The Elders of Zion had it right - money and Jews go hand in hand. Philanthropy runs through the Jewish world like veins run though our bodies. You can put your multiples of chai towards Jews in plight, gentiles in plight, volunteering in a third world country, your local Jewish Federation, disadvantaged communities in Israel, or strengthening the Jewish voice on Capitol Hill. Limited time and, even more, limited funds are dwarfed by the seemingly unlimited causes vying for our attention. As the economy shrinks, and with it the cash flow in the Jewish world, this question is more poignant than ever. With this in mind, three contributing writers tackled the task, each arguing for a particular approach to philanthropy from a Jewish standpoint. Volunteering with non-Jews: Being Jewish and giving to … Continue Reading
No Place Like Home: Scaling Up a Venture to Success
by David Cygielman When I first approached four friends from high school about turning their home into a center for Jewish life, I certainly did not think it would spread to 28 cities across five continents so quickly. It was 2006, and I was having dinner with friends. All were in their 20s, all very happily identified as Jews. All had large groups of Jewish friends, despite being uninvolved in organized Jewish life. And the idea came up: if I could subsidize their rent and give them a small program budget, they would turn their house into a community center for Jewish adults who have finished college but have yet to move on to having families. As the Executive Director of the Forest Foundation at the time, my foundation was able to cover 85 percent of the budget - making the idea a proven … Continue Reading
Get Them Young: The Emerging Jewish Teen Philanthropy Movement
by Becca Linden Teens cannot drive. They cannot vote. But now hundreds of Jewish teens are pooling and donating their post-bar/bat mitzvah resources and skills every year, and they are being taken seriously by the nonprofits vying for their money. In other words, these teens are taking on significant personal and communal responsibility. Jewish teen philanthropy groups are distributing serious amounts of money - more than $700,000 in 2008 was granted by 24 Jewish teen foundations across the country, according to a survey commissioned last year for the Jewish Teen Funders Network (JTFN). And money is not all they give. “As I learned in my first philanthropy session, philanthropy does not just include giving money,” says Bradley Maran, 16, of the Door and Ladder Society in Atlanta. “Giving … Continue Reading
Mind the Gap: Breaking the Nonprofit Glass Ceiling
by Laura Berger You make less money, but you are doing “good” work, so it’s worth it. You trade less money for a more flexible schedule, so you can take care of your family. You work for an organization that is struggling for money, so it doesn't bother you that your boss failed to find funding to get you a long-deserved raise. These are only a handful of the excuses that lead people in general, but particularly women, to accept lower salaries in socially-conscious professions. Feminist issues, such as salary gaps between men and women and the glass ceiling, have not received much national attention since the 1980s. In the world of Jewish philanthropy, where socially conscious people devote their time and energy to a wide range of important social and economic issues, one might assume … Continue Reading
What Good Are You: A Guide for the Perplexed Establishment
by Sarah Y. Eisenman In 1914, two very bright Americans devised innovations that would change the way we navigate the world’s physical and philanthropic spaces. The first was Charles P. Rudebaker, the inventor of the traffic cone (at the time it would be more appropriate to call it a big concrete block). The other was Henry Morgenthau, America’s ambassador to Turkey, who gathered a small collective of Jewish philanthropists to aid needy Jews outside of the U.S. - thereby creating what remains the largest Jewish humanitarian aid organization in the world. It takes relevance to become a lasting feature on almost every road across the globe. Similarly, Morgenthau’s charity - later to become the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), for whom I work - took more than a … Continue Reading
Have a Heart: Returning Soul to the Center of Giving
by Ezra S. Shanken There is no doubt that this has been a “unique” year to be a fundraiser for the Jewish community. I use the word “unique” in place of words like “tragic,” “challenging,” and “catastrophic” to set apart current financial pressures from the dire circumstances around the world that the Jewish community handles on an ongoing basis. These times provide an opportunity to refocus the work that we do - by re-embracing our traditional understanding of the term tzedakah and emphasizing one transformative tool: “soul.” Soul is the inner voice that drives us to do good in the world. Tzedakah, from the Hebrew root for the word “righteousness,” is one way of acting on the soul’s call to do good, to set things right. Giving tzedakah has long been in the … Continue Reading
Why Should We Care?
Over the past year or so, we've often written about the projects and the people, connected to the PresenTense network. Most of the stories have centered around their flagship fellowship program that takes place here in Jerusalem each summer. However, before there was a summer institute, there was PresenTense Magazine. Like eJewish Philanthropy, the magazine is as an all volunteer effort; and one that "provides a nurturing environment where Jewish youth are able to explore and enrich their Jewish identity within a pioneering framework." Their most recent issue deals with Philanthropy; currently at the printers it will be available shortly. Some of the questions the issue addresses are: what is the point of volunteering for non-Jews? Is the Jewish Philanthropic establishment relevant anymore? What … Continue Reading
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