Summary Requesting next-of-kin for their consent to an organ donation is unlikely ever to become a matter of routine for the intensive care team. A professional concept may help reduce the stress necessarily involved. On the basis of our experience of working with the relatives and an evaluation of the results of interviews, the present support concept was developed and guidelines for the intensive care personnel on how to approach the bereaved compiled. These guidelines now form the basis for talks with the next-of-kin in many hospitals in the Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation (DSO) central region (Hessen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland). The next-of-kin project of the DSO central region guarantees that should the bereaved wish, support is provided over and beyond the process of donation consent. Relatives remain in contact with the responsible coordinator of the DSO and help and further support is offered whenever questions or problems arise. Participating bereaved families are thus provided with an opportunity for intensive talks and to discuss their experience of organ donation. Appreciation of, and thanks for, the organ donation on the part of political representatives, serves to encourage relatives to abandon anonymity and, with firm conviction, to stand by their decision and also publicly to defend it. The families of organ donors are incomparably better placed than any other group when it comes to explaining their motives for consenting to organ donation. Improved support and encouragement for relatives increases the accept - ance of, and identification with, requests for organ donation both in the public domain and in the transplanting hospital, and might have a positive influence on the development of future consent to organ donation in Germany.