December 2022
By Raimy Rubin
Reading Time: 10m
Camp Moshava Wild Rose sits on 242 acres of expansive grounds and private lakes in Wisconsin. What makes Moshava Wild Rose unique is the “homey” atmosphere staff and campers experience each summer. Campers enjoy many activities while at camp, including swimming, basketball, tennis, baseball, soccer, hockey, arts & crafts, rock climbing, gardening, nature, biking, and cooking & baking. Campers also enjoy the educational emphasis on Jewish traditions, a very spiritual Shabbat environment, and lots of singing and dancing throughout the summer.
Camp is a place for serious silliness. It’s a place where children (and often adults) let loose and embrace life. Wild Rose brought that energy and spirit to their crowdfunding campaign, utilizing their fundraiser as a venue for campers young and old to share memories, revive old rivalries, and fall in love with camp all over again.
They channeled that love and nostalgia into their peer-to-peer campaign. They tapped into Ambassadors that wouldn’t have otherwise committed to fundraising goals, which led to donors, who wouldn’t have otherwise donated at all.
Peer-To-Peer Is Fun
I went to Wild Rose as a camper, and my cohort has a WhatsApp group. One of our board members is in it as well. Somebody challenged him to dye his hair red in exchange for a $250 donation. Someone else matched the offer. Another person offered $50. In no time at all, we raised lots of money just from a spontaneous challenge.
Fundraising Ambassadors Cohesion
It was amazing. We had this other WhatsApp group full of Fundraising Ambassadors. There were people my age, older, younger. Even my daughter was in it. There were memories and pictures. People kept on challenging one another, “if you do this, then I’ll do this.” “If you call this one, I’ll call that one.” I couldn’t keep up with the donations.
Trust The Process
Toward the end of the campaign, the board was getting nervous because we hadn’t hit our goal yet. I said to them, “Just wait, we’ll get there.” They wanted me to put in extra reserve money, but I wanted to wait.
I was getting so much pressure from them that I decided to take a break for an hour. I came back, and in exactly the one hour that I stepped away, we raised the money without any reserves or games. We even had a bonus round. It was incredible.
Creative Communities
We have this event every summer called Fantasy Camp. A bunch of alumni men go to camp for two days and play basketball and barbecue and drive around in golf carts.
In the past, we asked this group for donations, but we changed the ask for this campaign. We told each person who went to Fantasy Camp that they had to raise at least $1800. We told them to use the platform and this campaign to fundraise. This group raised a tremendous amount of money. They went to their cousins and their uncles, people that never would have otherwise given. The Ambassador system worked, that’s for sure.
The CauseMatch Playbook
The Fundraising Ambassador program was a big reason why we chose the platform. But we were also looking for a media kit. We wanted something that told us what to write in the first email, the second email, etc. We wanted WhatsApp templates and social media posts.
We needed structure around the communications. Once we came up with the theme of Grow the Rose, it all came together. It was incredibly helpful and very much part of what we were looking for. I’m glad that we came up with it.
Countdown To Meet The Match
The time crunch is exhausting to a board and to a committee, but it’s very important for the matching element. There is a huge value to that aspect of it. Seeing your match makes you feel so much better. The fact that you’re seeing your gift amplified gives donors that extra motivation to do it now.
Building A Framework For Ambassadors
We stand to succeed because of our alumni. The more engaged the alumni are, the more they want to give back. Those WhatsApp groups were how we raised the money so quickly. That was the key to our success.
A Winning Team
We’re a success story. When I took the position, our numbers were probably between 180 and 200 campers. Last summer we had 345. Donors know that we are growing and that, when they donate, they are helping to rebuild the camp.
CauseMatch Coaching
You – CauseMatch – know what you are doing. You understand the colors and the images. It’s very exciting to be a part of a campaign. They work so well. It’s great to have events, but they cost you so much time and money, and a lot of people just don’t want to go. They don’t want Zoom. They don’t want to leave their house. They want to participate in an online campaign.
Here’s what happens when camps bring the summer attitude and culture to their peer-to-peer campaigns
