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Hillel Set New Records and Raised $5.5M in Four Days During its Annual Global Giving Week

Mission

To enrich the lives of Jewish students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world

Challenge

Activate fundraisers to support Jewish college students on campuses across the United States and Canada

Solution

With Classy’s peer-to-peer fundraising technology and dedicated support, fundraisers raised $5.5 million during Global Giving Week and grew revenue by 27% year-over-year

“We really felt that peer-to-peer was a window that opened up a whole new avenue of participation and fundraising possibilities for each Hillel chapter. We are so grateful to have Classy to support our technology needs and help us achieve our fundraising goals.”

– Rachael Fenton, Senior Director of Advancement Field Services

 

Hillel Global Giving Week results:

$5.5 million

raised in four days

27%

average growth per campus year over year

170

college campuses

Empowering fundraisers with Classy’s peer-to-peer technology and expertise

Hillel International joined the Classy from GoFundMe community in part for its powerful peer-to-peer fundraising tools and seamless user experience. One of the team’s top priorities was making it as easy and user-friendly as possible for supporters to fundraise on behalf of the campus Hillels they love during Hillel Global Giving Week, which brings together boards, student groups, alumni, and the broader Jewish community to raise money for campus Hillels on college campuses across the United States and Canada.

During 2024’s Hillel Global Giving Week, campuses saw 27% growth year over year, and all campuses combined to raise a record-setting $5.5 million in just four days

To help 170 campus Hillels prepare for Hillel Global Giving Week, the Hillel International team created a pre-filled template that could be duplicated and customized for each campus. Then, Classy experts hosted what has been fondly called “Classy 101,” a recorded training session that gave campus Hillel staff and fundraisers a full tour of the platform’s capabilities and taught them how to design a personalized fundraising page that reflected the spirit of each campus Hillel chapter. After that, it was up to the individual campus Hillel chapters to take action and start fundraising.

Hillels that have decided that they really want to fundraise ambitiously have found it easy to understand and utilize Classy and its peer-to-peer fundraising capabilities. Those are the Hillels that have seen the most growth in their campaigns.

Rachael Fenton

Senior Director of Advancement Field Services

A Hillel Global Giving Week peer-to-peer fundraiser

Growing direct giving with fundraising intelligence tools

In 2025, the Hillel International team is diving into Classy’s newer functionality. They’ve started testing Classy Studio (with positive results!) and Intelligent Ask Amounts to convert donors more efficiently, which has already eased the team’s workload and increased donor conversion.

One other area the team wants to optimize is recurring giving. In 2025, the team is launching a two-week-long monthly giving campaign to acquire new recurring donors to grow their monthly giving community, called Hillel Heroes. The team is planning to use Classy Studio and impact tiles to indicate specific giving levels and their respective impact. Since starting with Classy, the team has already seen incredible growth—over the past two years, its monthly giving community has grown 10x—which it hopes to continue.

I felt incredibly confident, having Classy as our fundraising platform, to manage the high gift volume we’ve seen over the past year and as we look to continue growing in the years ahead.

Alexie Lundeen

Senior Director, Philanthropic Planning and Services

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