A year ago on a visit to Washington, Iranian-American businesswoman, Mandana Dayani, met with a close friend who worked in Congress. Against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, the topic of rising antisemitism came up, Dayani told eJewishPhilanthropy. Her friend felt it was important to be an ally of the Jewish community, but felt it was a thankless job.

“He looked at me and said, ‘You know, Mandana, I can be as pro-Israel as you want me to be… But every time my friends and I stand up for Israel or stand up against antisemitism, my team is fielding thousands of phone calls from people that are saying, ‘You baby killer, and whatever horrible, horrible things,’” Dayani recalled. “And he was like, ‘You guys rarely say thank you.’”

That interaction sparked the idea for One Mitzvah a Day, a project Dayani developed to express gratitude to those who ally with the Jewish community. Through a mobile text-based platform Jewish community members are provided with a daily task — like sending thank-you messages to public figures who show support. Now nearly a year later, the initiative has been acquired by the Jewish Federations of North America, JFNA’s executive vice president, Shira Hutt, told eJP in advance of an official announcement at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly next week. At its height, said Dayani, 150,000 messages have been sent in a single day by participants in the program.

“We had done so much as a community to sort of figure out how to take down bad actors, but we hadn’t done enough thinking around like, how do we lift up good actors?” Dayani said.  

In late 2018, Dayani co-founded I Am a Voter, a nonpartisan organization aimed at increasing voter engagement. That platform, she said, most inspired One Mitzvah a Day. In the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, she founded the Calanet Foundation as an incubator for grassroots initiatives that support Jewish students and combat antisemitism. One Mitzvah a Day was one of those initiatives. 

“I really do believe in the importance of building grassroots infrastructure and really making it simple for people to take action,” said Dayani. “I think there’s so many people that feel a barrier to participating.” 

According to Hutt, as a grassroots platform with a broad reach, the potential to grow One Mitzvah a Day was compelling to JFNA. According to Dayani, the One Mitzvah A Day team hopes to leverage the reach of local federations to develop community events with impact. 

“I think what’s really powerful about it is the act of being thanked, the act of expressing gratitude and receiving gratitude. It’s not bound by geography, so regardless of where you live, you can thank someone for doing something that deserves gratitude, if that person is in Los Angeles, even if you’re in New York, but there again, there could be opportunities for local adaptation, and we’re going to explore all of that.”