(An installment in the series Spotlight on Poverty, a partnership between JFN and eJewish Philanthropy.)

There is an enormous opportunity for the Jewish community to bring new energy, power, and cohesion to the work of our non-profit sector and, especially, of our philanthropy, to address the needs against which our neighbors and often our community are struggling. 

By Alex Roth-Kahn, Managing Director, UJA-Federation of NY’s Caring Department and Jeffrey A. Schoenfeld, President, UJA-Federation of NY

(An installment in the series Spotlight on Poverty, a partnership between JFN and eJewish Philanthropy.)

Fifty-four years ago, President Lyndon Johnson first uttered the now famous phrase “the war on poverty” in his State of the Union address.  When he spoke in 1964, a staggering 19% of Americans were considered poor, equaling 36 million Americans at the time. Today, the poverty rate may have dropped to 12.7%, but with our much larger population, that translates to more than 40 million Americans living in poverty.

The more local statistics are no less startling.  One in five New York–area Jewish households is poor.  One in 10 are near poor.  Moreover, 45% of all children in Jewish households live in poor or near-poor households.

We can do better than that.

By Mairav Aloni & Yamila Saiegh

With the names Mairav and Yamila, we can never find our names on keychains in gift shops. But just through our names—Mairav Aloni and Yamila Saiegh—you can begin to glimpse our family histories. Through interning at Jewish Funders Network this summer, we have had the opportunity to share our backgrounds with each other, listen to the experiences of those around us, and learn more about philanthropy and the changing Jewish world. 

As the Office Manager of a small non-profit like JFN, my responsibilities are incredibly varied. Among them are liaising between our board of directors and staff, coordinating IT between our main office in NY and our teams in Israel and California, maintaining our CEO’s hectic calendar, and of course, keeping our coffee supply well stocked in the office.

Alongside the above, I also have a level of fiscal responsibility. I work with our COO and finance teams to process all of our accounts payable files, I am connected with our banking & finance teams in processing receivables via check and credit card, and I also do some work in packaging our organizational budgets for approval during our board of directors meetings.

In eJewish Philanthropy.

[This essay is part of a series from leaders in the field of Jewish philanthropy, who will offer reactions and analyses to Jack Wertheimer’s report, Giving Jewish: How Big Funders Have Transformed American Jewish Philanthropy, commissioned and released earlier this year by The AVI CHAI Foundation.]

Authors: Shavit Madhala, Michal Almog-Bar, John Gal
From the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel

The study includes an analysis of active organizations working in the field of welfare between the years of 2013 and 2016 whose annual revenues exceeded NIS 500,000 – a total of 748 organizations. The research examines characteristics such as sources of revenue, the number of paid staff and volunteers, and the target populations they aim to reach.

The organizations are classified according to how long they have been operating, the scope of their economic activity, their geographic distribution, and other characteristics.

Applications are open for the first National Cohort of the​ Board Member Institute for Jewish Nonprofits. The Board Member Institute is a hands-on comprehensive board development initiative, taught and administered by Northwestern University's Kellogg faculty and practitioners from the Jewish sector.  The program was designed and is intended for active and incoming board members of Jewish nonprofits. 

Whenever the Jews have had sovereignty in their land, they have messed up and lost it.

From Open Impact

Authors: Adene Sacks, Heather McLeod Grant, and Kate Wilkinson

How is the current economic and political environment impacting the capacity building needs of social-change leaders, nonprofits, networks, and movements? How are funders responding to these changing needs, and how can they better support this work going forward?