In 1991, the Gift of Life Campaign was initiated to find a suitably matched bone marrow donor for New Jersey leukemia patient Jay Feinberg. Jay's ethno-geographic background was Eastern-European Jewish. Since a patient's best chance of identifying a genetic match lies with those of similar ancestry, donor drives sponsored for Jay focused on Jewish communities worldwide. 60,000 donors were typed at over 225 drives around the world, and dozens of matched donors were identified for other patients as a result of the campaign. Then, in 1995 Jay's miracle happened: a donor drive organized by the Foundation identified a closely matched donor! Jay received his transplant in July 1995 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA.

Since the campaign for Jay Feinberg, the Foundation formalized its evolving role as a Bone Marrow Registry. In early 1998, the Foundation joined the World Marrow Donor Association and began to participate in  Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide. The Foundation currently maintains a database of over 100,000 bone marrow donors, and focuses on the registration of Jewish volunteers of Ashkenazi and Sephardic ancestry. Both minority groups are underrepresented in the worldwide donor pool. The tragic consequences of the Holocaust have caused additional difficulties for patients of Eastern-European Jewish ancestry, which severed potential blood lines. There is a desperate need for Sephardim in the Registry, which currently make up less than 1 percent of the total volunteer pool.