Originally Posted on June 7, 2012 by ianmurray360
Most recent edit January 14, 2024
In 1988, I was entered in the 110 mile Canadian Ski Marathon, and felt that it would be a shame to ski so far and not for a cause, so I raised funds for the Israel Cancer Research Fund, in honour of a wonderful/selfless person. Nobody in the event was invited to raise funds for anything.
At the end of the event, I felt so good for having raised funds, I simply wanted as many people as possible to share the warmth. My goal was simply to create an army of fundraisers.
And thus began my 34–year odyssey, of having charities welcoming their supporters, to raise funds peer–to–peer, in any way imaginable, that took charities absolutely no time or money to organize.
In 1990, I had another related idea but for the athletic events themselves. In 2000, Ironman USA adopted my unique concept. They raised $US 47 million with it BUT the best news was https://aish.com/48900527/
The first concept was two over two decades ahead of its time, BUT in July, I learned through numerous polls in several large LinkedIn philanthropy groups, that 50 percent of charities were employing my concept.
The International Jewish Charity Challenge, once created, would serve as the standard for peer-to-peer fundraising internationally, for the entire charity sector.
Raise funds via a personal athletic challenge, honour someone you love, celebrate a birthday, bar mitzvah, wedding or new baby, graduating from university, and many more occasions!
We invite you to run, cycle or ski in any mass participation, self–propelled athletic event (not staged by a charity, for that charity) anywhere on earth, and raise funds for your favourite Jewish charity, just as if the events were staged by/for them.
Triathletes and others are of course welcome to raise $$ in any type of athletic event
Climb a mountain, cycle 160 km and return to your starting point the following day! Canoe the length of a river and raise $$. The opportunities to raise funds are only limited by our imaginations.
People jump into frozen lakes or have buckets of ice dumped upon their heads and raise funds. Men grow and shave their beards and mustaches in order to raise funds. Adults and children have shaved their heads in order to raise funds.
People climb the stairs of the highest structures that they can, in order to raise funds.
Use your imagination! There are a multitude of possibilities for fundraising where charities can all benefit from peer-to-peer fundraising.
Its simple!
Create your own Fundraising Page and designate your favourite Jewish charitable organization as the recipient of your sponsors’ donations.
Spread your fundraising page far and wide to your friends, business associates, family members, anyone, and ask them all to support your efforts by donating to your favourite cause. Follow up with them personally as that will always bring much better results.
Please ask your sponsors if the firm that they are employed by matches their donations!!!
Thank you and please encourage your friends and all that you know to join you in raising funds for the Jewish charity of their choice!
Why have a single website through which all “30,000” Jewish charities is the world can benefit?
The cost of having 30,000 individual websites is approximately $120 million!
The cost of a single highly professional website that all 30,000 Jewish charities in the world could link to, would hopefully only cost $10,000
The major benefit that I predict as a result of having the International Jewish Charity Challenge is that a larger % of Jewish donations would go to Jewish charities.
The personal benefit of peer to peer fundraising is psychological. A young friend of mine lost his wife to cancer when she was only 21. He joined me in the longest cross country ski event in the world and he raised $7036 in her memory.
Months later I was invited to his birthday party at a French restaurant in The Plateau. His father thanked me. I asked “For what?” His father told me that his son’s raising of $$ took his son out of a deep depression!
Jews are extraordinarily generous as a group. In spite of this disproportionate contribution to humanity, antisemitic attacks worldwide are through the roof. Our children are frightened by what they experience in universities throughout the free world.
ABOUT
There are “30,000” active Jewish charities in the world today.
The goal of this effort is to raise $300 million per year for Jewish charities in Israel, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, France, the United Kingdom and wherever Jews call home, via peer-to-peer fundraising.
PLEASE NOTE:
One web page could very easily be used by all participating charities to raise funds via The International Jewish Charity Challenge.
The page would specialize in peer to peer fundraising. The most successful vehicles for peer to peer fundraising would be promoted. The invitation to raise funds would be highly visible. THE main problems that I have seen is that the most successful fundraising efforts are not necessarily being promoted and peer to peer fundraising is relatively invisible upon many sites that promote my concept.
The goal in this effort is to have every Jewish charity promote the International Jewish Charity Challenge web page upon their own sites and invest as many of their supporters as possible, into raising funds peer to peer for their own organizations.
Peer–to–peer fundraising is a highly efficient method of raising funds, and especially when athletes piggyback upon existing self-propelled events to raise funds for their favorite cause.
My goal for the past 34 years has been to raise money as efficiently as possible, and in a manner that requires absolutely NO staff/charity volunteers or firms to stage fundraising events.
Respectfully submitted,
Murray Levine murlev@gmail.com
The Jewish Charity Challenge 