Your Daily Phil: California Jews go to Sacramento + Slingshot Fund’s ‘10 to Watch’
Good Thursday morning!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on California’s Jewish Public Affairs Committee’s lobbying efforts in Sacramento and a push by Congress to work with the White House’s antisemitism strategy. Also in this newsletter: Hannah Gaventa, Marla Tobe Werner and Becca Hurowitz. We’ll start with the release of the Slingshot Fund’s annual “10 to Watch” list.The innovation and young philanthropy-focused Slingshot Fund released its 2023 “10 to Watch” list, highlighting relatively new organizations and programs that its selection committee determined to be addressing critical needs in the Jewish community in fresh ways, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
This year’s cohort has a focus on mental health, with three of the groups and initiatives directly dealing with the topic and a fourth doing so more tangentially. The rest address a broad array of topics, from abortion access to a new synagogue model to empowering Jews of color. Under Slingshot’s criteria, they are all less than five years old, though some are new initiatives by older groups.
According to the Slingshot Fund, the goal of the “10 to Watch” is to raise awareness about the organizations on the list with the expectation that this will result in greater engagement from the community, new partnerships with other groups and interest from new donors, particularly those who already work with Slingshot.
“We are looking to raise visibility with the hopes that it will increase engagement — philanthropic engagement, leadership engagement, communal engagement,“ Stefanie Rhodes, the CEO of the Slingshot Fund, told eJP.
Rhodes said the list offers a snapshot of the issues that are currently at the front of Jewish people’s minds, particularly young Jews’ minds. “I expect there’s a correlation between the concerns and opportunities that people have and see and the organizations that we see on the list. Given who the demographics are, it’s also a window into what Jewish philanthropic leadership in their 20s and 30s cares about,” she said.
The full “10 to Watch” list this year comprises:
- A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy
- BaMidbar
- JALSA’s Jews of Color Leadership and Engagement Initiative
- Jews for Abortion Access, a project of the National Council of Jewish Women
- LEV Children’s Museum
- New Synagogue Project
- Our Jewish Recovery
- R&R: the rest of our lives
- Shomer Collective, powered by Natan
- The Workshop
California lobbying
California’s Jewish Public Affairs Committee brought some 300 local Jewish leaders to the state Capitol in Sacramento this week to lobby state lawmakers to advance four issues, including nonprofit security grants, which are poised to be cut this year due to state budget cuts, reports eJewishPhilanthropy‘s Judah Ari Gross.
‘Housing, welfare, food: The other pieces of issues JPAC (not to be confused with the national Jewish Council for Public Affairs, JCPA) and the participating organizations lobbied for were: the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, which would allow churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship to build affordable housing on their property even if local zoning otherwise prevented it; a bill to extend social services to new refugees; and a bill to expand California’s food security program, CalFresh.
Coalition building: The lobbying push was part of JPAC’s annual Capitol Summit. The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which sent 50 representatives to the state capital, said those issues were “of significance to not only the Jewish community but our partners as well.” This year, JPAC’s summit was also attended by a number of non-Jewish partner organizations, including the Brotherhood Crusade, Fulfillment Fund, Heart of Los Angeles, Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System, Faith and Community Empowerment and SoLA ICAN Foundation.
Working out: “Having The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ civic partners join the overall JPAC delegation allowed us to strengthen our advocacy muscle and to voice unified support around concerns that not only impact the Jewish community, but that also affect other racial, ethnic and religious communities across the state,” Mary Kohav, JFGLA’s vice president of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion and community engagement, said in a statement.’
Housing, welfare, food: The other pieces of issues JPAC (not to be confused with the national Jewish Council for Public Affairs, JCPA) and the participating organizations lobbied for were: the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, which would allow churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship to build affordable housing on their property even if local zoning otherwise prevented it; a bill to extend social services to new refugees; and a bill to expand California’s food security program, CalFresh.
Coalition building: The lobbying push was part of JPAC’s annual Capitol Summit. The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which sent 50 representatives to the state capital, said those issues were “of significance to not only the Jewish community but our partners as well.” This year, JPAC’s summit was also attended by a number of non-Jewish partner organizations, including the Brotherhood Crusade, Fulfillment Fund, Heart of Los Angeles, Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System, Faith and Community Empowerment and SoLA ICAN Foundation.
Working out: “Having The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ civic partners join the overall JPAC delegation allowed us to strengthen our advocacy muscle and to voice unified support around concerns that not only impact the Jewish community, but that also affect other racial, ethnic and religious communities across the state,” Mary Kohav, JFGLA’s vice president of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion and community engagement, said in a statement.
Strategy sit-down
Senate, House members meet with White House officials to discuss forthcoming antisemitism strategy
Ahead of the White House’s expected release of its national strategy on combating antisemitism later this month, officials from the White House task force on antisemitism and Islamophobia met on Wednesday with top Senate and House leaders to provide input on the administration’s strategy, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Taking shape: Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) said in a statement that she convened the meeting “to assess the progress on developing and implementing a national strategy to counter antisemitism, which I called for last year. This meeting highlighted the main pillars of the Administration’s forthcoming strategy and provided an opportunity for Members of Congress to shape the final document before it is released.”
Robust consultation: In a separate readout, the White House said that Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff “spoke about the urgent need for such a strategy” and that Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice and Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall “described the ongoing process of developing the strategy, informed by robust consultation with a diverse array of stakeholders, and future plans to implement the strategy. They also discussed the need for a whole-of-society response to antisemitism.”
Worthy Reads
Doling Out Big Bucks: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Emily Haynes looks at how nonprofits can take a page from the business world’s playbook and offer bonuses to successful fundraisers while keeping equity and fairness in mind. “As nonprofits struggle to hire and retain fundraisers, some are turning to performance-based bonuses to entice and retain talent… Experts say commissions — which are common in other relationship-based fields like real estate and financial advising — should be avoided in favor of performance-based incentive pay… Experts encourage leaders to keep equity front and center as they design a bonus plan. Incentive pay awarded as a percentage of a fundraiser’s salary, for example, could benefit fundraisers in the highest salary bands the most. [Robbe] Healey, on [the Association of Fundraising Professionals’] Ethics Committee, says that’s a risk and ‘a symptom of compensation over all.’ She suggests flat fees and nonmonetary metrics as ways to level the playing field for fundraisers who have lower salaries or have smaller or less-resourced donor portfolios.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Around the Web
Limmud UK named Hannah Gaventa of IsraAid the chair of its next festival in December, which the organization intends to be carbon neutral for the first time…
Over 200 leaders from the Reform movement gathered in Washington, D.C., yesterday and today as part of its “Campaign for Climate Justice”…
Marla Tobe Werner and Becca Hurowitz announced the launch of their new Pittsburgh-based philanthropy consulting firm Givver…
Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Simons Foundation donated $50 million and $100 million, respectively, to create the New York Climate Exchange, a “climate research, education, and jobs hub” on New York’s Governors Island that will be led by Stony Brook University…
The JCC Association of North America launched a new 10-session seminar series in partnership with the Inside the Middle East think tank, focusing on contemporary Israeli issues, which will be held in five JCCs on the East Coast throughout May…
Pic of the Day
Residents of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon sit outside a bomb shelter, amid fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip yesterday. The bomb shelter had been installed by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews as part of its campaign to provide fortifications in areas of Israel likely to come under attack.
Birthdays
Israeli actress, she appeared in 30 episodes of “Shtisel” and played the lead role in the Netflix miniseries “Unorthodox,” Shira Haas…
Israeli optical and kinetic artist and sculptor, Yaacov Agam… Retired judge of the International Court of Justice in The Hague and author of a memoir about his survival in Nazi concentration camps, Thomas Buergenthal… Sociologist and author, Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D…. Israeli social activist, Iris Stern Levi … Treasurer and receiver-general of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Deborah Goldberg… Past president and chairman of AIPAC, Morton Zvi Fridman, MD… Copy chief at Random House and the author of Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, Benjamin Dreyer… Brian Mullen… Howard M. Pollack… CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, William Albert “Bill” Ackman… Senior fellow and a Middle East analyst at the Hudson Institute, Michael Pregent… Member of the California State Senate since 2016, his district includes San Francisco and parts of San Mateo County, Scott Wiener… EVP of development and digital at World Wrestling Entertainment, Jamie Horowitz… Filmmaker and podcast host, Dan Trachtenberg… Director of strategic initiatives and engagement in the Office of the President at Carnegie Mellon University, Pamela Eichenbaum… Senior cost analyst at the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Michael Jeremy Alexander… PR and brand manager for overseas resource development at Leket Israel, Shira Woolf… Founder and CEO of the digital asset technology company Architect, Brett Harrison… Staff writer at Time magazine, Olivia B. Waxman… Senior associate in paid search at Wavemaker, James Frichner…Paralympic track and field athlete, Ezra Frech…