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What does it take to raise $3,000, $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 or above?

We are often asked “How does it work?” and “What does it take to raise X dollars?” (replace X with various amounts, we have heard them all).

In general, regardless of your cause, the process is:

Create your campaign page
Launch your campaign page and reach out to close friends and family
Expand the circles and get people to share to their circles
As you show more and more success, your page is shown to more people on our platform and possibly featured on our homepage and through our newsletter and social media.

Every campaign goes through this process whether you raise $1,000 or $100,000 and above.

So what makes one campaign raise more than another campaign? Why some campaigns raise over $100,000 while others below $5,000?

Inexperienced people (with regards to crowdfunding) think it has to do with the idea, but our experience shows that, yes, the idea (or cause) matters, but what matters more are:

Telling a clear story
Good media (images and a video pitch) that connects well with the story
Making the campaign about giving people an opportunity to be part of something (rather than donating to something)
Preparing your “launch list” (people whom you will contact when you launch, read more here)
Having a well established audience
Being ready to spend the time it takes to engage with people (crowdfunding takes time).

Notice that none of these have to do with the idea itself and more about the people that run the campaign.

A few numbers to keep in mind:

On average, 1/5 to a 1/4 of the goal comes from close friends and family through direct communication and in most successful campaigns, it happens in the first 7-10 days of your campaign.
On average, the amount of time needed is equivalent to between $100 to $300 per hour. In other words, if you want to raise $10,000, expect to spend between 33 and 100 hours throughout your campaign.

These two “rules of thumb” can give you a good idea if you have the resources it takes to raise the amount you want. If you don’t, you can lower your goal or seek out more resources (maybe add people on your team to have more time and have greater list of friends and family, for example).

Raising up to $5,000

We see extremely high percentage of success for projects that aim to raise $5,000 and below when using our guidance.

You can do it on your own (a team helps, but not necessary).
It would help if you have a video pitch, but it is not required.
Your success will depend mostly on your “launch list”. The list should have at least 100 people long and you must plan ahead your schedule to communicate (directly) with each one of them.
It helps if you have an active social media network but you do not have to have a facebook page (with followers). It is helpful to know how to use social media in general though we have seen several campaigns of this magnitude who used only email.
You (and your team) would probably spend approximately 50 hours on the campaign (including building the page and running the campaign itself). This number will go up or down depending on the size of network you have to start with.
Campaigns are recommend to be 30 or 45 days long depending on how well you are prepared and how much time you can spend per week.

Roughly 50% of the contributions would come from people that you know directly and the rest from their immediate network and the Jewcer community in general.

Raising $5,000 – $10,000

If you are looking to raise more than $5,000, you need more of “everything” that is mentioned above.

It is very helpful to have a team of 2-3 people running the campaign and sharing the tasks.
Your launch list should be larger and we recommend it to be between 200 to 250 (plan accordingly time wise to contact them all once you launch).
At these contribution levels, it would help you to have a video to better tell the story of your cause and also to make a more personal connection with the viewers (many might not be people that know you personally).
You must know how to use social media and it would help if you already have a facebook fanpage with an active audience. The more fans you have, the easier it would be for you to raise the funds.
Your images must look good and in the correct size and the video pitch should follow our guidelines (see here).
You (and your team) would probably spend approximately 100 hours on the campaign (including building the page and running the campaign itself). This approximation will go up or down depending on the size of network you have to start with and the actual goal amount.
We recommend that you run a 45 day campaign and spend the first 15 days in “soft launch” mode (see here) and then the other 30 days on public outreach.
You should expect between 20% to 40% of your contributions to come from your immediate network. This should also guide you in setting the goal (higher or lower).

Raising $10,000 – $25,000

When you are looking to raise over $10,000, you cannot leave matters to chance. You need to read and understand the strategy we suggest for you (mainly the launch list method) and you really do not have much room for error:

You need a well prepared campaign and a dedicated group of people. It can be done by a single person, but we recommend a small group (2-3 people) or at least a few people that are eager to help in advance.
We rarely see any campaigns that raise this much without great media which includes a video pitch and images who were prepared by a person that understands about image editing (to get the sizes right and the message across).
Your launch list should be with at least 300 names on it of people that know you personally (or someone on the team).
At this level you will need community “influencers” to share your campaign (at the right time). You can and should prepare a list of influencers in advance of your launch (read more about that here).
You should expect approximately 25% of your contributions to come from people that you know personally.
Most campaigns that raise this much, reach 30%-40% of their goal within the first 10 days of their campaign. This means you should plan accordingly to the massive personal outreach at the start of the campaign.
You (and your team) would probably spend approximately 200 hours on the campaign (including building the page and running the campaign itself). This approximation will go up or down depending on the size of network you have to start with and the actual goal amount.
We recommend that you run a 45 day campaign and spend the first 15 days in “soft launch” mode (see here) and then the other 30 days on public outreach.

Raising $25,000 and above

If you read all the sections above, you can imagine that raising more than $25,000 requires dedication and a large audience that is already “listening” to you. If you need or plan to raise more than $25,000, please read all the sections above and email us at help@jewcer.com with any questions you might have.

The Jewcer Goal Amount Calculator

We created a calculator that can give you a rough estimate of how much money you can raise, based on all the parameters mentioned above. You can find the calculator here.