The Client
Christians United for Israel (CUFI), founded by Pastor John Hagee, is the nation's leading Christian pro-Israel organization and is among the largest Christian grassroots organizations in the United States, spanning all fifty states and reaching millions with its message. CUFI's mission is to provide a national association through which every pro-Israel church, parachurch organization, ministry or individual in America can speak and act with one voice in support of Israel.

The Problem
CUFI has had the Pledge to Stand with Israel on their site as a successful email list building tactic since October 2008. On March 24th, 2009 the leadership of Christians United for Israel went to Washington, D.C. to hand-deliver The Israel Pledge to our newly elected leaders. In an effort to build on the current success of the pledge, a campaign was needed to capture more signers to the pledge to make the testimony to Congress as powerful as possible. The goal was to increase the pledge signers from 77,000 to 85,000 for the March 24th testimony.

How We Solved It
Members of Convio's Strategy Consulting and Campaign Management teams developed and executed the "Tell 5 Friends" campaign, which focused on one activity and one incentive to streamline the process and keep the focus on having as many people as possible sign the pledge prior to the testimony in Congress on March 24, 2009. CUFI used Convio Email Marketing, Ecards, and Rewards to promote "Tell 5 Friends." An email was sent to the existing email list (segmented by region as CUFI did not want to ship the book out of the U.S. ). The user was led to an eCard campaign that was linked to the Reward program, and then encouraged to send the eCard to as many friends and family as possible. Convio Rewards tracked when a current user had friends sign the Pledge to Stand with Israel. Once five of those individuals signed the pledge, the user would automatically qualify for the premium offer: a free copy of David Brog's (Executive Director of CUFI) book, Standing With Israel. As a follow-up, another email was sent within 5 days of the original email that led the constituent to a landing page that revealed their rewards balance. This encouraged those individuals to reach out to new eCard recipients or follow-up with people they originally sent it to, to request that they sign the pledge. Individuals that had already received their five points were directed to a survey to verify that a) they did want their premium gift and b) that the address CUFI had on file was accurate for mailing. New email list members that signed the pledge were immediately brought into the Welcome Series pathway targeted toward pledge signers.

The Outcome
The campaign resulted in CUFI bringing over 110,000 names (35,000 more than their goal) to Congress on March 24th, 2009 and has continued on since then to surpass over 165,000 pledge signers. The use of a premium that was mission-oriented and meaningful to the constituents was extremely effective in getting them to act. By using Rewards, CUFI was able to capitalize on the incentive by ensuring they got more names to present to Congress for the Pledge to Stand with Israel. This campaign also had a huge impact on website traffic and organic registration rates.

Convio products used: Advocacy, eCards, Email Marketing, Rewards