Jim Joseph Foundation professionals and its Directors are engaged in countless conversations with representatives of organizations and institutions that provide education for Jewish children, youth, and young adults in the United States. The Foundation’s evolving approach to its grant making is conversational in nature. We view thoughtful, probing, reflective, and ongoing discourse with the field as a vital way to do business.

We are currently talking with more than a dozen prospective grantee partners. In each case, we envision opportunity to provide Foundation support that will advance our mission.

JJF Directors expect its professionals to manage highly interactive processes of developing promising funding opportunities for the Board to consider. We do not accept proposals, issue RFPs, invite organizations as “vendors” to compete for funding, or the like – all of which are essentially transactional and look and sound like a monologue. In contrast, we are in dialogue with potential grantees, working with organizational and institutional personnel to construct theories of change; create logic models; analyze financial statements; design strategies for generation of Initiative-sustaining revenue; and explicate approaches to formative and summative evaluation of proposed Initiatives.

While this work can be arduous, we are making progress. I anticipate the JJF Board will vote on up to $10 million of grant proposals at its April Board Meeting.

Meanwhile, the Brandeis University Fisher-Bernstein Institute for Jewish Philanthropy and Leadership is completing its field mapping the Foundation commissioned. One very positive outcome is a rich and powerful database on educational programs for Jewish youth in the United States. JJF has awarded Brandeis a grant to prepare specifications for making this database available in the public domain. In the coming months, we hope to have occasion to preview this database with many of you in order to assess both its utility and functionality.

We expect 2007 will be a busy year for the Foundation as it moves forward with its research and grant making.