Groups Apply Principles of Organized Philanthropy to Israel’s Culture of Giving

By HAIM WATZMAN

“A young Torah scholar is critically ill and needs money to fund treatment overseas!” blared the loudspeaker from a car that drove through a residential neighborhood of Jerusalem one recent evening. The number of neighbors who got out of

their armchairs, walked down their porch stairs, and gave small donations to the driver would impress any American fund raiser.

Because of a strong Jewish charitable tradition, few Israelis will turn down direct solicitations, whether a mobile appeal like this one for a needy person or door-to-door collections by high-school students for cancer research or programs for disabled children. That’s old-style Israeli charity.

New-style Israeli charity was at work at the same time, however. While the loudspeaker blared, television commercials were being broadcast for two new organizations that are seeking to create a different kind of culture of giving. The Spirit of Israel and Matan: Your Way to Give are both trying to convince Israelis that they can give more effectively if they donate through organizations that can ensure that their donations go where they are most needed.

Filling a Gap

The Spirit of Israel, which is modeled after the Jewish federation system in the United States, was founded largely at the urging of Avraham Burg, who is speaker of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. Mr. Burg is also a former chairman of the Jewish Agency, a nongovernmental body that runs and finances a wide range of social services, largely with money raised from Jews who live outside of Israel.

Mr. Burg and others were responding to the gap in charitable giving that has occurred as Jews in the United States and elsewhere have become more concerned about supporting projects in their own cities and towns, and have increasingly come to believe that Israel’s fast-developing economy has made it possible for Israeli Jews to financially support the Jewish Agency’s work.

The new organization unveiled its first campaign in February 1998; last year it raised $5.75-million from 75,000 donors. Like the Jewish federations, it works on two levels: soliciting major donations from businesses and wealthy donors, and running a general campaign that collects small individual contributions. The money collected is then allocated, with about half going to projects run directly by the Jewish Agency and the rest to the 250 nonprofit organizations that receive support from the Jewish Agency.

The Spirit of Israel’s director, Joe Dushansky, is proud of his organization’s explicitly Zionist agenda.

“We’re not seeking to support just the less well-off,” says Mr. Dushansky. “We also give to projects to help children on Israel’s northern border. The average standard of living in settlements on the northern border may not be less than that in the rest of the country, but they’re there defending us.”

Employee Campaigns

Matan, by contrast, specifically supports nonprofit groups that provide social services to Israelis, including Arabs, in need — the handicapped, the elderly, and the ill — as well as those that promote social causes such as the encouragement of tolerance in Israeli society. With thousands of nonprofit groups seeking donations to support their work in those areas, Matan offers Israelis a single address to which they can give, knowing that Matan will pass the money on only to organizations that have been audited and monitored. Thanks to a founding gift from the Arison Foundation that covers the organization’s operating expenses for five years, donors to Matan also know that 100 percent of their money is going to charity.

Matan, which is affiliated with United Way International, does most of its soliciting through employee campaigns. Its first major campaign in November 1999 at Bank Hapoalim raised nearly $400,000, or twice as much as had been predicted, says the founding director, Shalom Elcott. By mid-2001, he says, Matan expects to have 12 to 15 companies participating and to be raising at least $1-million a year. In addition to raising money, Mr. Elcott says, Matan aims to develop a culture of involved giving in the Israeli workplace.

Matan and the Spirit of Israel have even worked together on some campaigns, with Matan raising money from company employees and the Spirit of Israel from campaigns where businesses promise to provide a percentage of sales of particular products to charity. The two organizations have also held some tentative talks about merging their operations. But both directors agree that, at least for now, their groups are complementing each other rather than stepping on each other’s toes.