09/25/2019
Federation Raises $1,089,684 on Super Sunday
- Share This Story
Article reprinted with permission from Cleveland Jewish News.
By Skylar Dubelko
Jordan Berkowitz gives his daughter, Gavriella, 6, a high five after she receives a donation. They live in University Heights. CJN Photo / Bob Jacob
Nearly 1,000 volunteers made telephone calls for 10 hours on Sept. 22 for the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Campaign for Jewish Needs’ Super Sunday.
With the help of about 1,400 donors, $1,089,684 was raised.
While most donors are from the Jewish community, there are a number of non-Jewish donors as well, according to Jeff Wild, chair of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s 2020 Campaign for Jewish Needs.
“They see the work that we’re supporting, elsewhere, inside the city of Cleveland itself, through work that JFSA (Jewish Family Service Association) does and so many of our other agencies,” Wild said. “So there are people from outside that want to contribute to that once they see the impact that we’re having on the entire northeast Ohio community. But a vast majority of our donors are from the Jewish community.”
Twenty-two years ago, Wild and his wife, Danielle, moved to Cleveland and they have been involved in the Cleveland Jewish community since.
“We started to get involved in the Federation because we realized there was only one organization that’s focused on the entirety of Jewish Cleveland and on making sure everyone has a voice and everyones needs are being met,” Jeff Wild said.
He was instantly hooked.
Danielle Wild, Federation Women’s Philanthropy chair, said her relationship with the Federation dates back even farther.
“I grew up in a family that was always involved with the Federation,” she explained. “The fact that my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my parents were all involved in the Federation, and donors, and created a vibrant and vital community that I could come back to, to me, spoke volumes and I wanted to get involved and do that so we’ll have a strong Jewish communiy for our kids in the future.”
Many volunteers and donors who made and answered those calls on Sept. 22 have wide-ranging ties to the Federation and to the Cleveland Jewish community.
But not all of the money raised that day was through the phone.
“We’re also doing what we call, ‘face-to-face solicitation,’ so we’re sitting with people that come into the building that want to be talked to,” Jeff Wild said, sitting opposite folks and thanking them and asking them for gifts to the 2020 campaign.
The giveathon is the largest single-day fundraiser for the Federation’s campaign, which is an annual fundraising initiative that raises money for local, national and international Jewish needs. The Campaign for Jewish Needs concludes Dec. 11.
The Cleveland Jewish News was a sponsor of Super Sunday.
Super Sunday totals
The amount raised on Super Sunday in recent years:
2019: $1,089,684
2018: $1,083,340
2017: $1,119,103
2016: $1,097,191
2015: $1,065,621
2014: $1,053,430
2013: $1,016,875
