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UPenn's Hillel saw unprecedented Donor Advised Fund support in their year-end campaign after implementing Chariot

Penn Hillel is a central destination at the University of Pennsylvania. Each year, Hillel reaches 85% of the Jewish students, with a wide variety of opportunities ranging from social justice to culture, and from religious offerings to Israel education.

  • 21

    unique gifts

  • $24,000

    raised

  • $1,150

    avg. size

I've been here for 35 years and while I've been aware of how much growth there's been in Donor Advised Funds in recent years, this year was the first time we really saw a surge
Bari EpsteinDirector of Institutional Advacement at Penn Hillel

No matter your Jewish background or knowledge, Penn Hillel is there to know every student by name and by story.

Every year the pressure is on in the last 2 months of the year for Bari Epstein and her fundraising team at Penn Hillel to exceed their full year fundraising goals. That’s a big reason they were so excited to implement Chariot and take advantage of the explosion in DAF accounts.

Fundraising success

In just one day of their campaign in November, the team received 9 DAF gifts digitally for over $12,000 through Chariot’s 3-click DAFpay solution - making up 14% of their total fundraise.

In the following month, they raised another $12,000 from 12 more gifts with Chariot. Across all 21 gifts, the average size was $1,150 - that’s almost 6x the average credit gift online (according to the Blackbaud Institute’s report)

Communication channels

Latasha Carrington, Assistant Director of Business Services, who handles all of the organization’s fundraising communications and gift processing, credits the success of their campaign to how they prominently featured the easy DAFpay capabilities.

She noted “we put a clear button on every one of our fundraising emails specifying that people could give with a Donor Advised Fund.”

Make your Giving gift

In just one day of their campaign in November, the team received 9 DAF gifts digital for over $12,000 through Chariot - making up 14% of their total fundraise.

Before Chariot

  • Difficulty identifying and contacting DAF donors
  • Limited, manual record keeping processess
  • No solicitation of DAF donations directly on website

After Chariot

  • Steward DAF donors with key contact information
  • Seamless, automatic DAF donation management
  • Solicit DAF donations at every donor touchpoint

Excited for DAF fundraising

The seamless digital experience for donors that Chariot’s solution offers is also a welcome improvement for their team. “Before we used Chariot, we had to follow up with donors or their Donor Advised Fund platform to get information about the gift or make sure it was actually sent,” added Bari. Those are touch points that no one wants to have with their donors, especially those making such large gifts.

“Now we’re actually excited to tell all of our donors for the rest of this campaign how easily they can use their DAFs - and get these gifts faster!”

Penn Hillel Members


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