubs and community organisations.
Any donor can participate in the challenge by pledging their donation to any corporate, sporting or community organisation they choose.
As part of the campaign WA Business News is giving corporate donors a free eight-week trial subscription.
For every one of those free trials that is converted to a paid subscription WA Business News will donate $20 to the Red Cross.