In the days and weeks following the Oct. 7 terror attacks, the Jewish federation system’s decisions about how to allocate funds to Israeli communities and individuals in need were simple, even as they were overwhelming. 

“It was very clear and almost binary: They eat, they don’t eat. There’s initial trauma response or clothing, or there isn’t,” Rebecca Caspi, the director of Jewish Federations of North America’s Israel office, told eJewishPhilanthropy on Thursday morning.

“Because when someone says, these people need a roof over their head, these people need food, and you know that you have trusted partners and organizations that you know you can rely on… [you are] able to really work very quickly and very responsibly to meet the needs that were overwhelming and heartbreaking,” Caspi recalled.

Now, 300 days and more than $850 million later, JFNA’s Israel Emergency Campaign has shifted its allocations process away from that type of immediate, trust-based giving and toward the data-based strategic grant-making that it is used to, she said.

“We have to stop and recognize: Today is day 300. Nobody could have imagined on Oct. 7 or Nov. 1 or Dec. 31, when we were still in the urgent response stage, that 300 days later, we would be sitting here considering [new] grants for evacuees in the north who are still evacuated and may still need some basic service support that we may provide,” Caspi said.

“So even as we’re shifting into more systemic, strategic grant-making, we’re also still very engaged in seeing urgent needs for which philanthropy remains the main support,” she said. 

As of last month, the Jewish federation system — both the umbrella JFNA and individual federations — has allocated more than $469 million to Israeli causes, representing approximately 55% of the total amount raised. (Caspi noted that its tally of funds raised and allocated is likely lower than in reality as some local federations are also fundraising but do not include that in their regular updates to JFNA.)

According to JFNA, the money has helped provide 1.2 million meals, shelter for 36,910 evacuees and grants to 8,000 victims of terror or their family members. More than $100 million of the money allocated by JFNA (not by local federations) has gone to the Jewish Agency ($77 million) or the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee ($25 million).

According to Caspi, the amount of allocated funds is expected to increase soon as the JFNA allocation committee is scheduled to meet next week for another round of grant-making decisions. Caspi said the committee will be allocating some portion of the “a little more than $63 million” that it directly oversees. “I’m not going to say how much specifically [is likely to be allocated] out of discretion to the committee,” she added.

Yet the fact that JFNA has not allocated a large percentage of the money that it has raised nearly a year into the emergency campaign and has reverted back to a slower, more bureaucratic method of grant-making has rankled some in the Israeli civil sector.

In a webinar hosted by Tel Aviv University’s Institute for Law and Philanthropy and the Ruderman Family Foundation on June 21, Ronit Segelman, a philanthropic adviser who has worked for a variety of Israeli nonprofits, fumed at the “wait-and-see” approach that she saw American Jewish organizations adopting and called for more rapid trust-based models of giving.

“Do we continue to give with the same habits or criteria or examinations that we did before, or will we see, for example, more trust-based philanthropy in Jewish philanthropy?” Segelman asked.

“Maybe there will be more trust-based philanthropy, because that’s what [the nonprofit field is] asking [for],” she said. “We’re so used to giving only after only after we’ve seen what the government has allocated.”

Caspi acknowledged that the JFNA method does slow the process, but said it was necessary for the organization to be as effective as possible.

“Jewish federations are getting money out of the door as quickly as we responsibly can,” she said. “And I really want to stand on both of those qualifiers —  as quickly as we responsibly can.  This work is far from simple, and we — as a philanthropic force — want to be smart and want to be effective, and it really takes time to do that in a way that honors the trust that has been placed on us.”

Caspi said JFNA is not keeping a portion of the money that it has raised in reserves in the event of a war with Hezbollah. She said JFNA believed that should such a future crisis arise, funders would step up and donate further.

“Are we holding back money in order to meet future needs? The answer is no. We are, as I said, doing everything we can and will allocate every penny of the funds that have been entrusted to us for the needs that we can support within our strategic priorities,” Caspi said. “And we know that if more needs arise, the community will continue to respond.”

Yet Caspi said the allocation committee did take into consideration that the needs of a community in crisis change over time.

“We know from responding to previous crises in Israel and elsewhere that there in the beginning are these very clear, very urgent critical needs that need to be met immediately and that other needs continue to emerge, deepen, change and evolve,” she said. “We have to be looking at things through multifocal glasses so that we’re looking at what’s right in front of us right now and what’s going to be in front of us soon and later, and some of the allocations that the committee has approved look at things like that.”

As an example, Caspi offered a recent $14 million program with the Israeli Health Ministry to improve regional health-care services throughout the country.

“I am moved every single day by federations’ ability to do big, system-level things that help millions of Israelis who are suffering through this horrific war, at exactly the same time we have been helping individuals and families. We have been making a difference for Israelis who were looking into an abyss and now feel hope because of a kindness that tens of thousands of people came together to make possible, knowing they will never meet the people whose lives they’ve changed so much. That is the majesty of Jewish federations,” Caspi said, adding: “I really feel that.”