Our Story

About I KAN Media

Most people living with kidney failure who need a transplant already know a living kidney donor offers the best outcome — a better transplant, a faster timeline, more years of life. What stalls them isn’t awareness. It’s activation: getting started feels impossible, so many never do. That silence costs years on dialysis and, too often, lives.

Here is what changes everything: you don’t have to start with an ask. You start with your story. At I KAN, we teach patients to share their story and invite their network to help. Ready to ask directly? We help with that too. Either way, the story leads. We measure what matters most: the activation rate — the moment a patient decides to mobilize their network to find a living kidney donor. Our coaching, our playbook, and our AI advocate KAIA give patients the words, the confidence, and a simple step-by-step plan.

Because the difference between waiting and living can be one story, told out loud. And you KAN tell it.

Meet the Founder

Sunshine Barhorst, DNP, FNP-BC, ACNP-BC

I have spent more than twenty years in nursing — the last six as a nurse practitioner in transplant nephrology, caring for people living with end-stage kidney disease and working alongside them as they searched for a living kidney donor. Patient after patient, I watched the same barrier appear. It wasn’t willingness. It wasn’t hope. It was getting started.

Ask yourself: if you needed a kidney tomorrow, would you know how to begin? Would you know how to tell your story, who to share it with, or where to turn first?

Most people don’t. That’s not a personal failing — it’s a gap in how we support patients. I founded I KAN Media to close it: to give every person facing kidney failure a clear, teachable way to share their story, take that first step, and activate the network that’s already around them.

“I can’t” ends the moment you decide it does. Start your activation journey · For care teams