January 13, 2016 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Complex humanitarian crises like the Ebola outbreak or the Syrian refugee crisis tend to get less media attention and financial support than natural disasters like earthquakes, according to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. That poses a challenge to nonprofits that raise awareness and money for emergencies that unfold slowly and have many layers.
The complicated geopolitical situation in Ukraine made it difficult for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to raise money to help more than 70,000 Jewish Ukrainians affected by recent unrest and economic trouble in the region.
“If you try to go under the surface to understand it, the complexity can be overwhelming,” says Eliot Goldstein, chief fundraiser for JDC.
So the nonprofit took a creative approach. It drew on its 20 years of experience in the region to educate donors, used matching gifts, contacted lapsed donors, and created a new fundraising program. The result: $10 million for its constituents in Ukraine. Here’s how.
Educating Donors
JDC has worked in Ukraine for two decades and maintains a presence in more than 1,000 locations in the country — facts the nonprofit emphasized during its fundraising efforts. Mr. Goldstein says that donors seemed to appreciate the nonprofit’s depth of knowledge and the fact that it wasn’t just “parachuting in” to an unfamiliar situation.
To raise awareness about the crisis, the nonprofit produced videos to show at board and donor meetings and to share via social media. It created an online “Ukraine Emergency Dashboard,” updated frequently with information from the field, that has a donation button. And it enlisted staff members and displaced Ukrainians to explain the situation at U.S. synagogues, foundation meetings, and other venues.
Mr. Goldstein believes that some donors were moved to help by realizing that their own displaced ancestors might have benefited from aid during World War II.
“The painful humanitarian situation, that’s what spoke to people,” Mr. Goldstein says. “[L]osing your home and your possessions… I think you can imagine yourself in that.”
Encouraging Matching Gifts
When one of the JDC’s major donors expressed a desire to help Ukrainians, the nonprofit suggested creating two matching-gift campaigns: If the JDC succeeded in raising two sets of $2 million from other individuals, the donor would make two donations of $1 million. To encourage donors to stretch their gifts, the matching campaign contribution minimum was set at $10,000. Both campaigns were successful.
Contacting Lapsed Donors
The nonprofit compiled a list of people who had previously donated to its projects in Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, as well as those who had taken trips through the nonprofit to those regions, and sent special solicitations to them reminding them of their experiences. Many people responded and made special one-time gifts, and some also made renewal grants later in the year.
“The personalized outreach helped a lot,” Mr. Goldstein says. “People wanted to connect, but they wouldn’t have necessarily been proactive.”
Starting a New, Personalized Campaign
Realizing that donors like to feel personally connected to the people their dollars support, a board member had the idea to create an “Emergency Relief Box” campaign. Donors who sent $4,000 would have a box of emergency supplies sent to a family in the Ukraine conflict zone in their names or in the names of other people they wanted to honor. Donors later would receive a personalized photo of a box being delivered. The nonprofit approved the plan, and the board member sent an appeal to hundreds of people in his personal network.
The campaign raised nearly $700,000 from new donors in nearly 10 countries. Some people donated money in multiples of $4,000 in order to send multiple boxes.
Key Learnings
This experience taught the JDC “how to convert a crisis into an opportunity” by drawing on its long history of work and also testing new ideas, Mr. Goldstein says. He believes the thoroughness of JDC’s campaign instilled confidence in donors.
“I think with other disasters, people wonder what their impact is,” he says. “Here we could show direct impact.”
