News Flash: Downloading the Angry Birds app isn’t charity

I am Jewish and philanthropic and like to think of myself as at least nominally in the loop on the big organizations doing good work around the world. But I had never heard of American Jewish World Service (AJWS) until I clicked on a link passed along by a friend and watched a hilarious video.

Watch it to understand the title of this post:

I watched it, made my first ever contribution to AJWS, and passed along the video to more or less everyone I know. Assuming I’m not the only person who did that: success!  Go AJWS!

AJWS isn’t a client, but I wish they were (hint, hint… to anyone reading who knows somebody over there).  I was impressed by the video, the chutzpah it evidenced on the part of AJWS leadership, and the willingness to try something new and interesting and decidedly different.

In the weeks since I contributed, I’ve received several emails from AJWS and a snail mail acknowledgment of my contribution.  This follow up communication from AJWS reminded me of a key challenge facing organizations trying something new: it’s tough to make it comprehensive and coherent.

So, with nothing but love and admiration for AJWS,  three things I wish they’d done better with the cool video:

1. Make the follow up match the outreach.

The video is funny, clever, and tongue-in-cheek while staying focused on the good works AJWS does around the world.  It doesn’t take itself too seriously but is dead serious about the need and the impact.  The follow up I received is purely serious and fairly standard.  No trace of the organizational personality I met in the video remains.  Since I was inspired by that personality, I really missed it in what came after.

2. On-ramp to the rest of the organization.

When I gave, I opted in to several AJWS newsletters.  It turns out one of them was a weekly (I think) Torah portion email.  I don’t remember clearly how it was described or why I signed up for it, but when the first one came I was a little pressed to make the connection back to AJWS.

Beyond the personality schism (Torah study is clearly removed from cheeky celebrity commentary on Jewish culture), I needed a primer about why AJWS would send it.  How is Torah study related to Jewish good works around the world? Why does it make sense for me to get that information from AJWS? And… what would AJWS like me to do with it?  A bit of on-ramping for newbies like me who were brought into the fold by the new and interesting outreach wouldn’t go awry.

3. Ask me for something else.

The video inspired me to give money to AJWS and share the laugh-out-loud video with my network.  In writing this post I visited the AJWS website again, and was reminded that they wanted me to take action on behalf of Haiti after watching the video.  I didn’t do that at the time, and I haven’t been asked to in any of the follow-up communication I received.  The video sucked me in – I wish AJWS had kept me sucked in by following up with ways for me to stay engaged.