Focus on Issues: Collaboration is ‘name of Game’ in World of Jewish Philanthropy

Rachel Davis came to the Windy City with a vision and left three days later with a potential partner.

The mother of four from Houston wanted to set up a national system for extracurricular activities for Jewish day school students like her oldest son, a high school senior, who must sit out secular debate and basketball tournaments that often require participation on Shabbat.

With the backing of her family foundation, Davis had some of the resources to start such a project locally. But sitting at her lunch table at the ninth annual conference of the Jewish Funders Network, Davis met a like-minded philanthropist from Florida.

The two began discussions on pooling funds and finding additional partners and academic sponsors to develop the idea on a national scale.

“Collaboration,” said Davis, “is the name of the game.”

Indeed, collaboration was the theme of this week’s conference, entitled “Even Moses Couldn’t Do It Alone.” More than 250 private foundation principals and program directors, as well as federation professionals and non-profit organization representatives, met for three days in Chicago to discuss the benefits of working together to “achieve the ultimate goal of making the world a better place,” in the words of the conference brochure.

The potential for private foundations to foster such improvement is beyond doubt.

Thousands of private foundations pump millions of dollars into Jewish and other causes each year, but much of the buzzing business of Jewish philanthropy occurs in a vacuum.

A recent study by the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish & Community Research identified approximately 3,500 foundations that gave to “something Jewish” in 1996. The Jewish Funders Network now puts the number at about 5,500. There are about 40,000 family foundations altogether, the study says — a number that is expected to explode in the next two decades during the anticipated intergenerational transfer of an estimated $15 trillion.

Five years ago. 20 of the largest Jewish foundations generated some $220 million in annual grant-making from billions in assets, says the study, which predicted an increase to more than $300 million in 1999.

Its findings — based on regional discussions with foundation principals and professionals, interviews and a mail survey — indicated that for all of their philanthropic activity, Jewish foundations have few guides for building partnerships, for determining communal needs and for learning about programs, institutions and ideas to support.

“In an age when information is processed so quickly, and the world turns on information, for those making decisions about billions of dollars in philanthropy to say they don’t have information they need” to make knowledgeable decisions possibly hampers their ability to effectively help Jewish causes, Gary Tobin, a demographer and the institute’s president, said in a telephone interview.

Tobin’s study points to the need for a national system for collecting and disseminating information that is vital for enlightened philanthropy, but stops short of recommending who should take on the responsibility.

So this week, Charles Bronfman — the Seagram company co-chair whose Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies helped fund the Tobin study — made that motion.

In his capacity as the recently elected chairman of the board of the newly formed United Jewish Communities, Bronfman took the podium at the Jewish Fenders Network meeting here to “talk a little tachlis” — or nitty-gritty.

His proposal: the creation of a “joint center for Jewish philanthropy.”

“Why don’t we get together and do this,” he suggested, “so that we can consider ourselves — family foundations, the Fenders Network and the United Jewish Communities — real partners in an enterprise that is much bigger than any of us and so important to the future of all of us.”

That enterprise, broadly put, is tikkun olam, the Jewish concept of repairing the world that is the motivation for much of the philanthropy supported by members of the Jewish Funders Network.

Founded in 1990, the network originally provided a meeting ground for a small group of private funders interested in supporting progressive secular and Jewish causes, such as Arab-Jewish dialogue, Jewish women’s history projects, innovative Jewish and interdenominational education, environmental conservation in Israel.

The network also created an open forum for swapping ideas on new initiatives and sharing the concerns that accompany being wealthy, Jewish and part of a philanthropically inclined family.

Today, the group has ballooned to include a reported 600 members, including such mega-funders as the Nathan Cummings Family Foundation and the Arie and Ida Crown Memorial Foundation– alongside hundreds of other, relatively smaller family and community foundations.

Membership requires that funders give a minimum of $25,000 in grants annually – – to Jewish or non-Jewish causes.

The network puts out a regular newsletter and maintains a Web site to apprise funders of projects and issues. The main locus of information exchange is the network’s annual conference, where funders and professionals can gain essential grant-making skills and discuss their particular concerns in sessions such as addressing community expectations and family tradition; leveraging women’s power in philanthropy; and parent-child relationships within family foundations.

Other conference discussions explore issues common to contemporary Jewish communal debates:funding services to seniors, partnerships with Israel, health and spirituality, and Jewish education through the arts and culture.

But with a staff of only three people in New York, the network has a limited capacity as a national clearinghouse for Jewish philanthropy.

Enter the United Jewish Communities — formed last month from the merger of the United Jewish Appeal, the Council of Jewish Federations and the United Israel Appeal.

These three organizations have since 1948 provided social services for millions of people worldwide and generated over $100 billion in 1999 dollars — making them, in Bronfman’s estimation, the “most successful philanthropic system ever in the history of the world.”

With its broad-based structure, the United Jewish Communities could provide the joint national center with the benefits of its resources and personnel, he said.

Bronfman presented the idea as brand-new, but the “creation of a technical assistance and training center for Jewish family foundations supporting the new entity’s mission” is clearly spelled out in the documents guiding the UJA-CJF- UIA merger.

Many of the conference participants are already significant donors and volunteer leaders in the national system of UJA and local federations.

Moreover, a significant number have set up foundations and endowments through their local federations, taking advantage of the federated system’s resources while maintaining programmatic control.

But some donors prefer charitable giving outside the Jewish communal establishment because it enables them to be innovative and take risks while simultaneously using their names to trumpet their causes.

Michael Rukin, the immediate past president of Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies and a board member of the Jewish Funders Network, sees his collective and independent philanthropy as “complementary.”

The Michael B. Rukin Charitable Foundation, he said, enables him, together with his family, to engage in “hands-on” philanthropy that follows their interests in such areas as Jewish education, technology and Arab-Israeli economic development.

Several conference participants surveyed said they would need more information before they signed on to Bronfman’s proposal. Some said they wanted to be sure that they could maintain the independent spirit that has informed their philanthropy.

But Bronfman’s proposal has positive implications for the Jewish Funders Network, according to David Fishman, one of its founders.

“It says we’re a very important part of the Jewish philanthropic world,” he said.

The group’s executive director, Evan Mendelson, echoed this conviction. Because of the network’s growth and ability to attract larger family foundations, the United Jewish Communities now “see a need for us.”