Ogen – Free Loan Fund, a JFN member that makes interest-free loans to Israelis in need, is now offering two new impact investing options.

The first new option, in partnership with Keshet DAF, Israel’s first-ever donor-advised fund (launched in 2019 by JFN Israel and partners), enables Keshet account holders to allocate a chosen sum (minimum ILS 100,000) from their fund toward an Ogen Impact Loan. The funds will be loaned out to small businesses and nonprofits through Ogen, before being returned, with 1 percent annual interest, back to the donor's Keshet DAF account after five years.

Israel is currently facing one of its worst-ever ecological disasters — an unprecedented oil spill affecting the country’s entire coastline. On Feb. 17, an estimated 1,200 tons of oil spilled from a tanker approximately 30 miles off Israel’s coast, but the spill was not immediately reported. Almost all of Israel’s coastline was covered with batches of hazardous tar. In response, JFN’s Green Funders Forum held an emergency briefing last week, featuring representatives of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority and key environmental NGOs. (Watch it here or scroll down to the bottom of this page.)

Philanthropy is urgently needed to assist with cleanup and prevention efforts.

Episode 10 of What Gives? the Jewish philanthropy podcast from Jewish Funders Network.

Guest: Yossi Klein Halevi, journalist and author

NOTE: You may also want to watch Yossi Klein Halevi in conversation with Rabbi Noa Kushner at JFN's 2019 conference.

Last Rosh Hashanah, when you heard the familiar Unetaneh Tokef liturgy about who will live and who will die, especially the part of “who by plague,” did it occur to you that in the coming year a pandemic might kill hundreds of thousands of people and turn our entire world upside down?

In the aftermath of the corona crisis, what forces and trends are shaping the new social landscape in Israel? Which global processes has the crisis accelerated, and how might these affect the social fields in Israel where philanthropy plays a role? What are the long-term changes we can expect?

These large and ongoing questions continue to accompany day-to-day philanthropic work and influence our ability to make decisions about both the “here and now” and the long-term.

A few weeks ago, we shared information about the Israeli government’s efforts to help nonprofits and social service organizations overcome the many economic challenges the coronavirus pandemic has created.

At that time, we provided a guide outlining the different types of aid available.

Many things that worried us tremendously a few months ago seem to have lost their urgency in the age of COVID19. As Bari Weiss noted in a recent New York Times column, “many of the [culture war] battles of the past decade now seem self-indulgent and stagnant; others a waste of time...”

(Session at JFN 2020 Virtual Convening, March 23, 2020)