Friends of the Israel Defense Forces
Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) is a non-political, non-military 501(c)(3) organization that supports Israeli soldiers on the front lines and behind the scenes. With 24 regional offices and thousands of supporters, FIDF is able to offer varied opportunities, ranging from rehabilitation programs for wounded soldiers to college scholarships for low-income veterans. FIDF is the sole organization authorized to represent the Israel Defense Forces across the United States and Panama.
Deliverables
On a client team of four marketing professionals, I wear the copywriter hat. Together, we produce year-round fundraising campaigns, engaging FIDF supporters from every donation tier through:
Digital fundraising
Email marketing
Paid social media
Direct mail
Data and analysis
Challenge and Solution
Our team needed to create a balanced strategy, one that engaged supporters without over asking for donations.
With a digital-first approach, we have spearheaded a series of fundraising campaigns, from ideation to implementation, to support soldiers navigating old and new threats. Leveraging a varied stream of content — soldier videos, news briefings with military personnel and daring stories — our tactics have strengthened the narrative and humanized fundraising efforts. By regularly testing and reviewing analytics, we continue to pinpoint messages, subject lines and visuals that resonate with FIDF supporters, enabling campaign optimization.
Results
Data-driven efforts produced these breakthrough results in 2021, when COVID-19 stripped away in-person galas and Israel mission trips, primary sources of revenue for FIDF.
Produced four incremental campaigns, raising more than $9.5 million.
During an emergency fundraising campaign, we raised $253,718 in a single day, the highest influx of FIDF donations in 24 hours. That record was broken on Giving Tuesday, when we raised $302,820.
During an emergency fundraising campaign, we raised $5.5 million over 11 days.
Generated 7,721 new supporters.
Reached more than 1.5 million people with original digital content.
Doubled email open rates up to 41%, far surpassing the industry standard of 20%.
