• Home
  • About
    • About
    • Policies
  • Submissions
    • Op-eds
    • News / Announcements
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

eJewish Philanthropy

Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource

  • News Bits
  • Jewish Education
  • Readers Forum
  • Research
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Education / A Changing Environment

A Changing Environment

November 23, 2008 By Dan Brown

One of the multitude of excellent programs taking place in Israel to coincide with the UJC’s General Assembly and various JAFI events was a conference at Hebrew University’s Center for the Study of Philanthropy last Sunday titled, Jewish Philanthropy and The Israeli Third Sector in a Changing Environment. The keynote on Changing Patterns of American Jewish Philanthropy was delivered by Dr. Jeffrey Solomon, president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies.

Two really key points from the presentation,

  1. “The world has changed and our institutions have not changed with the world.
  2. Public charities are so busy chasing money they loose site of their mission”.

First, some numbers: In the United States there has been a huge growth over the past decade and we now have 24,000 Jewish donor advised funds and 9500 independent Jewish foundations. However, more than half gave less than $50k. this past year and 2/3 have assets under $1m.

Within the Federation system, 1948 was the peak year for giving and since then the numbers have been on a steady downward tract. The 900,000 donors of that day have decreased to 500,000; the real dollar value now is <20% of the 1948 campaign. Added to this, as involved giving to Israel, a greater proportion of gifts remain in North America.

Telling us, “the significant decrease is a sign of the changes in the donor patterns in American Jewry” Dr. Solomon went on to list the attributes of past successes of Federation campaigns compared to today:

in the past…

  • the affluence of the Jewish community
  • Jews self-identified as Jews
  • feelings of insecurity
  • organic connection to Israel
  • the concept of a single gift
  • no competition

Compare this to today…

  • still affluence
  • insecurity is not in people’s faces
  • the organic connection decreases with age from 50; there is a disconnect to Israel
  • the concept of a single gift is gone
  • there is lots of competition for gifts today including from hospitals, universities and museums; organizations that did not previously solicit the Jewish community

We’ll have more on this program including some comments by Arnon Mantbar, Director, JDC Israel. For more on The Center for the Study of Philanthropy in Israel check out our post, What Constitutes Good Fundraising, from their Inaugural Conference earlier this year.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Education, Jewish Philanthropy Tagged With: educate, GA, JDC / Joint Distribution Committee, Jewish Federations of NA/formerly UJC, The Jewish Agency/JAFI

Click here to Email This Post Email This Post to friends or colleagues!

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Join The Conversation

What's the best way to follow important issues affecting the Jewish philanthropic world? Our Daily Update keeps you on top of the latest news, trends and opinions shaping the landscape, providing an invaluable source for inspiration and learning.
Sign Up Now
For Email Marketing you can trust.

Continue The Conversation

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Comments

  • Gordon Silverrman on The Jewish Agency and All of Us
  • Carole Solomon on The Jewish Agency and All of Us
  • Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi on The Israeli American Community Comes of Age
  • Beth on A Cup Full of Gratitude for Teachers and a Challenge
  • Linda FRIEDBURG on A Cup Full of Gratitude for Teachers and a Challenge

Most Popular Recent Posts

  • JFNA's Remarkable Pivot, And Me
  • Ten Ways Not
    to Fight Antisemitism
  • Creation of National Organization Mobilizing Jews to Confront the Climate Crisis
    Dayenu!
  • Seeking Legacy Organizations for Qualified Jewish Professionals
  • Ally Is A Verb

Categories

The Way Back Machine

Footer

What We Do

eJewish Philanthropy highlights news, resources and thought pieces on issues facing our Jewish philanthropic world in order to create dialogue and advance the conversation. Learn more.

Top 40 Philanthropy Blogs and Websites to Follow in 2019

Copyright © 2019 · eJewish Philanthropy · All Rights Reserved