Foundation News —Chip Edelsberg

Foundation News
—Chip Edelsberg, Executive Director

September 2009

It is Elul again, with another year having passed ever so quickly. In anticipation of the High Holy Days, it seems natural to reflect on the year’s events and to take stock as well of the evolution of the Jim Joseph Foundation.

The Foundation has been in existence for 44 months. Directors have awarded grants for which funding commitments exceed 161 million dollars. Retrospectively, we have discerned that JJF’s philanthropy is focused primarily on four key objectives:

Increase the number and quality of Jewish educators
Strengthen peer to peer education
Increase ongoing and immersive Jewish learning
Build stronger organizations to serve the field
(Click here for a concise summary of JJF’s grant making during the period January 2006 – July 2009)

Indicators from a number of JJF funded initiatives are, in many instances, very positive. Literally thousands of Jewish youth and young adults are having a day/high school, residential camping, Birthright, teacher preparation/induction, or Jewish education graduate school experience as a direct result of JJF funding.

JJF has made significant forays into Israel education and Jewish service learning. Our work in early education, while not anticipated at the Foundation’s inception, is considerable. We have just begun to support initiatives that fuel emerging trends in social networking and new media as bona fide means to engage families, teens and young adults in Jewish learning. The Foundation also awarded what, to our knowledge, is the largest emergency grant in support of Jewish education in the United States in response to a deep, destabilizing economic recession.

While working with many of the standard bearers in program evaluation, JJF has also brought new resources to the field. In addition, we have engaged the expertise of the Monitor Group and the New Profit Finance Fund to offer targeted technical assistance to foundation grantees. JJF will continue to cast a wide net as it seeks to supplement its grant making with selective use of specialists in the independent sector whose record of consulting demonstrates success in enhancing the performance of grantees.

Philosophically, JJF is a “both/and” funder. By design, JJF Directors have decided to support both formal and experiential education; both traditional, well established institutions and new 501c3 organizations; both regional and national initiatives. Like Jonathan Sarna, JJF believes that “we cannot place our trust in magic formulas . . . Multiple efforts, however, can succeed wondrously.”

JJF has committed to a few co-funding efforts. It underwrites a major challenge demonstration grant in Jewish high school affordability. And the Foundation has not hesitated to respond to other funders’ matching grants when these opportunities align with JJF’s mission, vision, and strategic priorities.

Overall, I can safely say that JJF’s goal directed philanthropy and data informed decision making have taken hold at the Foundation. JJF’s philanthropy feels fruitful. That said, we are not resting on any proclaimed laurels. Directors are committed to a sustained effort of documenting the extent to which grantees are making tangible progress on agreed upon goals. We acknowledge grantees’ laudable achievements; we congratulate them for their accomplishments while recognizing that we need several more years of dedication to be able to demonstrate confidently that JJF’s philanthropy has resulted in an increase of young Jews who are deeply engaged in Jewish life and learning.

This reflection presages the fall release of JJF’s first annual report. We look forward to the report’s publication and distribution and hope you will find the document to be thoroughly informative.

Archived News