2. Registration Report
● 45 deposits paid as of 10/30/17
○ 27 lowerclassmen
○ 18 upperclassmen
● 61 registrations completed as of 10/30/17
○ 48 from Virginia Tech (with Roanoke College and Radford University)
○ 3 from James Madison
○ 1 from Slippery Rock
○ 1 from George Mason
4. Student
Spotlight:
Reuben Levin
● Reached out at the
very beginning of
semester
● Met me and other
students at second
day of tabling
● Participates in Corps
and came to
Shabbus!
7. Pre-Trip
Engagement
Friday, October 27th
Ice Breakers and Shabbus
Thursday, November 16th
Israel 101 with
StandWithUs and Trip
Duties
Tuesday, December 12th
General Info Session
featuring BICEP
8. Recruitment Best Practices
● Registration Pizza Party and
She-Sha Event
● Consistent tabling, especially
with other events
● Table cards at Shabbat
● Over 400 students contacted
directly via text, Facebook, etc.
9. Student
Spotlight:
Noah Solomon
● Grew up in
Blacksburg
● Recently transferred
from Kenyon College
● She-Sha was Noah’s
first event with Hillel
● Signed up for
Birthright on the
spot!
10. Recruitment Challenges
● Birthright alumni struggle to be
engaged
● No interest in sales team
● Students are extremely non-
committal.
● Tabling/room booking policies
created delays
● Finding engaging incentives
● Students already have a ‘Birthright
plan’
11. Sales ‘Team:’
Spencer Thrope
● ERF through Hillel
International
● ZOA Fellow, PNEI,
Hillel Board Member
● AEPi, Jewish
Heritage chair, Israel
Chair
● To date, has
recruited 9*
12. Next Semester’s Targets/Plan
● Greek life will be higher priority
● Sales Team will be built from students winter trip
● Book tables during November (or sooner), and have schedule in advance
● Invest more in social media, increase number of campaigns and diversify
● Use parents more to our advantage
● Ticket students as they’re approved
● Biggest highlight: VIRGINIA TECH’S FIRST EVER SUMMER TRIP!
13. Molly, Lauren,
and Lindsey
● All in Gamma Phi Beta
Sorority
● Molly and Lindsey are
two of our PNEI’s
● Worked with Lindsey
and Molly to complete
applications during
Birthright Kickoff Pizza
Party
● The three of us worked
together to help Lauren
14. Budget Breakdown
Events and Engagement: $3,200.14
Shabbus
She-Sha Event
Open Registration Pizza Party
Shakshuka/Hebrew Lesson
Kosha Dillz Sukkot Event
Pizza meetings at Roanoke and Radford
Don’t Mess with the Zohan Movie Night
Marketing Materials: $1,419.41
Hebrew Virginia Tech Stickers
Glass Cleaning Cloths
Hot as Hillel Mugs
To date, we have 44 deposits submitted. 34 of these deposits are Virginia Tech students, while the remaining 10 come from our local universities that we recruit from (Roanoke College and Radford University), and other schools where some of our participants’ siblings (and one friend) attend.
Additionally, we have another 13 registrations completed, some created for this trip, but were incomplete, even after contacting them multiple times. The remaining registrations are those of students who had some plan on going originally, but in the end were unable to go, or decided from the beginning to pre-register for a future trip.
27 of our winter participants are underclassmen, while 18 are upperclassmen.
Additionally, we have only 2 students who have been to Israel on any sort of organized trip prior to Birthright.
Finally, in regards to Hillel affiliation, more than half of our bus has not considered themselves affiliated with Hillel in the past (19 students), and the others feel that they are somewhat significantly or majorly involved with Hillel (25). This data comes from their interviews. When ranking their involvement in Hillel and Jewish life on campus, anyone that ranked a 1 or 2 was considered not affiliated, while anyone with a 3, 4, or 5 was considered affiliated.
Reuben was one of the first people I had register for Birthright this year. I found him through a list of unengaged students at Hillel, and sent him a message about coming on Birthright. He was interested immediately and I invited him to come to the registration dinner on the first day of registration. It was there that I found out that Reuben was a cadet in the Corps. He wasn’t able to come to dinner that night, but he came to my table in Squires the following day to complete his application. We were able to talk more the following day, and I was able to briefly introduce him to a couple of other students who happen to be coming on the trip as well.
All pictures are of Reuben, bottom right picture is him with some Sea Scout friends (high school).
Over the course of our recruitment season, we used a plethora of different marketing and media strategies. For social media, we used primarily Facebook and Instagram, posting and reaching out to students, as well as running an ad campaign over both platforms. The campaign’s audience originally focused on anyone at VT (with particular focus towards the students’ whose emails/phone numbers/names we have that have not been on Birthright). It also featured a _% similarity audience, that was able to target those that would fall under a similar audience (including other Jewish people, parents, friends, and Virginia Tech students, or any combination of those factors). By having such a broad audience, one unexpected target that we received contact from, was parents, and some even asked us to contact their students to speak further about Birthright. After about two weeks, when parent contacts came to a halt, we retargeted the audience, specifically towards students (age range of 18-24) so that our money was better spent and targeted towards our hopefuls.
This semester, we also started using Snapchat, which Liat has taken full control over and has been marvelous in advertising for events, opportunities like Birthright, and even keeping in touch with many students directly.
We opened the year with a few email blasts, and have made sure to include Birthright on every weekly email.
Finally, once our tables were registered for the semester, I was out almost everyday (some of the time with students) tabling on campus with flyers and other activities to engage with students. Some of these activities included a prize wheel, standing in front of the sukkah offering mugs of (iced) coffee and/or popsicles, doing apples and honey tasting for Rosh Hashanah, and working with our Daniel Pearl Music Day team to advertise for their concert.
Top left: Profile picture/cover photo we offered students that were ticketed, and in order to be given the chance to get Airport Lounge prize, the needed to make it their photo.
Top right: Example of one of our Instagram photos.
Bottom left: A “photo board” made on Canva that we attached to our parent email, showing many pictures from previous Israel trips.
Bottom right: A picture of our primary flyer we handed out to students on campus and at Hillel with contact information and our application link.
The materials on this screen are as follows:
Pictures with orange side/white writing were used in our Facebook ad campaign.
The picture in the upper-right was an example of an Instagram post.
The bottom four photos were some of the cover photos we asked our student leaders to post on their profiles.
Orientation #1 will open with an opportunity for everyone to get to know one-another and also take some time between the first two orientations to learn something new about Israel. As they sign in, each person will pick a different Israeli person, company, place, or piece of culture from a hat. They will be responsible to look up whatever they choose online after the day’s orientation, and come back prepared to talk about it for about a minute at the second orientation. Following sign in, the students will participate in a few icebreakers (Me Too, the Human Knot, and Concentric Circle Speed Dating). We will then debrief by choosing a group hashtag for our trip and anything related to it, and starting the use of our hashtag by taking a group photo. This meeting will also allow us to confirm all student’s contact information and parent contact information. From there, we will be boarding a bus to travel up to Roanoke, VA for a Shabbat dinner at the local synagogue. We will have some food and entertainment on the bus (not unlike Birthright), and will use the time to continue to facilitate bonding activities for students. They will be immersed in a fun, Shabbat experience before we return back to Blacksburg that evening.
The second orientation will take place about two weeks later. It will open with a short debrief of Shabbus, and then jump straight into our Israel ‘research’ activity, where the students will be put in groups of 4-5 and they will be teach the others in their group about the topic that they looked up. Afterwards, we will ask each group to have one person present about what they researched or something they learned from talking in their group. Following this activity, Ryan Jewesak, our Emerson Fellow with StandWithUs, will give us a presentation he created and has presented in the past. He came to us to offer his services in presenting to our trip, and we hope that this will not only help students to start developing an interest in Israel, but also help them get to know the president of our Friends of Israel group. Following the presentation, we will have a short break, more games and ice breakers (Ninja and an Israeli trivia contest), and we will close with having all the participants sign up for some sort of committee to have a responsibility during the trip. These committees include our “Team Tetris,” responsible for packing up our bus every morning with everyone’s bags, a “Photo/Video” team who will not only be taking photos and video throughout our trip, but will also be responsible for making a short video or slideshow of our trip, a “Morning Thought” team, who will present a meaningful story, quote, or question every morning to start each day with a moment of positive reflection, and 7 other teams that the participants will choose from. Each student will be required to join one committee, and Liat and I will make sure that they all complete their duties throughout the trip, and are prepared with all materials necessary prior to departure.
Our final orientation will take place just before final exams start. During that time, we will discuss the itinerary, rules, logistics, and details of the trip. We will also have Ben Brownstein from BICEP giving a short, 10 minute presentation on what it means to be a BICEP bus, and what we will be doing with them on our trip. Following, we are inviting a few students from previous Birthright trips to sit on a panel to talk about their experience. Liat, Ben, myself, and any other staff in the room will step out to give the students the ‘ability’ to ask any questions they want, and to create a safe space for everyone in the room to discuss the topics they want to ask about. We will then close by having the staff return to the room to answer any remaining questions, and have all the students write letters to themselves about what they hope to gain, see, and experience on the trip. We will return these letters to them at the end of the trip. They will all also be responsible for signing up for one blog post writing during the trip, based on the different activities and places we will be, and they will be posted on our website, along with pictures from those days.
Additionally, we are looking to give our students two different items for this trip: a portable phone charger and a Israeli outlet adapter, both customized for Hillel at Virginia Tech. We hope to purchase extra of both to use for continued advertising and giveaways for future Birthright trips, and the adapters will specifically be given out at the final Birthright Orientation for trips to come.
Photos going clockwise
Left: Ryan Jewesak on his plane ride to Israel
Upper left: Dana Cohen and Eli Welch (back) and Eliana Gerb and Lauren Schwartz (front) starting to eat their chicken wings and have a cup of wine after kiddush on Shabbus 2017
Upper right: Sarah Rothstein and Caroline Freeman, right before kiddush was said as we pulled away from Hillel on our way to Roanoke on Shabbus 2017
Over the first few weeks of recruitment, we were able to find a lot of success. We opened the first day of registration with a table in the Squires Student Union, and ending the day with a Pizza Party for any student interested in learning more or registering for Birthright on the spot. Students who registered throughout that first day were also rewarded with a Chipotle Buy One, Get One coupon. Our PNEIs were asked to come bring students to the event, and we were able to register roughly 12 students that day because of tabling that day and the event.
We also had another event later in the month at the local Hookah Lounge. We decided that we wanted to try to connect with Birthright alumni and have them present as a recruitment tool during the event as we brought other students who were interested in Birthright there as well, and would be able to connect and hear about the experience from alumni. The event ended up bringing in more interested students than alumni, but we still were able to have a lot of conversations around the trip, and had one student complete the application while he was there. It was also a great opportunity for many of our students who had already applied to meet one another before even knowing that they would offically be in Israel together.
Noah Solomon is one of our success stories this semester. He was reached out to over Facebook and was immediately interested in getting involved. That same night was our She-Sha event, and Noah made sure he was in attendance. We signed him up on the spot for Birthright, and although he has been a bit busy with schoolwork during the exam period, he has already said that he’ll be in attendance at all orientations and future Hillel events.
All pictures are from Noah’s facebook.
Top: Noah by himself
Bottom left: Noah with sister Rachael
Bottom right: Noah and his dad in New York
Over the course of this semester, we have faced many challenges, and having faced them now, we are arming and preparing ourselves to overcome them for summer recruitment. One of the first challenges we were faced with was no student interest in joining the sales team. Reaching to Birthright alumni was our primary audience, followed by our active students. Spencer was our only volunteer, and we were lucky to have him in this first year. Moving forward to next semester, our team already has our eyes set on a few students who may be potential for joining our team if they are interested. By building relationships from Birthright recruitment through post-Birthright opportunities, it should make ‘selling’ the position easier since our students will have a direct relationship with Liat and I. This also ties into another challenge which was engaging our Birthright alumni. Since our most recent trip was from almost a year ago, and Liat and I had no prior connection to them, it still remains difficult to engage and work closely with the current alumni base. Again, having closer ties with our current bus for this winter will help to open up chances for follow up engagement, and having the summer bus will allow us to not have such a large time gap between trips with no new alumni to engage and work with.
In regards to many activities, tabling in particular, students were not willing to commit to table for Birthright. We noticed this with other activities outside of Birthright tables, and is something we are now working to get a better understanding and strategy for. The times we did have more students tabling in particular was when there were either incentives for doing so and/or we were joining with another event. The best example of this was Daniel Pearl Music Day. Student leaders were told in advance that if they volunteered for two hours of tabling, they got a ticket, and after four hours, they could go backstage after the show. Finding similar incentives for Birthright alumni in the future may lead to have them come help table more, outside of having good relationships with us. One other problem specific to tabling was policies and timing for submitting reservations. Due to some technical issues and miscommunications, there were some delays in having Birthright specific tables on campus, but next semester, we will have the tables pre-booked before the semester starts so we are ahead of schedule and will avoid complications.
Another similar issue regards incentives for students to assist in recruitment. Finding the right ways to get a student to assist in recruitment and create a sense of urgency has proven difficult. One example is a challenge I gave our PNEIs, asking them over a 10 day period to see who could be the first person to recruit 3 people for Birthright with deposits. I knew that from working with Spencer, this was something that could be done, and I added the reward of saying that first place would get a $30 amazon gift card, and second place would get $15. Of our 5 PNEIs, none were able to meet the goal, and it seemed that there was little motivation to meet it. Although it may have been that the goal was higher, I hope to find some other way(s) to incentivise them to help more with Birthright. We also tried something with our winter bus, asking them to recruit friends to come. We made the offer that for every friend they recruit that registers, their name goes in a hat for a drawing before Birthright starts to go to the First Class Lounge on the way back from Israel. The only other requirement was to have them change their profile picture to the Patagonia logo photo. Only one or two students took interest, and only one actually changed their picture. This will likely continue to be a trial and error based method to solve our challenge.
One more unexpected challenge Liat and I came into contact with this year was that many of our students have a ‘Birthright Plan.’ By that, we noticed that several students we reached out to would not tell us that they were not interested, or that they would simply go later, but that they would be planning on going “the summer after [they] graduate,” or that they “want to go in winter 2019.” Most times, their reasoning would be that they were waiting for a sibling or friend, although we had some that were not interested in going with “immature freshmen.” At this time, I am unsure how to create greater urgency to go now, but we have made sure that most, if not all students wanting to go later have pre-registered.
The final challenge, but thankfully the easiest one to overcome, was that this is a new campus for me, and Liat and I both being new meant that we shared this challenge. There was a lot to be learned, and there definitely are more things that we’ll continue to learn as we move forward, but this definitely was present in many of the things we did and/or tried to do, and we are now in a groove that is allowing us to be more comfortable and better in our work.
One of the first things we tried this year was reaching out to our previous trip participants to be Birthrirght Recruitment Interns, but we received minimal responses, all being negative. The only person who stepped up for the role was Spencer! Hired by Daniel Galovsky as an ERF, Liat and I immediately met with Spencer to discuss goals and how he would be working this year. Because of his extensive involvement and requirements for PNEI, we decided that it would make sense to give Spencer a loftier goal since he already had a similar goal for PNEI Birthright engagement. We moved his goal to 8 students with deposits and 20 students registered overall. To date, spencer has recruited 9 people (although two were improperly marked for their referral contact), and 7 have put down deposits.
Spencer was a huge asset this recruitment season. He worked with AEPi to make sure brothers and new recruits were aware and registering, and he was happy to come table whenever he was free. Thanks to working with him this semester, we now have a better understanding of best recruiting practices and how we can work with our interns next semester. Now having relationships with our birthright buses this winter and a better understanding of how to make attainable goals for our students, we will have the ability to be prepared for our summer trip.
At Virginia Tech, Sorority Recruitment only takes place in the spring, and having used this semester to foster relationships with several members of Greek organizations across campus, we will be able to go to chapter meetings or events to speak about, answer questions, and register students for Birthright. Additionally, many of our students on our winter trip are involved with Greek organizations such as Delta Sigma Pi, Alpha Pi,
Although we are unsure of the exact reasons why our past Birthright trip is neither unresponsive nor engaged, we believe that having built strong relationships with many of the students coming on Birthright this winter, and that will continue into the next few months with orientations, the actual trip, and immediately following during post-trip engagement. This factor will hopefully carry enough weight to open up the opportunity of having a sales team.
My error on tables this year costed us the first couple weeks of registration, and now that I understand and can do them properly, tabling will be much easier.
One thing we noticed from our Social media campaigns was that parents were excited to talk to us about sending their children on Birthright. We took advantage of this, unfortunately later in the season than would have been best, to reach out to the parents of our students, encouraging them to talk to their children and have them come on Birthright with us. This will be something to use next semester, in the earlier part of recruitment.
Finally, we will start ticketing students as they are prepared to go. This will help speed up and streamline the process of filling buses instead of trying to figure out logistics last second.
The most important part of this coming semester will be getting the word out about our first summer Birthright trip! This means that we have to be out and around and present to challenge the current norm of Birthright in the winter. This also creates a unique opportunity to combat students who have “Birthright plans” to see if they had taken a summer trip into consideration before.
Molly, Lindsey, and Lauren tell a good story of a joint recruitment effort. Molly and Lindsey are two of our PNEIs and both registered at the First Day of Registration Pizza Party. A few weeks later, just before High Holidays started, I reached out to Lauren, who was also interested in going on Birthright. We talked at Rosh Hashanah dinner, and confirmed her interest, and in our conversation, she mentioned that she knew Lindsey and Molly from her sorority. From there, the two of them worked with Lauren to help her complete her application. All three of them are coming on Birthright this winter together, and are all extremely excited to be with their sorority sisters. Building relationships with all of them is definitely helpful in recruiting with their sorority in the future.
