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In this unprecedented crisis, JFN is committed to be a resource for funders and for the entire community. It is critical that we know what our fellow funders are doing and that we try, as much as possible, to coordinate responses so as to have a greater impact on the ground. In these times of quarantines and social-distancing, we can’t afford to be isolated from our partners.

To that end, we are asking JFN members to answer this very short survey about your work and COVID-19.

Our goal is to collect information and share themes, determine gaps in resources, identify where we can be helpful, and point you to resources that already exist. Ultimately, we seek to map the philanthropic response and make sure that needs are being addressed.

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Last updated: March 23, 2020

In 2012 the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education published Peoplehood Papers 7 on "Reinvigorating Jewish Peoplehood – the Philanthropic Perspective." In 2020, they decided, together with Taube Philanthropies and Jewish Funders Network, that it would be worth turning the topic on its head and dedicating an issue to "Reinvigorating Jewish Philanthropy – the Peoplehood Perspective," to explore the impact of the growing awareness to Peoplehood and its challenges on Jewish Philanthropy.

Download the full PDF, which includes essays by numerous members of the JFN family. Continue below for JFN President & CEO Andrés Spokoiny's essay. Or read it on eJewish Philanthropy.

By Women's Philanthropy Institute 

Women’s foundations and funds are a diverse and dynamic group of organizations with a history of leading philanthropy dedicated to women and girls.

Change Agents: The Goals and Impact of Women’s Foundations and Funds builds on the Women's Philanthropy Institute's previous research, including the recent Women & Girls Index report, to better understand how these organizations set goals, measure impact, and take action to advance women.

The study highlights ways that women’s foundations and funds provide a model for how philanthropic groups create social change, particularly within their local communities.

By Women's Philanthropy Institute 

The Women’s Philanthropy Institute today, October 3, 2019, released the Women & Girls Index: Measuring Giving to Women’s and Girls’ Causes, which, for the first time, quantifies the number of charities in the United States dedicated to women and girls and the
amount of charitable giving they receive.

The report finds these organizations received a collective total of $6.3 billion in charitable contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations in 2016 — 1.6% of all donations made that year.

The index identifies 45,000 U.S. charities that are dedicated to serving primarily women and girls or are collectives of women and girls that serve general philanthropic purposes. While most previous research has focused on donors to women’s and girls’ causes, the new report focuses on the recipient side of the equation, filling a gap in knowledge about the organizations themselves.

By Ellie Buteau, Hannah Martin, and Charis Loh, The Center for Effective Philanthropy

The biggest source of philanthropic support for nonprofits in the United States is giving from individual donors. Of the $428 billion in total charitable giving in 2018, individual donors contributed 68 percent. However, the recent decline in giving among small- and medium-gift givers means that major donors are becoming increasingly important to nonprofits. The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) surveyed its Grantee Voice panel of more than 600 nonprofit leaders across the country to learn what support nonprofits receive from major donors, what major donors can do to support nonprofits better, and how nonprofits’ relationships with major donors differ from their relationships with staffed foundations.

Throughout Europe and the U.S., many are pushing back on what they perceive as an inappropriate influence on public policy by private funders and questioning the power dynamic that enables wealthy private funders to impose their solutions to social and environmental problems without being required to involve the affected communities. Even the pundit world reveals this critique, with the subtitles of recent books speaking volumes: The Elite Charade of Changing the World of Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All, and Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better of Rob Reich’s Just Giving.

Globally, the rise of populism, discontent, and illiberal tendencies have led to accusations that philanthropy is being used as a tool to further a political agenda or consolidate power. Moreover, foundations that engage with socially and politically sensitive issues often find themselves targets of campaigns to delegitimize their work, philanthropic intent, and funding sources.

This study explores the lives of 1,128 contemporary young couples, in which at least one member of each couple is Jewish, to understand the role of religion and Jewish identity in their lives and the factors associated with their engagement with Jewish life. Beyond Welcoming is the first large-scale study of the marriages and committed relationships of Gen X and Millennial Jews, and the first to systematically collect data from non-Jewish partners about their backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. The fundamental question guiding this study is, “What programs and policy initiatives would best serve the Jewish community in an era where intermarriage is pervasive and young adults in the United States are distancing themselves from religion and religious institutions?”

By Anne Snyder. (Philanthropy Roundtable)

What is character and how do you shape it? This question has preoccupied parents, teachers, clergy and leaders since the beginning of time. But it takes on vital importance in our era. While the complexity and autonomy of life in the 21st century call for character more than ever, the conditions under which such character is forged are in trouble. How do we replenish the store of moral capital in such a diverse, individualistic, consumerist and stressed society? How do we usher in a shared appetite for the good? This book aims to break open a new path for donors interested in catalyzing a character revival. Through inspirational stories of institutional exemplars operating today, and a powerful set of 16 questions that you can use to evaluate your own organization, this book will equip philanthropists to shape existing initiatives that attempt to transform lives, and to build new ones.