One-on-one connections with donors help The Friendship Circle take the ask out of fundraising.

By Abny Santicola

Founded in 1994 by Lubavitch Foundation of Michigan, a branch of Chabad-Lubavitch, an institution dedicated to the welfare of the Jewish people worldwide, The Friendship Circle has inspired the development of almost 30 similar programs in the United States, Canada and Australia.

Each Friendship Circle program is community-based and run by a relatively small staff. Here, Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive director of the original, West Bloomfield, Mich.-based Friendship Circle, shares some of the organization’s fundraising challenges and successes.