This conference was a first for me. I’m not sure why it carried so much weight, but flying overseas to focus on philanthropy with a foreign community of people intimidated me.

On Thursday evening, September 22, JFN Israel members met at the Yudale tapas bar (with Chef Assaf Granit) in Jerusalem.

Tuesday night (June 21), JFN Israel celebrated the longest day of the year on a gorgeous rooftop in Tel-Aviv. Andrés Spokoiny, JFN's President & CEO, addressed the Israeli membership on the rapid growth of Israeli philanthropy and the positive effect this continues to have on Jewish Philanthropy at large.

This past Friday morning, I had the pleasure of teaching a cooking class for my fellow JFN members at the gorgeous "Farma Cultura", an organic farm on a beautiful moshav in Central Israel. The event was a special gathering that brought together 35 of JFN Israel's younger funder community.

Now that I’ve had a little time for reflection, I wanted to share a few observations about the JFN conference, which was, once again, a great event.

The Jewish Funders Network’s international conference comes to Los Angeles, March 17–19, 2013, and I couldn’t be more excited to bring our signature event to my hometown. L.A. offers a vibrant, enthusiastic, multifaceted Jewish community and I’m thrilled we’ll get a chance to show it off.

JFN President & CEO Andrés Spokoiny's address to the 2012 Jewish Funders Network International Conference.

A person is walking in the street and passes by a dance hall. The windows of the dance hall are very thick and soundproof, so he can’t hear the music. He only sees people making all sort of strange movements. He walks away, thinking he just saw a bunch of totally crazy people, maybe a mental asylum of some sort.

eJewish Philanthropy.

Every school child in America knows that Paul Revere rode through Massachusetts warning the militia that “the Redcoats were coming”. Fewer people know that in the night of April 18th, 1775, other riders were sent with the same goal, among them William Dawes.

Diana Scearce, Monitor Institute, Knight Foundation

By Jane Wei-Skillern, Sonia Marciano, Stanford Social Innovation Review