My name is Tobey Finkelstein. I am a ten-year veteran of the Jewish non-profit world, as well as a former e-commerce marketing and diamond inventory management professional. My goal is to help organizations who are willing to take risks and try new things meet their development goals with the best digital fundraising tools for them (not always the best, but best for them – seriously, sometimes one platform may have severe flaws, but it’s still the best one for them for other reasons).
I have been working with non-profit crowdfunding since 2009. My first major organizational crowdfund was in 2012 with the Jewish Caring Network’s first Women’s 5K with a goal of $30,000 that raised $72,000. I began exploring further and became an early adopter in 2014 of the Charidy platform, raising $60,000 in 24 hours for Cheder Chabad of Baltimore (original goal of $40K met in 1.5 hours).
I worked with Charidy to create their first multi-organization campaign, and the first Jewish “giving day” with AJOP: http://www.millionforoutreach.com .- This online giving day pilot was held on 2/17/15 that serviced 19 organizations with a shared cause from around the world, meeting a joint fundraising total of $1.36 Million in just 24 hours. The organizations raised individually, anywhere from $20,000 to $215,000. Since then, I’ve helped organize other multi-million dollar joint crowdfunding days and have worked with Causematch.com on individual campaigns and to develop new high-yield tools for organizational crowdfunding.
$1M for Outreach Giving Day Exceeds Goal
My goal is to help organizations raise more money on less time and increase enthusiasm and support for their organizations through sophisticated crowdfunding. I, you, and the community want to see cause organizations out achieving your mission, not fundraising 40% of your time, on 40% of your revenue.
Crowdfunding platforms will offer advice on use of their platform, but they will not take the first step of evaluating your context – and letting you know whether there is another platform or structure that would better suit your needs. Perhaps it’s not a good idea for you yet. I am not limited to any platform. I try to help organizations avoid the pitfalls of lackluster crowdfunding campaigns and suit your campaign to your overall development plan. There is no one-size fits all campaign – and there is no one-size fits all platform. The way one organization ran its campaign successfully is not necessarily the right way for another. One organization’s highly organized campaign day call center can literally turn off the volunteers from another.
PLATFORMS:
-
- causematch
- charidy
- razoo.com
- crowdrise.com
- classy
- kickstarter
- kimbia
- jewcer
- youcaring
- gofundme
- tilt
- givebutter
- etc.
Understanding the features, models, and limitations of each platform are key to your success – AFTER looking at your existing development model, your community calendar, and the demography of your supporters.
I offer speaking, campaign strategy consulting, and platform assessment for non-profits. Please contact me via email, because I enjoy helping organizations do more on less time. It’s time we worked smarter with the amazing tools available to us.
<a href=”http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tobey-finkelstein/19/950/61″>
<img src=”https://static.licdn.com/scds/common/u/img/webpromo/btn_viewmy_160x33.png” width=”160″ height=”33″ border=”0″ alt=”View Tobey Finkelstein’s profile on LinkedIn”>
</a>
Crowdfunding for Nonprofits 
