Securing Our Future Through the ‘Innovation Sector’
an opinion piece from The New York Jewish Week; by Felicia Herman, executive director of Natan and Nigel Savage, executive director of Hazon:
Time To Increase Funds For Innovative Groups
In the next three years, Jewish foundations and significant individual Jewish funders should act as modern governments do in times of significant contraction — increase their expenditures, with the intention of returning to normal levels of giving when the economy grows again. Modern governments go into deficit to provide fiscal stimulus to the economy in times of severe recession, and this is precisely the scenario we need in the Jewish world. Any foundation that cares seriously and strategically about the Jewish future should play a countercyclical role by increasing its giving to see this vulnerable sector through the crisis.
1 Comment so far
Leave a reply
Certainly, the global financial crisis puts more pressure on foundations to increase funding to local programs. The question is, what kind of sacrifices are local organizations willing to make to keep their doors open?” And, are the foundations willing to provide leadership not only funding to addressed the huge challenges involved maintaining Jewish life today. This is a quagmire of growing proportions. With diminishing resources, the focus for on-the-ground organizations is clearly welfare – food, fuel, and medicine for the most needy.
Sensitive to today’s extreme economic situation, foundations and nonprofit institutions need to look beyond traditional organizational lines, and, perhaps, regroup with coordinated leadership to deliver essential humanitarian services more effectively - and rethinking age-old work plans under different political and security realities to strength the core of Jewish communal services. Money is only part of the answer. Institutional change is essential as well.