Download Report

Jewish Voice for Peace
Development Program
Evaluation
Spring 2015
There’s a lot to say about
Jewish Voice for Peace’s
unique fundraising program,
but here’s the bottom line:
our financial position is
excellent.
From any vantage point—
by percentage or absolute
numbers; by total income,
total gifts, or total donors—
our growth in 2014 was
unprecedented. And our
public profile, degree of
member engagement, and
relationships with donors and
stakeholders have never been
stronger.
Most importantly, our growth
is intimately connected with
our growing political power
and impact.
Overview
Our powerful, principled, and highly visible
response to Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza
attracted thousands of new donors and hundreds
of thousands of dollars to JVP. 22% of those new
donors have already renewed their giving after
the summer. This illustrates that many will be
with us for the long haul, and also the challenge
before us: securing the ongoing commitment of
those initially motivated by a unique emergency.
However, not every group working on this issue
experienced that same kind of growth this
summer. Our decade’s long commitments to
raising money from a broad base of individuals,
articulating this conflict in the context of
universal values, and to bold organizing
and communications programs, provided
the foundation for the rapid growth we are
experiencing now.
This growth has also had a profound impact
on our capacity. Drawing from lessons learned
after Operation Cast Lead, we have been able
to project future revenue with confidence
and greatly increase our staffing levels and
programmatic funding, which in turn is increasing
our output, visibility, and capacity to raise more
sustainable funds.
02
S
L
A
O
G
T
N
E
M
P
O
L
E
DEV
Yet we remain a small organization relative to the size of our opponents and the scale of change
we seek. Our remarkably committed staff still works long hours and we still have to turn down
opportunities more often than we’d like.
In the year ahead our development goals are to:
1. Establish lasting relationships with this new
cohort of donors.
2. Leverage JVP’s growing visibility and
respect into continued balanced growth
amongst both high and lower capacity
donors.
3. Efficiently expand our technology and
communication infrastructure, to manage
this new volume of donations and donor
relationships.
03
2014 Fundraising Overview:
In 2014, JVP raised $2.06 million dollars from nearly 10,000 donors.
04
• Our total number of gifts grew by 91%, total number of unique donors grew 86%, and our
total income rose 72%.
• Our donor pyramid is healthy, with 45% of our income coming donations under $1,000,
and no single donor contributing more than 8% of our income.
• This increased capacity has been swiftly and efficiently translated into increased
organizational capacity and power. We hired 9 new staff in 2014 who are supporting
twice the chapters, new academic and artist councils,greater media visibility, consistent
high-level design, standard security practices, and a higher degree of leadership
development than at any time in our history.
This growth mirrors growing political capacity, represented here by the growth in our
numbers of active chapters and total online supporters:
05
JVP’s Major Donor Program
JVP’s Major Donor program is a cornerstone of our Fundraising Program. In 2014 our Major
Donor cohort grew to over 450 donors, each of whom gave between $500 and $175,000.
JVP FUNDRAISING VALUES
Jewish Voice for Peace relies on a broad community of donor-activists to sustain our work.
We see the sharing of financial resources as an important political act itself. In addition to
money, our donors share their personal experiences, political insights, labor, community
relationships and creativity within JVP. We seek longterm, honest, and engaged relationships
through which we can both realize our visions of justice and equality for all.
06
• For 93 of these major donors, 2014 was the
first year they gave a gift of any size to JVP.
These supporters contributed $111,943.
258 donors giving between $500 - $999 in
2014 (total giving in this segment grew by
$94,000).
• The number of donors giving at least $10,000 • Cultivation and stewardship of these donors is
doubled, and their total giving climbed to
also growing exponentially. Our major donor
nearly $600,000.
team grew from 32 to 53 people this year –
including 100% board and staff participation,
• The base of our major donor pyramid
as well as 11 solicitors who are themselves
expanded dramatically, growing from 156 to
major donors.
JVP’s Core Fundraising
Principles Include:
• Building a broad, diverse, committed
donor community.
• Amplifying the power of each individual
gift through a strong and efficient
infrastructure.
07
• Informing our donors fully and honestly of
JVP’s successes and challenges.
• Respecting donor privacy.
• Adhering to all applicable laws and best
practices in our financial administration
and reporting.
Building A Broad Base
We are equally committed to ongoing, multi-channel, two-way communication and
relationship-building with the 9,000+ donors who are responsible for the other half.
This huge and growing cohort includes some of our most loyal donors, future major
donors, chapter leaders and allies. Crucially, this cohort includes over 5,000 first time
donors to JVP.
5,500
Made their first gift to JVP in 2014—as many as our total number of
donors in 2013.
1,300
Of those first time donors gave at least $100 as their first gift.
3,300
Donors made their first gift during the attack on Gaza—as many as the
total number of contributors to JVP as recently as 2012.
New Staff Positions in Development:
Academic Advisory Council Coordinator
Artist Council Coordinator
Chicago Organizer
Director of Operations
Local Organizer (Location TBA)
08
Membership Coordinator
Project Manager
Rabbinic Council Coordinator
Social Media/Website Coordinator
Southern Regional Organizer
Chai Club
Last year we re-invested in our monthly donor program. These donors, who give
between $5 and $1,000 each month, provide stability and commitment, while making
higher levels of total giving accessible to more JVP donors.
• In the last 18 months, our total number • Monthly income from these donors
increased 90% from December 2013
of monthly donors has grown from 131
to December 2014.
to 597.
09
Impact on Work, Comparison to Field
JVP is in excellent financial health, and our growth is dramatic when compared to our
recent past. But we remain much smaller than other key organizations in the field, and must
continue to grow to meet the potential of our work.
While JVP is the largest
US-based organization to
approach US policy toward
Israel and Palestine from a
rights-based framework, we
are much smaller than the
JStreet, the ADL, or AIPAC:
Looking beyond this movement, JVP is also smaller than many similarly situated
organizations in parallel movements:
10
Most significantly, JVP remains too small to meet the immediate demand from members,
supporters, and allies for campaign opportunities, analysis, and leadership development.
To address that demand, we anticipate adding another 10 staff to our team over the next 18
months.
The goal for this round of build-out is to put the front-line organizers in place required to
meet the capacity and interest of our active members over the next two years. We will also
continue to invest in the operations and administrative systems required to maintain our
ability to leverage the greatest potential of everyone involved in JVP.
Conclusion
Since the last NMM, JVP’s growth
has outpaced even the most ambitious
expectations. Despite worsening conditions
in Israel and Palestine, the outlook is still
very good. The movement as a whole has
grown faster than many of us imagined.
Public opinion in the US is shifting, and
polls suggest an increasing number of
Democrats and millennials are strongly
aligned with many of the positions and
principles JVP holds dear. This bodes well
for the growth of the movement, and the
growth of JVP in particular.
Thus far, we have leveraged our growth to
achieve greater political impact, and taken
appropriate programmatic and
11
operational steps to ensure that this stage
becomes a baseline for future growth, not
a temporary peak.
As we strategize and implement the next
stages of our organizing, communications,
and development work—in this fastchanging political environment—we
are more grateful than ever for the
commitment and wisdom each of you
share.
All that we have achieved, we have
achieved together.