Looking to Increase Support for Jewish Causes? Just Take a Hike

On a drizzly August morning, Jehuda Reinharz, president of Brandeis University, laces up his hiking shoes for a climb up Aspen Mountain. He’s not on vacation, but rather at an unusual annual meeting between donors and charity executives, where callused feet and high-altitude conditioning can make the difference in who walks away with a multimillion-dollar grant.

Each summer, Harold Grinspoon, the philanthropist and real-estate entrepreneur, invites about 40 people to this glitzy resort town for a week-long “think tank” focused on Jewish philanthropy.

In addition to Mr. Reinharz, this year’s gathering included officials who oversee giving for the nearly $1-billion Jim Joseph Foundation and for Sheldon G. Adelson, the philanthropist and chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, whose net worth exceeds $20-billion.

The leaders of Birthright Israel, which sends thousands of young people per year on free trips to Israel, and the Foundation for Jewish Camping, also attended.

The guests and their spouses all meet each morning at Mr. Grinspoon’s home for breakfast, and they gather again in the evening for dinner and discussion. On most days, the only scheduled daytime activity is hiking, and Mr. Grinspoon, a passionate hiker whose two private foundations are worth $202-million, sets the tone. Over breakfast on the third day of this year’s meeting, he outlines the day’s guided hikes, and about a third of the gathering’s participants choose the most difficult option — a three-and-a-half-hour slog to the restaurant atop 11,200-foot Aspen Mountain.

Mr. Reinharz, a fit 63-year-old, starts out quickly, near the front of the pack. His hiking talents benefit him in another way — he can get in plenty of words when donors are huffing and puffing alongside him.

Three years ago, he hiked next to Michael H. Steinhardt, the former hedge-fund manager who is now a prominent donor to Jewish causes, as the philanthropist grumbled about how difficult it was to find solid statistics about the number of Jewish people in America. Eight months later, Mr. Steinhardt gave Brandeis $12-million to create the Steinhardt Social Research Institute, whose mission is to analyze statistical data about the Jewish population.

Hikes with Lynn Schusterman, the widow of the oil executive Charles Schusterman, led to a $15-million matching grant this past June for a center that will work to expand the teaching of Israel studies on college campuses.

“I keep on telling people, you want to raise money — hike,” Mr. Reinharz deadpans.

Strategic Trip

Mr. Grinspoon and Mr. Reinharz, their wives, and a few other couples started this tradition in 2000, on a trip to the Lake District in northwest England that was part vacation, part strategizing about how to get more Jewish donors excited about supporting Jewish causes.

“What was killing us at the time was that Jewish money wasn’t going Jewishly,” says Diane Troderman, Mr. Grinspoon’s wife.

The next few years, the group went to Ireland. In 2004, Mr. Grinspoon persuaded the group to come to Aspen, where he owns two condominium units and spends a few months each year — skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer. The guest list has been growing ever since. This year, Mr. Grinspoon, who lives in Massachusetts most of the year, rented a house for the week to ensure he had enough room to accommodate guests for breakfast and dinner.

The hiking is designed to promote informal chats between donors and charity executives. “You meet people on a different level,” Mr. Grinspoon says. “There’s no agenda here.”

The informality fosters connections, says Jeremy Pava, the controller at Mr. Grinspoon’s company, Aspen Square Management, and a trustee for his foundations. “It’s like when you go to a conference and people say, I got the most out of it while I was in the hallway,” says Mr. Pava. “This is a week of being in the hallway.”

This gathering and similar meetings are indicative of the waning power of the nation’s Jewish federations, which provide social services to the needy and support Jews in Israel and around the world.

The proportion of Jews who give to federations is dropping, according to figures from United Jewish Communities, in New York, an umbrella organization for the federations, and so is the amount of money that federations raise in inflation-adjusted terms. As federations struggle financially, donors like Mr. Grinspoon and Mr. Steinhardt have taken the lead in trying to find ways to get the younger generation excited about their Jewish identity.

A week before the Grinspoon meeting in Aspen, the Samuel Bronfman Foundation invited 40 professors, rabbis, and charity professionals to Park City, Utah, another resort town, for a three-day event called “Why Be Jewish?”

Foundations and individual donors are likely to set the pace of Jewish giving going forward, concedes Bob Aronson, director of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. “It’s the way of the future,” he says. “But you still have to bring people together to accomplish great things. Working individually is not as effective, in my view.”

Mr. Aronson has been hired by Mr. Steinhardt to head an effort to raise $100-million — $5-million apiece from 20 donors — to transform Jewish education in the United States. About two-thirds of the money has been raised.

That effort is part of a strategic shift in Mr. Steinhardt’s giving. In May, he expressed disappointment with what he has accomplished by giving $125-million to Jewish causes over the past 12 years.

Mr. Aronson echoes Mr. Steinhardt’s concerns: “Despite all the money and efforts of philanthropists, we still haven’t really figured out how to make young people care about being Jewish.”

Donor Training

The Grinspoon gathering also mirrors broader trends in American giving. As philanthropists become more engaged and strategic in their giving, they are more likely to seek out other donors or experts to acquire skills. That’s led to a booming business in both formal and informal retreats, according to Douglas Bauer, senior vice president at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a nonprofit group in New York that helps foundations and individuals manage their giving.

“You have people who have been very successful in business, but in many cases philanthropy is not a world they have participated in, and they don’t want to screw it up,” Mr. Bauer says. “Whether it’s a formal or informal meeting, the fact that they get to sit and talk and learn from peers is really important.”

Michael Bohnen, president of Mr. Adelson’s private foundation, which may eventually give as much as $200-million per year, was a first-time attendee at the Grinspoon gathering.

Steven Emerson, an investment manager in Los Angeles who has recently decided to significantly increase his charitable giving — probably donating as much as $600,000 to $1-million per year — has come to the Aspen gathering for the past two years.

“I’m a small fish compared to some people here,” Mr. Emerson says, as he nears the end of the hike up Aspen Mountain. “But I want to do this right.”

Evening Talks

After the hike and lunch on the mountaintop, the group meets at Mr. Grinspoon’s house for cocktails and a dinner of cod, polenta, and quinoa. The group then crams into the living room to hear the night’s featured speakers.

Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist of American Jewry at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, in New York, relates some statistics on Jewish philanthropy that hit with a thud. Jews are no more charitable than the rest of the U.S. population — they give slightly less than 2 percent of their income to charity — and they’re increasingly giving to non-Jewish causes rather than Jewish causes, Mr. Cohen says.

That’s not the news this organization wants to hear. If one thing unites this diverse group, it is a desire to kindle a greater interest in being Jewish among the younger generation.

Each year, tens of millions of dollars are spent to encourage Jewish children and young adults to embrace their Jewish identity. The programs include subsidies for parents who send their kids to overnight Jewish camps and day schools, and the free trips to Israel through the Birthright Israel program. A small group of wealthy donors is underwriting these efforts, which raises some questions about how sustainable this activity is over the long term.

Philanthropists are now covering more than two-thirds of the $80-million Birthright Israel budget. Originally, the hope was that Jewish federations in the United States and the government of Israel would each cover a third of the cost, but neither has been able to live up to that expectation, according to Jay Golan, the president of Birthright Israel. The organization was founded in 2000 by Mr. Steinhardt and Charles R. Bronfman, a Canadian businessman, but as more young people seek out the free trips, new donors are needed.

Mr. Adelson, ranked by Forbes as the sixth-richest man in the world, announced last week that he would give the organization $60-million over two years so that applicants can go to Israel in the same year they apply, rather than being put on waiting lists. Roughly 25,000 Jewish youths are expected to make the trip this year.

Mr. Grinspoon and Mr. Emerson, meanwhile, have given Birthright Israel $250,000 apiece in challenge grants for a new project that includes encouraging relatives of those who have received a free trip to Israel to make a donation to help cover the cost of trips for others.

During one of the few scheduled meetings at the Grinspoon gathering, Mr. Golan sat down with the two philanthropists to give a progress report.

A mailing to parents of about a quarter of the program’s 145,000 graduates received donations from more than 3 percent of the recipients, and the average gift was more than $100. Those numbers exceed the averages for direct-mail solicitations.

“Our challenge is to broaden out so that it is not the founders’ birthright, it is everybody’s birthright,” Mr. Golan says.

A Growing Collection

The annual Grinspoon gathering is in part a chance for donors to reassess whether their latest efforts are making an impact. Participants say Mr. Grinspoon’s wit and warmth keep them coming back.

“Harold collects people the way some people collect stamps,” Mr. Pava says.

Mr. Grinspoon has two foundations, but his heart and most of his money are with the $200-million Harold Grinspoon Foundation, whose mission is to enhance the vibrancy of Jewish life. The Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation, with $2-million in assets, is his fund for supporting non-Jewish causes, including entrepreneurship and high-quality teaching.

As a child growing up in Newton, Mass., near Boston, Mr. Grinspoon’s Jewish identity was defined mostly by anti-Semitism. “I was a kike, a Jew boy, and a Christ killer,” he says.

He credits his wife, Mr. Pava, and Irving Greenberg, an ordained Orthodox rabbi who served as president of Mr. Steinhardt’s foundation until its recent overhaul, for getting him to realize the importance of encouraging young people to embrace their Jewish identity.

Mr. Grinspoon has incubated two programs in West Springfield, Mass., near where he lives, and he hopes donors in other communities will adopt them. The B’nai Tzedek program matches three-to-one money that adolescents set aside from their bar or bat mitzvah gifts to give to charitable causes. The PJ Library sends Jewish-themed books and music each month to families with children up to age 6.

With his operating programs, Mr. Grinspoon is playing both sides of the fence at his own gathering. Some charity executives may be eyeing him as a source of support (he’s given to the Foundation for Jewish Camping, in addition to Birthright Israel), but he would like some of the other philanthropists here to become champions of his programs in their own communities. “We have some people like Michael Bohnen who are here looking for ideas,” Mr. Grinspoon says. “I’m careful not to stand up and yell and scream, ‘PJ Library!’”

That’s one thing about the focus on hiking at this gathering: It may make schmoozing more natural, but sweating one’s way up a trail is no place for charity leaders to put on a hard sell.

“It’s a different kind of approach,” says Mr. Emerson, the Los Angeles donor. “They’re feeling out what your interests are. If they want to sell you, they do it later.”