Donor Sibling Registry
 | |
| 501(c)(3) nonprofit | |
| Industry | Charity |
| Founded | September 2000 |
| Headquarters | Nederland, Colorado, USA |
Key people |
Wendy Kramer, Director & Co-founder Ryan Kramer, Co-founder |
| Revenue |
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The Donor Sibling Registry is a website and non-profit US organization serving donor offspring, sperm donors, egg donors and other donor conceived people. It was founded in September 2000 by a mother and son team, Wendy Kramer and Ryan Kramer of Nederland, Colorado. As of July 2018, the site is home to more than 59,500 members including sperm/egg donors, recipient parents and donor conceived people.
Purpose and goals
The "DSR" was developed as a means of connecting people born through donor insemination. It is based on the idea that when a child is born through donor insemination, they are given a "donor number" corresponding to the person they anonymously received a sperm or egg donation from. Because a donor can donate multiple times, often two or more children are created from the same donor. When multiple user sign up with the same donor, a "match" is created. Most commonly, matches are made between half-siblings of sperm donation, however there are numerous cases of donor-offspring matches as well.
History
The DSR began as a Yahoo! group, which was created in September 2000. It was started by Wendy Kramer and her then 10-year-old son Ryan Kramer as a means of communicating with other offspring of artificial insemination. After the first year, the group was home to only 37 members. In October, 2002, Wendy created a press release which was sent to local news agencies. The story was picked up by Denver's NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV. Shortly after, a small article about the DSR was written for The Denver Post. This article led to national and international media coverage, giving the DSR enough exposure to grow its member base into the thousands. In 2003 the DSR became a 501(c)3 charity organization and moved from a Yahoo group to its own database website. With the help of continued media coverage, the DSR is home to more than 59,500 people (donors, parents and the donor conceived themselves) (as of July 2018).
Matches
When a donor conceived person, a parent of a donor conceived person or a sperm or egg donor signs up to the Donor Sibling Registry, they are automatically filed under their respective facility/clinic/cryobank by their donor number. If only one person of a donor number is listed, the posting is white. When two or more people sign up under the same donor number, they are filed together as a "match". Matches can occur between half siblings (light yellow), sperm donors and their offspring (dark yellow), or egg donors and their offspring (also dark yellow). As of July 2018, the total number people matched on the DSR is 15,785, although many more unrecorded matches exist. The largest match between half siblings totals more than 200. The largest match between a registered DSR donor and offspring is 75 half siblings to a single donor, who is also listed.
See 9/11 NY Times Article: "One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring"
2016 Media: (Older Media Listed at the bottom of the page)
3/16: WERS Radio: The Odd & Modern Process For Meeting Your Sperm Donor Siblings
2/16: KPNX-TV Phoenix: Donor Sibling Registry helps Phoenix Siblings Connect
1/16: T eenclarification needed] Vogue This Is What Happened When I Discovered I Have 22 Siblings
1/16: CBS Sunday Morning Show