October 2022
By Raimy Rubin
Reading Time: 10m
Over the last 17 years, MEOR has impacted the lives of over 30,000 students.
MEOR’s unique brand of Jewish leadership training, sophisticated text-based study, and experiential education programming highlight the importance of Jewish values, identity, and community. MEOR has quickly grown into a masterwork of Jewish engagement operating on 20 prominent college campuses across the country and beyond. See one MEOR campaign here
Added thousands of new donors
Increased matching gifts by 122%
Nearly doubled their avg. gift size
The Meor Map
Peer-To-Peer
The best way to reach our goal was to ask volunteers to raise $1,000. We asked every single volunteer to commit to $1,000. And we hit a target of 400 volunteers.
I told them to do their best to hit their fundraising goal. Some people raised $10,000. Some people raised $5,000. Some people raised $500. Some people raised $200.
For every $1,000 you want to raise online, enlist a Fundraising Ambassador. That’s the key to success.
Not everybody can give, but everybody can try and connect to someone who can.
Donor Retention
We always get new donors, and our retention is strong, probably 60 to 65% a year. If a student calls their uncle, and then that student doesn’t call their uncle next year, I will get somebody else to make that call.
Drive To Succeed
Each campus is motivated as a team. They don’t quit until their goals are met. As a national group, if we hit our goal, I’ll call the campuses that haven’t reached their own individual goals yet and say “It’s ok. As an organization, we did it.” Every time, they respond, “Are you kidding me? I’m not going to be the one that doesn’t get my goal!”
CauseMatch Technology and Coaching
MEOR took a huge step forward last year, and that was attributed to a lot of new things. The tech, the writing, the retargeting. Everything was much stronger.
We used Donor Rescue for the first time and recaptured abandoned donations. We were able to simply pick up the phone and say “I saw you left…” Donor Rescue played a key role in our campaign’s success.
Matching
We work hard on matchers. Those matched dollars are real. Every single one is documented. The matchers are proud to be able to inspire other donors to give to this campaign.
Authenticity/Urgency
During our first campaign, we were $20,000 away from our goal. It was an all-or-nothing campaign so the stakes were incredibly high. In the last 45 minutes, we got over 600 donors and easily surpassed our goal. People respond to real needs.
