By Alicia S. Oberman and Andrés Spokoiny.

Cross-posted with eJewish Philanthropy.

Many people in the Jewish community play two roles at once for the same organization: funder and board member.

What could possibly be problematic, or even noteworthy, about that? The funder and the organization both ostensibly share the desire to do the same kind of good in the world, and they’re joining forces. The dual role allows the funder to provide the organization not only money but also skills, time, effort, and wisdom, helping the organization to do the work.

But what happens when the funder’s interests and the organization’s interests don’t completely align?

Originally published in eJewish Philanthropy.

In his article, “‘The Establishment’ Has No Clothes: The New Jewish ‘Influence Economy,’” the always brilliant and thoughtful Yehuda Kurtzer raises intriguing points and does the Jewish communal world a great service by calling attention to the fact that the way we too commonly discuss our communal structures is woefully out of date.

I’d like to add a few angles to this conversation about the “economy of power,” without which our understanding of that new reality will be incomplete.

Arts and culture are the natural habitat of the human heart and mind. Culture frames, reflects, exposes, enhances, and changes everything about the lives and actions of people and societies, and the arts play a vital role in how cultures evolve.

For funders who want to drive social change, therefore, arts and culture are a powerful and under-appreciated vector.

This video features three leaders engaging deeply with arts and culture to make change for a webinar in which we'll discuss their work in particular and principles of social change through culture in general.

In a keynote address to the 2019 LIFE & LEGACY/Create a Jewish Legacy Leadership Gathering sponsored by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and The Jewish Federations of North America, JFN President & CEO Andrés Spokoiny discusses the "disintermediation of the world": the removal of "middleman" functions in all aspects of life—including philanthropy, where centralized communal giving has been challenged by the rapid growth of independent philanthropy. This trend brings both problems and opportunities.

Last month, fire completely destroyed the village of Moshav Mevo Modi'im. JFN member Brachie Sprung (Director of the International Office of Jerusalem Partnerships, an initiative spearheaded by the Jerusalem Mayor’s office and the Leichtag Foundation) is a former resident of the village, and after the fire she immediately flew to Israel to participate in relief efforts. Below is a letter she recently shared with her networks, as well as pictures she included.

When JFN originally scheduled this webinar with Yohanan Plesner, president of the non-partisan Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), it was to discuss news reports about a proposal to effectively remove the Israeli Supreme Court's power to hold the Knesset and ministries accountable to Israeli Basic Law, virtually eliminating the important democratic principle of checks and balances from Israel’s political system. But mere hours before the webinar convened, PM Netanyahu was unable to form a coalition, the Knesset dissolved, and new elections were scheduled for September.

In this video, Plesner provides a comprehensive overview of the Israeli political scene — how we got to this unprecedented situation, what to watch over the coming months, what could change, what probably won't change, and what it all means for the future of the original topic of this webinar: safeguarding the principles of checks and balances, democratic accountability, and the rule of law in Israel.

A lost tribe, a brand of beer, the history and future of Jewish resilience, and how Shavuot explains it all.

Shouldn’t we focus on engagement and education programs only after a significant portion of philanthropic dollars have been committed to supporting the most vulnerable in our communities? 

(Cross-posted at eJewish Philanthropy.)

The word utopia was first used by Sir Thomas More in 1516. He coined the term combining two Greek words: ou (not) and topos (place), and he thus named an imaginary island that would harbor the perfect society. Utopia was “No-Place”, or, “the place that doesn’t exist”.

It caught on. “Utopia” became a blanket term to describe a dream of something impossible, a society that can’t really be found in any real topos, a goal that can’t really be achieved, and became especially common in describing political programs of (supposedly) impossible concretion. The 19^th century was a golden age of sorts for utopias. From utopian socialism to nationalist romanticism to technological utopias emerging from the industrial revolution, all sort of ambitious ideas and implausible political programs excited people’s imaginations.

Among that cacophony of dreams, we Jews also had a utopic idea of our own. It was called Zionism.