A Sampling of Current Needs to Consider in Your Charitable Giving

The Jewish Community Endowment Fund is often asked by donors and philanthropic partners to provide information on current needs in the community. We would like to make you aware of some priority needs, each of which offers the opportunity to partner with other funders to leverage your philanthropic dollars and make an even greater impact. 

Below is only a sampling of current needs, and JCEF staff is always available to provide information on needs in your areas of interest, whether in the Jewish or general communities, locally, nationally, or overseas. 

• Family and Health/Caring for the Vulnerable
• Education and Youth/Engaging Young People in Jewish Life
• Israel & Overseas
• Jewish Community Federation 2008 Annual Campaign

Family and Health/Caring for the Vulnerable

A. Provide Access to Arts & Culture to Enrich the Lives of Frail, Isolated Elderly

B. Support the Unmet Emergency Medical Needs of Low-income Elderly

A $2,500 one-to-one matching grant has been issued from the Caroline & Bennett Raffin Foundation to help build an emergency fund for the urgent medical needs of low-income elderly in our community that are not reimbursed by insurance or other public sources.  The Fund, administered by the JCEF, provides an opportunity for social service agencies to request quick turnaround “mini-grants” for emergency medical needs of low-income elderly clients, including in-home health care, mobility aides, warm blankets and other necessities. 

C. Aid Individuals and Families in Financial Crisis

One in ten Bay Area Jewish families--and one in five Bay Area Jewish children under 12--is living in poverty. Funding for core needs such as food, shelter, rehabilitation, medicine, home care, orthopedic devices, and clothing is urgently required. Providers are seeing a 20% annual increase in the demand for this type of help, and are unable to meet the needs without additional funds. Your gift will provide critical safety-net help for the poorest members of our community, with 100% of donated funds going toward direct financial aid, including: rental assistance to help a disabled, divorced single mother during a time of crisis; food vouchers for elderly émigrés; a health insurance subsidy following kidney transplant surgery. Financial assistance is provided as one part of a comprehensive casework plan administered by Federation beneficiary agencies, which is developed and overseen a staff clinician to help those in need maintain or regain self-sufficiency and prevent family breakdown.

For information on other current grant needs serving seniors or other vulnerable individuals, please contact JCEF Program Officer Laura Mason at (415) 512.6273, or e-mail lauram@sfjcf.org.

Education and Youth/Engaging Young People in Jewish Life

A. The Holocaust Memorial Education Fund

This Fund supports programs educating youth and teachers about the Holocaust in order to focus on the roles of individual, community and institution in fighting or perpetuating injustice.  Contributions are sought to match a $20,000 challenge grant offered by the Sarlo Foundation and Mary L. Ralph Fund to increase funding for educational programming about the Holocaust throughout the general community and particularly in Bay Area public high schools. Past grants from the Holocaust Memorial Education Fund include a three-day Teacher Forum for 200 local middle and high school teachers, teacher training programs offered through the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and workshops offering new curriculum to help public high school teachers introduce the lessons of the Holocaust in their classrooms.  With results of a newly conducted study of Best Practices in Holocaust Education commissioned by the Jewish Community Endowment Fund, the Fund will be poised to make strategic, high-impact grants in the coming years.  Grant requests continue to far exceed the resources available in this Fund.

For additional information on the Holocaust Memorial Education Fund or other education-related grant needs please contact JCEF Senior Program Officer, Amy Rabbino at 415-512-6212, or e-mail amyr@sfjcf.org.

B. The Jewish Coalition for Literacy (JCL), Serving K-5 Students at Bay Area Public Schools

The Coalition, established with JCEF funding through a partnership between the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Community Federation, provides a visible response from the Jewish community to the literacy crisis in public schools by recruiting, training, and retaining volunteers to tutor at-risk K-5 students in San Francisco, the Peninsula, and the East Bay.  An independent evaluation of the program reports the JCL is considered the most effective tutoring program in public schools today, and that the program has generated tremendous good will in both the general and Jewish communities.  In 2006-2007, the Coalition trained and placed over 500 volunteers serving as reading tutors for more than 1,000 students in 53 public schools and after-school programs throughout the Bay Area.

C. The Chai Baby Project, Welcoming Newborns and Creating Jewish Connections

Chai Baby reaches out to welcome all Jewish families with newborn or newly adopted babies.  During the program’s pilot year, more than 350 families received a welcome basket delivered by a Federation volunteer with information on Jewish community programs and services for young children and their families; materials on parenting and Jewish celebrations; information on Jewish pre-school programs; vouchers for membership or programs at JCC’s; and special gifts. Feedback on the program has been very positive and more volunteers are being trained to meet the demand.  The Chai Baby program has proven to be effective in helping couples who are unaffiliated or intermarried recognize that the Jewish community welcomes their involvement and participation, and many have taken advantage of the vouchers to join a JCC and participate in other Jewish community programming.  As an example of how more funding creates greater impact, $5,000 would provide welcome baskets and vouchers to 50 families.

D. The PJ Library Project, Helping Young Families Begin a Tradition of Jewish Learning

Matching funds are needed to expand the reach of this innovative program providing monthly deliveries of Jewish-themed children’s books and music to families with children aged 6 months – 5 years old in the Federation area. The local PJ Library Project is based on the successful program model led by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation in Western Massachusetts, which recognizes that reading stories and listening to music are among the most powerful early childhood learning experiences that, in turn, can build lifelong ties to the Jewish community.  A $12,000 grant would make the PJ Library program available to 200 families for one year.  

E. The Community-Wide Jewish Pre-School Scholarship Fund

A $250,000 challenge grant has been launched to provide need-based scholarships for working and single parent families to send their children to Jewish pre-school programs within the Federation service area. In recent years, the high cost of living in the Bay Area has made Jewish pre-school inaccessible to many families, and particularly single-parent families, who often struggle to make ends meet. Jewish pre-school scholarship funds are needed to ensure that cost is not a barrier to active participation in Jewish life for young families. Jewish pre-schools serve as an important bridge to Jewish family life for many young families, including those who are unaffiliated and/or interfaith. $365,000 has been raised to date toward the $500,000 needed to make the program available for families entering Jewish preschools throughout the Federation area in the Fall of 2008.

F. The Community-Wide Jewish Day School Scholarship Fund

Additional funds are needed for Jewish Day School scholarships, as, increasingly, moderate-income families are unable to afford a Jewish day school education for their children. Launched in 2005 the Community-Wide Fund has been extremely successful — awarding $193,315 in scholarships to 58 children from 5 Federation-area day schools for the 2007/08 school year, an increase of 48% from the previous year.  The Fund provides need-based scholarships to Jewish children attending any participating Jewish day school in the Federation’s service area whose families receive the maximum scholarship available from an individual day school, make the maximum affordable household contribution, and still require additional funds for their children’s education.

G. Youth Philanthropy Initiative: Helping Jewish Teens Stay Connected to Jewish Community and Act on Jewish Values Through Hands-on Philanthropy

Additional funding is needed to support the expansion of the Jewish Youth Philanthropy Initiative throughout the Federation area.  This year, the Initiative has expanded to offer year-long teen foundation programs in San Francisco and the North Peninsula, in addition to continuing programs in Marin, the South Peninsula, and the East Bay.  These programs have proven successful in building Jewish identity and leadership skills for teens, and the expansion will broaden their reach and impact.  Additional funding will help involve even more teens in the hands-on practice of Jewish values through philanthropy, from developing the missions of their foundation boards to reaching consensus on grant decisions that benefit both the general and Jewish communities.  A total of $58,000 is still needed to support the expansion in the coming year, including the costs of a 3-day educational retreat that brings together over 100 participating teens and the development of a curriculum for older teens who serve as “Leadership Council” participants for a second year in the program.

H.  Nurturing Excellence in Synagogue Schools (NESS), Jewish Community Federation as Fiscal Agent

Contributions are needed to support the initial year seed-funding budget of $123,500 to pilot the multi-year NESS initiative in six Federation-area synagogue schools.  The Philadelphia-based PELIE Foundation has selected this community as the next region nationwide to implement the innovative NESS program focusing on synagogue school improvement, and will be providing $600,000 in matching funds for comprehensive training and consultation over the next 3 years.  Working with local partner the Bureau of Jewish Education, NESS will provide synagogue schools with a continuum of support and tools offered by national experts, including visioning and goal-setting; school assessment; leadership development and mentoring of educators; teacher training; curriculum development; family education; and organizational development to improve learning and school performance. 

For additional information on Education and Youth-related grant needs, please contact JCEF Senior Program Officer Amy Rabbino at (415) 512.6212, or e-mail amyr@sfjcf.org, or JCEF Director of Imprint Giving Judy Bloom at (415) 512-6263, or e-mail judyb@sfjcf.org.  

Israel & Overseas

A.  Promote Excellence in the Life Sciences Through the Machiah Israeli Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program

The Machiah Fellowship program leverages support from a variety of sources to offer two-year fellowship awards so that promising Israeli scientists can receive the highest quality of advanced research training at leading universities in the U.S., including Stanford, Harvard, and UCSF, among others.  The program was launched in 2005 in response to the narrowing of opportunities for Israeli scientists to conduct research in Europe.  Machiah fellows are required to return to Israel at the conclusion of training period.  A gift in any amount toward the $55,000 annual fellowship will help provide advanced research training for one recipient.  In 2007, 8 fellows were selected from among 49 highly qualified applicants, and the 2008 award cycle is now underway. Please visit www.machiahfoundation.org for more information.

B.  Save Lives Around the World by Expanding the Unrelated Bone Marrow and Blood Stem Cell Donor Database

The JCEF provided funding in 2002 to enable Hadassah Medical Center to purchase equipment that increased the hospital’s capacity to type potential marrow and blood stem cell donors from 30 per week to up to 500.  By expanding a central database of unrelated marrow and blood stem cell donors from various Jewish ethnic groups, Hadassah hopes to make available life-saving transplants to a higher percentage of the individuals affected by leukemia, lymphoma, and other forms of cancer of the blood, as well as genetic disorders and immune deficiencies.  This expansion has been a success, with Hadassah reporting 19 individuals worldwide who received transplants in the first nine months of 2007 through matches from the registry.  Additional funds are needed for the cost of testing reagents and equipment upgrades.  With each test costing $78, a grant of $3,900 would add 50 new potential marrow donors to the database.  A grant of $10,000 would enable the lab to purchase a Nanodrop that measures DNA in testing samples.

C.  Fostering Jewish Identity and Pluralism in Israeli Society: Gvanim

Gvanim (hues of a color) aims at creating a cadre of change agents to spread the message of Jewish Pluralism to ever-widening circles of Israelis by developing and implementing projects across the country. Each year, Gvanim chooses 20 participants from about 350 applicants, reflecting the entire mosaic of Israeli society, Orthodox to secular, all of whom are leaders in their professional fields. Gvanim is an intensive educational program and includes a visit to the Bay Area to showcase pluralistic Jewish life in the community. Gvanim is action-oriented. Each participant develops an “action program.”  Gvanim Action programs have touched thousands of Israelis of all ages all over Israel. Several selected examples—in the wake of a Gvanim Action project, JCCs all over the country are now offering an array of programs with Jewish content for children, teens, and adults, including non-denominational celebrations of major Jewish holidays. In the educational arena, all high school principals in Tel Aviv are participating in a Gvanim program tailor-made for their needs. The IDF is currently partnering with the Federation on a Gvanim program for high-ranking army officers who will mentor and train the next generation of Israeli youth and provide pluralistic role models for these young soldiers.  A $12,000 grant will sponsor a fellow. A $5,000 grant will help to enable a fellow to implement an action program in his/her local community this year.

For information on other current grant needs relating to Leadership Development, Israel or overseas please contact JCEF Director of Grants Mark Reisbaum at (415) 512.6251, or e-mail markr@sfjcf.org.

Jewish Community Federation

2008 Annual Campaign

Many JCEF philanthropic funds award grants to support the Federation’s Annual Campaign at year-end, and this year new donors have an incentive to give and existing donors have a special incentive to increase their Campaign gifts through the * Nancy and Stephen Grand Million Dollar Challenge Grant.  All new donations and increases to gifts to the 2008 Campaign contributions will be matched $1 for $1 by this $1 million Challenge Grant, providing up to an additional $2 million in Campaign funding to address current needs locally and overseas, and supporting new Federation-led strategic initiatives in partnership with area synagogues and local funding partners.  For more information about how the Campaign makes a difference in the local, national and international communities, please visit www.sfjcf.org.

*Thank you to our partners in the Challenge Grant: Nancy & Stephen Grand, Lisa & John Pritzker, Cathy & Jim Koshland, Anne & David Steirman, Carol & Norman Traeger.

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