The Charidi website, founded by a number of young Chabad followers, has since become a buzzword that casts a spell on directors of charitable institutions and charitable organizations. The website, which has raised more than 250 million shekels since its launch in 2013, has also become a generic name for fundraising in the modern era.
However, what happened last week is a rather rare event in its history:
The RebbeDrive website, operated by Mendel Mintz, a 22-year-old young man who belongs to the Messianic faction of Chabad, launched a Charidi fundraising website on Wednesday and Thursday. This is a site that displays everything related to the Lubavitcher Rebbe - photos, clips, diaries, manuscripts, talks, and more.
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The site administrators' goal was to raise $72,000.
The fundraising method is simple: every dollar donated by surfers is doubled or tripled by businessmen and philanthropists that the organization managed to raise before the fundraising campaign began.
However, there is another important condition: the set goal must be achieved, as the fundraising operates on an "all-or-nothing" basis. That is, if you fail to raise the amount set as the goal - all the money is returned to the donors.
And now for the drama: At the end of the campaign that took place over the weekend, it turned out that RebbeDrive was $76 short (which is actually $38 that will be doubled by a donor) - so the campaign failed.
""This is not the first time that a campaign by a Chabad website has failed," says a source close to the company for the Haredim 10, "but this is certainly a rare event - and it is certainly the first time that a campaign by a Chabad organization or body has failed.".
""Officially," he adds, "if the set goal is not achieved, the donors' credit cards are not charged - and in fact there is no money, because the condition is 'all-or-nothing.'".
On Friday, Chaim Yehuda Gurvitz, the owner of the Charidi website, turned to Rabbi Shlomo Segal, a member of the Crown Heights neighborhood's Badatz, to decide what he should do: Is it because $38 was missing - "all-or-nothing"?
Rabbi Segal ruled that even though $38 was missing, the campaign could still be declared a "success" and the money could be transferred to the organization.
For a while on Friday, the campaign was removed from Charidi's website, and only after the court member's response was received were email notifications sent to donors that the campaign was a success - as is sent at the end of every campaign.
Another email was sent on behalf of Gurvitz, the owner of the website, stating: "We believe that even though $38 was missing, you are still interested in donating, and if not, please respond to this email with the message not to charge your card.".
A Haredim 10 reporter notes that when the RebbeDrive campaign page was returned to the Charidi website, it was stated that the goal was one dollar, so that the system would show that the goal had been reached - and in fact the campaign was a success of more than 7 million percent.
Screenshot from the first minutes after the fundraising ended, when "the goal was not reached""
The automatic email you receive when a campaign is successful
The email from Chaim Yehuda Gurvitz, the owner of the website, to donors: We will charge credit cards
Screenshot after the campaign page was restored
