The Jewish Funders Network’s Honeycomb program, which introduces philanthropy to Jewish teens, has long been convinced of its usefulness for Americans, with internal studies showing that exposure to charitable giving is “incredibly empowering” for young people, according to its executive director, Danielle Segal. But does that translate for Israelis as well, particularly those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, for whom fundraising and financial philanthropy are uncommon? 

It turns out that it does, according to a new survey of Israeli teens who participated in Honeycomb’s Israel program, Magshimim (achievers).

The study, which was released last month, identified a host of benefits from charitable work, with Israeli teen participants saying they feel they are developing new leadership skills, believing they are becoming agents of change and gaining knowledge of the Israeli philanthropic ecosystem.

“Especially with this new research on the Israeli side, we have seen how empowering the young people find the program and how they have not been given other opportunities to be trusted with this level of responsibility before,” Segal said. “I think it’s one of the few moments where young people are given real responsibility. This is a moment where young people really are given the responsibility for granting money, and the adults who run the program trust them to make the decisions.”

The collective grantmaking process involved in the Jewish youth philanthropy program enables the participants in the programs to explore their own relationship with Jewish values and learn about their communities. It also allows them to be in charge of strategic decisions throughout the process, ultimately choosing where to allocate the funding that will have a real-life impact on people’s lives, Segal said.

“It’s a really beautiful intersection between philanthropy and leadership development and really rich Jewish educational content,” she said. “It’s a program based in the real world and the programs have a real impact in these communities and their community centers.”

The study included a survey of 400 teen participants who were interviewed four months, 10 months and two to three years after joining the program, as well as a comparison group of teens that did not participate in the program but participated in other activities at the same community centers that hosted Magshimim.

Four months into the program, 65% of the participants said they believed tikkun olam is an important Jewish value, while only 3% of non-participants surveyed said they felt the same way. After two years, 82% agreed with the statement. The study also found that as the teen’s understanding of the intersection between giving and their Jewish identity increased, their attitudes toward philanthropy in the form of volunteering or fundraising improved. The overwhelming majority — 90% — of the veteran participants also said they felt they had the power to make a difference and to spur a change as a teen in their community.

In 2018, Honeycomb partnered with the Israeli Association of Community Centers (IACC) to launch the Magshimim program in community centers across Israel. In the 2022–2023 school year, Magshimim operated in 15 community centers across the country, bringing together more than 800 teens from diverse communities to learn about and address key issues in Israeli society. 

As with other Honeycomb Jewish youth philanthropy programs, Magshimim introduces teens to philanthropy through a Jewish lens with a grantmaking curriculum that guides them through the philanthropic process. They learn to develop mission statements and make grant decisions, among other skills.

In addition to measuring the influence on participants, the study assessed the impact of Magshimim on the community as well, with many community center directors reporting that the resources associated with running the Magshimim program boosted the community centers and attracted new teens to the program.

The evaluation of Magshimim was funded through the Honeycomb Foundation Board Incubator, as well as Laura Lauder and Maimonides Fund.

The Israeli and American programs differ in their notions of Jewish philanthropy, with the Israeli program less disposed to fundraising and engaged more in volunteerism and entrepreneurship. Yet the study found that 2022-2023 marked a shift in the program’s maturity, according to the study. All Magshimim groups engaged in fundraising activities; some centers doing so quite intensively, according to the study. However, the report noted that while this year seems to have brought a beginning of a cultural shift among the leadership of Magshimim, the report’s authors feel there is still more work to be done to break stigmas regarding fundraising and to establish a more positive attitude.

Adi Romem, director of the Magshimim program in Israel, noted that 28 of the 30 groups in the program are made up of youth from low socioeconomic communities in Israel’s periphery, where asking for money is frowned upon.

“They don’t have the bus fare to come to the program,” she said. “How can you raise money when you can’t go to your own families, your own communities? So we started the program by just putting volunteering in their tool box. And you’ll be surprised. The teens love it. They really want to be involved. They really want to influence. Whenever I tell them they are the future generation, they say no, they are the generation of the present.”

Romem said the program has helped transform many of the participants, some of whom have criminal records and have dropped out of school, by allowing them to give help rather than being on the receiving end. In Afula, teens who are committed to the “the sandwich club” — making lunch sandwiches for school children who normally go without — have been drafted into the IDF when otherwise they would have been skipped over, allowing them to be a part of an important milestone in the life of Israeli young people. Sadly, five of their alumni have been killed in the war since Oct. 7, she said.

In Netanya, she said, one group of Ethiopian-Israeli teens –— some of whom had dropped out of school — began a birthday party-organizing venture as an offshoot of a project against cyberbullying and now arrange birthday parties for a minimal fee for children who otherwise would not be able to afford it. Magshimim provided them with a small amount of seed money for a popcorn machine and a snow cone machine, and the teens ran with the project, she said.

“Otherwise they would be on the streets, they have no afternoon activities, and they enjoyed it. And to make a long story short, they raised NIS 100,000 [$27,500] this year,” she said.

With NIS 20,000 ($5,500), they purchased material for next year and with NIS 80,000 ($22,000) in their pocket, Magshimim arranged for a handful of nonprofits to present proposals to them.

“They sat around a table and people in suits came to talk to the teens, who have no money of their own. They never saw NIS 100 in their pockets let alone NIS 100,000 and the nonprofit people are sitting, presenting their data and asking for their money,” she said. “The teams have to decide based not just from their heart [but] also on who is operating better than the other. And they gave away money that they never saw. They never even aspired to that kind of big money before because they never knew it existed. So now they know they can do big things. They can make a difference in the world.”