Josh Morrison

Co-Founder - Josh@WaitlistZero.org

Josh was a corporate lawyer when he donated his kidney to a stranger in 2011. Josh is the founder the president of 1 Day Sooner. Deeply moved by the experience, he decided to join the transplant field in 2013.

He founded Waitlist Zero in 2014 with a grant from the Open Philanthropy Project. At Waitlist Zero he has advocated on behalf of kidney donors to make transplants easy to ask for and easy to give. His work on donor support was instrumental in securing kidney donor reimbursement as part of the Trump Administration’s Advancing American Kidney Health Initiative, a policy achievement that should reduce the burden of lost wages and other expenses by an average of $4,000 per donor and increase donation by as much as 20%.

In 2016, he founded the Rikers Debate Project, a national volunteer-run organization teaching debate to current and formerly incarcerated students in six states. Josh’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times.

Elaine Perlman

Executive Director - Elaine@WaitlistZero.org

Elaine Perlman is a non-directed donor who donated her kidney to a stranger in 2020 and launched a kidney chain for four people to get life-saving kidney transplants in Georgia, Oklahoma & Washington State. Elaine is the leader of the Coalition to Modify the National Organ Transplant Act. From 2016-2022, she was a Professor and Program Director of the Peace Corps Fellows Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Elaine is a volunteer mentor for Plant Powered Metro New York helping kidney disease and other patients transition to a primarily plant-centered diet. For the National Kidney Foundation, she cohosted both a workshop and a cooking demonstration about the benefits of plant-based eating to promote kidney health. Elaine is an artist who has painted eleven school murals & wrote the book, "Be the Parent You Wish You Had." Elaine was a volunteer mentor for prospective kidney donors for 4 years for the National Kidney Donation Organization (NKDO) & was on the National Kidney Foundations’s Community Advocacy Committee for 3 years. For 33 years, Elaine was a teacher of elementary, middle & high school.