For many years, Mr.
Greenberg* wrote a Torah book every year, which he sent out to a specific
mailing list. He built up a following of people who looked forward to getting
the book each year and responded generously. The money was used to support a
yeshiva. Mr. Greenberg was very proud of the money that he was able to raise,
and said that his books brought in more money than any other donor to the
yeshiva.
He looked forward
to the mail every day and was happy when a big stack of envelopes arrived in
the mailbox. It was so exciting to open each envelop and to see how much money
was inside. Every contribution was noted on the outside of the envelope, and
careful records were kept so that people could get receipts for their
donations. Some people wrote beautiful letters along with the donation, and
those were kept in a special box. Since Mr. Greenberg always had to borrow
money to pay for the cost of printing and mailing the books, there was a big
sigh of relief when the amount he borrowed came in. He paid back the loan, and
after that, it was all profit.
This was an
unusual way to raise money, and it depended on Mr. Greenberg being able to come
up with new Torah thoughts and new topics every year. The fundraising thus served
another purpose: it gave Mr. Greenberg the excuse to keep on learning and
writing.
Hurry Up and Give!
Our community is
surrounded with myriad institutions that do all kinds of good things, and they
all need money: lots and lots of money. How do these organizations and
institutions raise the money? At one time, the annual banquet was the method of
choice. Mailing were also universal. But times change, and the methods of
raising money change with them. Today, social media, emails, WhatsApp, and
websites have taken over the world of fundraising.
Lately, it seems,
we are informed almost every week of another attempt to raise money through the
online charity campaign. It has been honed to a science, but is it effective,
and how does it work?
Rabbi Wolowik from
Cheder Chabad raised $300,000 recently using such a campaign. He kindly took
the time to explain how it works. “A lot of it is psychological,” he said. “By
running the campaign only for a specific time period, it creates a feeling of
anticipation and challenge. We get our regular donors to pledge a specific
amount of money, and they challenge us to match that amount through the
campaign. We also get the parents involved by setting up teams and promising
incentives if they raise a certain sum. Parents help us reach new donors from
their own circles whom we may not have known before. We use a company that runs
the campaign for us; they provide all the ads, emails, and Facebook messages.
The momentum builds up, people participate, and we are able to reach our
goals.”
The Shidduch Center of Baltimore is actually
advertising for their upcoming CauseMatch campaign in this issue, and
I spoke recently with their executive director, Rabbi Shlomo
Goldberger, about how fundraising has changed over the
past number of years. He told me about the advantages of this new method
of fundraising, which has caught on like wildfire.
“Institutions generally used to
have major annual events, like dinners. The people who were
primarily approached to support those events and take out
notable ads were usually those who were able to donate at
a higher level. Those types of events often did not
really emphasize their efforts on approaching the majority of
the people in our community, those of us who are simply
unable to give larger gifts.
“These online campaigns have made
impactful fundraising available to everyone,” Rabbi Goldberger
continued. “If a friend calls and asks for a donation for an institution
that is close to his or her heart, that tends
to motivate people to give because
of their relationship with the caller. It becomes
personal, and through a collective effort, hundreds, or thousands, of
community members are able to take part. Whatever the amount, each person’s contribution
is listed prominently on the campaign website,
and when everything is multiplied by 2, or 3,
or 4, thanks to the matching dollars that were generously
donated by the organization’s larger patrons – those donations add up
fast. This platform is cost effective, it involves the
whole community, it makes every donor feel important – which
they absolutely are – and it takes a lot of the burden off the
shoulders of those who were previously expected to supply nearly 100% of
an organization’s fundraising needs.”
These campaigns make
a lot of sense. They last for a short time – just two or three days because
people’s attention span is short. Another advantage is that people can’t say,
“Call me back next week.” The time limit makes it seem urgent. Every
organization chooses its own days so that they don’t overlap with other
campaigns. They know that people can handle one phone call per night raising
money but are unlikely to be happy to get three phone calls. They might also
divide their donation among the three callers, so that each organization gets less.
Another benefit of separating the campaigns is that if Mr. A calls Mr. B this
week for his favorite organization, and Mr. B donates, then when Mr. B calls
Mr. A next week for another organization, he is likely to also give.
A friend of mine
who raises $100,000 every year for a kiruv organization added, “The
platforms make the event exciting and increases motivation. There is a sigh of
relief as we get closer to our goal. People can follow the amount of money
coming in and that increases the excitement. The reason that it is called crowd-funding
is because it motivates the crowd!”
Races, Plays, and
Auctions
The online campaign may be the latest
and greatest, but there are endless ways to raise money to support organizations,
both old and new.
Judy Neuberger of
Simchas Esther explained their fundraising methods. This organization, which is
run by a group of women headed by Aviva Isbee and Judy Neuberger,
helps kallahs and chasanim with the funds needed to
set up their homes. Judy has taken it upon herself, together with some other
women, to raise the $250,000 budget every year, and she does it the
old-fashioned way; she actually gets on the phone and calls donors. She tries
to add a few more individuals to the donor list every year. In addition, unsolicited donations
come in regularly and are much appreciated.
Simchas Esther also
sends mailings and has gotten a great response from them. And they put on
an annual Purim spiel which is
greatly enjoyed by the community. It is combined with an
online auction which has been very successful. Finally, the
organization has a program called Chodesh Gelt. Participants get a reminder each
month to send in their monthly donation. This helps Simchas Esther with a
continuous flow of money that they can count on.
Rabbi Yossi Eliav of
Yad L’Achim recently ran an event in Baltimore. Yad L’Achim is an organization
that rescues Jewish women who have gotten involved with Arabs and are trapped
in Arab villages. Yad L’Achim brought in one of the girls they rescued, and she
spoke to the audience about her experience. Rabbi Eliav explained, “Having an
in-person event makes a very big impression on people. You can’t compare the
value of a powerful personal story to an event on a computer! In fact, during COVID,
we ran many events on Zoom. Although we had tens of thousands of participants,
many more than in our in-person events, we were not able to raise the same
amount of money. Yad L’Achim has a budget of seven million dollars a year, and
the monies are raised from small donors who are inspired and want to help in
our work. Also, these events raise awareness and help prevent these tragedies
from happening in the first place.”
My daughter-in-law
Rachel works for a Jewish Family Service in another city. She just ran a
successful a mother-and-daughter get-together to bring publicity to the
organization so that, in the future, the community will remember that event and
know why it is important to donate money to JFS. At the event, the mothers and
daughters wrapped the gifts that the JFS was planning to give to the children
they serve. The event was so popular that there was a waiting list to get in.
Even though the goal was not to make money, Rachel was able to cover the cost
by getting corporate sponsors. The sponsors also donated gifts for the Chinese
auction in exchange for the publicity it gave their businesses.
In yet another
fundraising initiative, a friend of mine runs a program called Shop and Share. This
system does not ask for cash donations, rather solicits actual grocery items.
Instead of raising money to give to families, volunteers for the organization
shop for the items the families request when they are doing their own weekly
shopping. Each volunteer is given a shopping list and drops off the requested
items at a central place, from where they are distributed every other Thursday
evening.
Where to Donate?
There are many
ways to generate tzedaka and numerous people who try to be as creative
as possible to raise the funds needed to continue to serve the community and
fulfill their missions. But how does the average donor decide where to give our
tzedaka money? After all, there are many choices!
People tend to
give tzedaka to the institutions they feel connected to. Mrs. Gray*
said, “I always donate to Ahavas Yisrael. Once, when we were struggling
financially, a $500 check appeared on our doorstep. We knew it was from Ahavas
Yisrael, and it was very helpful to us. Now I always make giving to them a
priority because I know they are supporting my neighbors and friends.”
Mrs. Hess*
explained, “It would never have occurred to me to give money to a certain
yeshiva, but my daughter just married a wonderful young man who learned there
for many years, so now I send them donations in appreciation for helping raise
my son-in-law.”
Mrs. Levin* adds, “We give money to
the places my kids fundraise for and to institutions run by people we know from
our yeshiva days.”
Others choose different ways to
spend their tzedaka money. Mr. Schwartz* was drawn to the mitzva of
beautifying the shul where he davens; he recently donated an aron kodesh.
It is very big and beautiful and fits perfectly into the niche that was
designed for it. Mr. Schwartz went out of his way to make the aron kodesh
beautiful by using real wood and having it built by a genuine craftsman.
In earlier times, there were more
obviously poor people who needed to be helped, so individuals had the
opportunity to give tzedaka to people they met in the street or who
knocked on their doors. In Yerushalayim, we can still encounter street beggars.
Today, although there are still poor people, we may not know who they are. With
so many organizations that serve as our messengers to do the mitzva of tzedaka,
it behooves us to choose the ones that touch our hearts and to support
them.
* a pseudonym
