Founded on 20^th January 1980 by 89 dedicated voluntary blood donors, Association of Voluntary Blood Donors West Bengal (AVBDWB) is a purely voluntary organization working for the promotion of voluntary blood donation through dissemination of scientific information on need, harmlessness and benefit of regular voluntary blood donation deep down in the community throughout the state of West Bengal.

It works on the principle of time sharing by many people from all walks of life in a coordinated manner, who spare a fraction of their free available time to motivate, recruit and retain prospective blood donors and blood is collected by the Government Blood Centers of the State.

This novel hundred percent voluntary organisation was established by 89 voluntary blood donors on a mellowed winter afternoon of January 20, 1980 in a unfurnished ground-floor room of an old residential building at 20A, Fordyce Lane, Kolkata-700014, a narrow lane of Central Kolkata kindly made  available by one of the founder members, Late Bireswar Ghosh, in his residential house.

It was at a time when the concept of voluntary Blood Donation was not much known to the people of West Bengal. The annual collection from voluntary blood donors in the state was a meager 2493 units in 1979 against an annual estimated requirement of 1,50,000 units. There was no beaten track.  The founder members had nothing except willing pairs of hands and legs and brains to innovate ideas.

In the crusade against ignorance, fear, superstitions, social taboos, the Association choose Voluntarism as its Philosophy, Education as its Technology and taking the donors, beds as close to the donor as possible on their convenient date and time without asking the donor to come to blood bank to donate blood as its Strategy.