Create an Engaging Title

Your title is most likely the first thing people see when coming to your campaign. It will also be the title of the post when you or your donors share your campaign on social media. Be sure to create a title that makes it clear what you are raising money for and at the same time speaks of the effect your success will have. Visitors will connect with the cause and spend more time learning about your campaign. Here are some great examples:
Example 1: Help Holocaust Survivors Live a Longer, Healthier Life — and Show Them We Care!
Example 2: Help 10-month-old Nastia beat cancer…and save her life!

Offer 5-10 Contribution Levels

Think of your contribution levels as ways to to give people an opportunity to be part of your cause. You don’t need to promise gifts or physical rewards, but you do want to show your appreciation and how their gift will impact your cause. We recommend you start at $10 or $18 (not higher), and have multiple increments up to $100. Give people the opportunity to join you at whatever level they feel comfortable, but don’t be shy about offering one or two “white knight” levels, in case someone close to you or close to the cause is feeling generous (just don’t count on donations at these levels to meet your goal).

Make a Trustworthy Profile

The first people who will donate to your campaign will be your friends, family and others who know you and your cause. However, if you want to grow your circle of donors and find new ones, your profile needs to inspire trust and make visitors comfortable donating to a “stranger.” Make sure your profile description is not too long (we recommend under 100 words), but includes reasons that reinforce your credibility on and passion for this issue. also, people don’t give to logos, they give to other people, so use a profile picture that shows the people behind the cause and offer a few ways to connect with you.

Make a Visually Appealing Campaign Page

You want people who visit your campaign page to spend some time getting to know your cause (and the people behind it) as they consider supporting it. We recommend you spend some considerable time making your campaign description look appealing and easy to read by creating sections (using headings) and adding images that reinforce your message in between the text. If you need some help, we have a tutorial on how to include images in your text .
Example 1: Help Holocaust Survivors Live a Longer, Healthier Life — and Show Them We Care!
Example 2: Proudly support Israel and fight the BDS movement with the ibox

Use a Pitch Video

Campaigns with a video pitch raise more than double the amount campaigns without a pitch video do. Video is more engaging and that means your visitors will spend more time on your campaign, understand your cause better and connect with you more. Creating a pitch video might feel like a daunting task, which is why we created this easy-to-follow tutorial .

Your Campaign Description Should Answer these Questions

Your campaign page—and the description in particular—should be very clear about the following questions:

– What are you raising money for?
– Why is the money needed and why it is needed now?
– How the funds will be used (timeline and plan are important)?
– Who is running the campaign and why should they be trusted?

Many successful campaigns break the description into sections such that these questions are answered directly or indirectly.

Offer Ways to Learn More about You and Your Cause

When reaching beyond your inner circle, you are essentially looking to convince “strangers” that they should give you money. Your profile is a great way give them some reassurance (as mentioned in the Profile section above). You can also give them additional ways to connect with and/or learn about your cause. Are others talking about and endorsing your efforts? This is great “social proof” that others believe in you, and boosts your credibility. If you have any online press coverage (articles, blogs, etc.), include them in your campaign page. That said, make sure you are not sending people out of your campaign page with too many external links. Try your best to include all the information needed on your page so that the next action people take is to support your cause.

Choose a Reasonable Goal Amount

Choosing the right goal amount for your campaign is not a simple task. We urge you to consider three pieces of advice:

1. Use our goal amount calculator  to get a sense of what is reasonable to expect considering your resources (network, team size and time commitment).

2. Make sure your goal amount is strongly tied to what you want to raise the money for. In other words, make sure it is clear what you need that exact amount of money for, and that the amount you are asking for makes sense for that cause.

3. When in doubt, GO FOR LESS! Looking like you’re not likely to meet your goal reads like a vote of no confidence, and makes new potential donors dubious of your ability to reach the goal and make the impact you want. On the other hand, quickly reaching and then exceeding your goal makes you look like other people believe in you, and that you’re more than up to the task.

NOTE: You can always have “stretch goals” ready, and when you are about to reach your (reasonable, attainable) goal, you can announce what you’ll do if you reach the next milestone (another $5000 or whatever the next attainable goal might be).

Make Sure You Know (and Use) the Right Campaign Link

Before you tell people about your campaign, check (and double-check) that you are sharing the right link to your campaign page. The link will look like: www.jewcer.org/project/______ — where the ending is determined by what you set when you create the campaign. If you are not certain what the link is, please contact us at help@jewcer.com and we would be happy to test it for you.

Prepare Your Launch List

The way you start your campaign (once it is “live”) will, in most cases, determine your success. All of the successful campaigns on Jewcer (and typically on other platforms) use a “Launch List” and avoid using social media or email blasts until they gain some considerable momentum. You can read about the Launch List Method here , but in summary, make a list of people that you know personally and feel they would be supportive of your cause. Then, when you launch, in a very short period of time (1-3 days) contact each one individually, directly and in a personal way to get as many of them to support your campaign. You should keep doing this until you reached at least 50 donors (100 if you want to raise more than $10,000) and raised 1/5 (20%) of your goal amount.