Crowdfunding Raised $34.4 Billion in 2015. How Simple Is It?

June 22, 2016

3 min read

A recent one-month-long crowdfunding campaign by Cause Match, an innovative new crowdfunding organization focusing on Jewish and Israel-based causes, exceeded all expectation when it raised over $2 million for eighteen of Israel’s most important humanitarian organizations, including Birthright Israel, Magen David Adom (MDA), and Israel365.

Over the past few years, crowdfunding, or the funding of a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people via the Internet, has exploded, becoming one of the most popular and effective ways to raise money. People create crowdfunding campaigns for everything from personal “I need a vacation” ploys to buying life-saving medical equipment. In 2015 alone, the industry raised globally $34.4 billion – nearly $4 billion  of which was raised for Israeli companies.  

With the abundance of worthwhile and perhaps less worthwhile causes asking for support, it may seem easy to set up a moneymaking crowdfunding campaign. However, that is a mistaken assumption, marketing experts say.

Shlomo Schreibman, Director of Business Development for Israel Media Network (Photo: Breaking Israel News)
Shlomo Schreibman, Director of Business Development for Israel Media Network (Photo: Breaking Israel News)

Shlomo Schreibman, Director of Business Development for Israel Media Network (IMN), told Breaking Israel News that successful crowdfunding campaigns require more than just a vision. “Creating a compelling crowdfunding campaign is not so simple,” he explained. “You need to test different images, messages and CTA’s (calls to action) in order to execute the best campaign and then choose the best platform to reach the target audience.”

For IMN, that audience is a unique market of Christians and Jews who are Holy Land and Bible lovers and believers as well as leaders in pro-Israel camps. IMN is known for creating compelling online campaigns and assisting clients to take existing campaigns to the next level of success.

IMN client Doug Hershey, who is the founder and CEO of Ezra Adventures, a company which creates customized tours and organized volunteer work in Israel, told Breaking Israel News, “My first crowdfunding experience was a tough one. I used a popular site that gave very little feedback or help, just simply a platform for 30 days. I barely raised 30 percent of my goal.”

Hershey, a devout Christian, was crowdfunding for a unique product, a book which documents through historic and present-day pictures Ezekiel’s Prophecies coming alive in the Holy Land. “On my second attempt, I realized how important it is to have an interactive and experienced team that could give feedback. I connected with Israel Media Network, which helped me find and touch my targeted market, gave some great insights and encouragement towards my goals. I reached my goal with 9 days to go and by the end, exceeded my goal by 30 percent. To me, having an experienced support team made all the difference.”

Cause Match founder Joseph Bornstein and Shlomo Schreibman have joined forces on several occasions to ensure that clients receive the best marketing guidance to reach their goals. “We have seen time and again that business owners, managers, and employees might be skilled in their trained positions but lack strategic planning capabilities to develop a crowdfunding campaign which reaches its goal,” noted Schreibman. “Organizations usually find that money invested in professional marketing is money well spent.”

For example, when Israeli search-and-rescue volunteer organization ZAKA realized that it was not going to meet its crowdfunding goal, David Rose, international director of ZAKA, which is a UN-recognized organization specializing in finding bodies and treating those injured in terror attacks and natural disasters, hired IMN to get their crowdfunding campaign on track.

“Our original goal was to raise $550,000 to purchase five uniquely equipped ZAKA ambulances,” Rose told Breaking Israel News. “With ZAKA consistently in the news for saving lives and honoring the dead in Israel and internationally, we assumed that we would easily raise the money. We were shocked to find that we were wrong.”

ZAKA’s “all or nothing” campaign was on the verge of bringing in nothing when IMN jumped in. “We advised them to change their promotional video and edited their written text for clarity and more compelling content,” said Schreibman. “Not only did ZAKA reach their original goal but they surpassed it by nearly double!”  

While grassroots crowdfunding campaigns can still work, crowdfunding, like marketing, is most compelling when expertly aimed at a target audience. The non-profit and for-profit organizations which have discovered this maxim have learned that investing in a strong campaign strategy is the surest way of optimizing online fundraising.

Share this article

Donate today to support Israel’s needy

$10

$25

$50

$100

$250

CUSTOM AMOUNT

Subscribe

Prophecy from the Bible is revealing itself as we speak. Israel365 News is the only media outlet reporting on it.

Sign up to our free daily newsletter today to get all the most important stories directly to your inbox. See how the latest updates in Jerusalem and the world are connected to the prophecies we read in the Bible. .