2009 better men better world winner

GQ and The Gentlemen's Fund honored John Piano, the 2009 Better Men Better World Search winner, at the 2nd annual Gentlemen's Ball in New York. Driven by his passion to contribute to society in a more meaningful way, John walked away from prior successes in law, entertainment, and technology to take on the severe problem of the organ donation shortage.

In 2003, he created Transplant Connect—an organization dedicated to expediting and increasing the availability of organs and tissue for transplant. In collaboration with leading donation and transplant agencies around the U.S. and through its advanced software platform, Transplant Connect now enables 12,000 – 14,000 life-saving organ transplants each year. John and his team are equally focused on enabling tissue and eye transplants for burn victims, amputees, and the seriously injured, as well as the 10 million people worldwide whose blindness can be cured through corneal transplantation.

John shared with GQ "with so many suffering and in need of transplants, we're committed to doing everything we can to expand donor awareness and increase donation and transplantation worldwide. We are thankful to GQ and the Gentlemen’s Fund for helping bring attention to this important cause."

Transplant Connect also works with numerous states to create online donor registries, and John continues his relentless advocacy work to encourage everyone to sign up to be an organ, tissue and eye donor. The reason? One single donor can save up to 8 lives and can directly improve the lives of up to 50 people. As the reader-selected winner of the 2009 Better Men Better World Search, GQ donated $10,000 to the National Kidney Foundation.