In organ donation, some of the most important work happens long before a family says yes, before an offer is made, before a transplant team is called. It happens in conference rooms and ICUs, in policy reviews and education sessions, in the steady work of building trust between hospitals and organ procurement organizations. That is the space Caitlin Stephen has chosen to make her own.
Stephen, manager of hospital and partner relations at Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network, describes her role in practical terms. She supports a team that works with roughly 180 community hospitals and trauma centers, helping ensure that hospitals and the OPO are aligned around the referral and donation process. But the deeper purpose of the work is relational. “We don’t want it to feel as though they have to do that,” she said of hospital referrals. “We want it to be that they are committed, and they see the value and they see the opportunity that they’re providing to families.”
That perspective has made Stephen a natural fit for the Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance (The Alliance), where she serves on the National Donation Leadership Council and teaches in the Alliance’s Foundational Perspectives course. Its Donation Leadership Council, on which Stephen serves, focuses on improving the donation process through shared knowledge, data, family support and successful practices.
A connector in a small, complex field
For Stephen, that work has been both affirming and instructive. She first connected with The Alliance through webinars, later serving as a faculty member before joining the council. What has mattered most, she said, is the chance to collaborate with peers across OPOs and hear how others are approaching similar challenges. In a field as specialized as organ donation, that kind of exchange can be rare and vital.
“I see myself as a connector,” she said. “Having opportunities through The Alliance to engage with the community has been really helpful for me to become a leader in the OPO space and also has helped me identify how I can continue to grow and learn as a leader.”
That instinct runs through Stephen’s career. She began at Gift of Hope 15 years ago as a donation coordinator, working directly with hospitals in the field, including Level I trauma centers and pediatric hospitals. Today, she manages a team of six, most of them hospital donation coordinators. Their work is both proactive and responsive: strengthening policies, relationships and education before a case occurs, then helping identify gaps and barriers when processes do not go as planned.
It is demanding work because it requires fluency in two realities at once. Stephen understands the mission of donation, but she also understands the pressure hospitals are under. “It’s a tough role,” she said. “You are working for the OPO and you’re supporting that mission. And then you also see what our hospital partners are facing.”
Teaching what partnership looks like
That ability to hold both sides of the partnership may be one reason Stephen has become a respected voice on hospital development. In the Alliance’s Foundational Perspectives course, she presents on hospital development, helping newer professionals understand how hospitals perceive donation and what strong collaboration requires. Sitting through the course herself, she said, reminded her that what now feels second nature was once a learning experience. That awareness has sharpened her teaching.
She also serves on the leadership development committee of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO). “I’m so thankful for The Alliance and AOPO for the opportunities to connect across OPOs’ she said. “It’s inspiring to work with people who are asking ‘how can we do it better, how can we save more lives, how can we make this more impactful?’ I feel very lucky.”
Her work is rooted in operations, but Stephen talks about it in human terms. She is proud not simply of programs or metrics, but of making an impact, even indirectly. She does not approach families for authorization herself, and she is careful to honor colleagues who do that work directly. Still, she knows the systems and relationships she supports can shape what is possible for patients and families in the most difficult moments.
“Yes, today was a really hard day,” she said, describing the mindset that sustains her, “but I did it because I’m helping to save a life. I know that the work that I do and the work that I support makes a difference. That is something that not everyone gets the chance to say in the work that they do.”
She grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago and now lives in Berwyn with her husband and two small children and Scout, their golden retriever.
A turning point in Stephen’s own story came before she fully understood where her career would lead. She had studied communications at Wittenberg University in Ohio, drawn in part by the school’s community service requirement. As a student, she worked with children’s literacy programs and other local service efforts, building on values she traces to her parents, who taught her early to give back and help others when she could.
After college, she worked in telecom and later in a volunteer coordinator role at a blood bank. Then came Gift of Hope, and with it an uncanny moment of alignment. Stephen was offered the job the same day she underwent a cornea transplant, a procedure she needed because of keratoconus, a degenerative eye condition. The timing struck her as more than coincidence. Looking back, she sees it as the moment the work found her.
That sense of service extends beyond her professional life. For nearly 20 years, Stephen has volunteered with Make-A-Wish Illinois, first at community events and later as a wish granter, helping children and families identify and then experience the wish that mattered most to them. She speaks about that experience with the same attentiveness she brings to her hospital work: the importance of listening closely, resisting assumptions, and making room for what matters to the person in front of you.
Why the work still feels personal
It is not hard to see the through line. Stephen’s career has unfolded at the intersection of process and compassion, accountability and relationship. She speaks confidently now with hospital executives and clinical leaders, though she admits that confidence took time. “I’m not a doctor,” she said, “but I am knowledgeable about donation and I’m knowledgeable in what’s worked and what hasn’t.”
Stephen does not talk about that work in grand terms. She talks about teams, relationships and responsibility. She talks about reminding her staff that every small action matters. And she talks about the larger truth that keeps people in this field for years.
“How do you go do something else?” she said. “How do you get that kind of fulfillment somewhere else?”
For Stephen, the answer seems clear. You keep building the partnerships that make donation possible. You keep learning from others. And you keep making the case, one conversation at a time, that trust is not peripheral to this work. It is the work.
