Jim Joseph Foundation Announces Additional Grants From Spring Board Meeting of 2016

More than $17.4 million awarded to support Jewish education

San Francisco, CA – The Jim Joseph Foundation today announced that more than $17.4 million were awarded in new grants at its spring 2016 Board meeting to support effective Jewish learning experiences and the educators who help make those experiences possible. Based in San Francisco, the Foundation is in its eleventh year of grantmaking and has awarded more than $420 million in Jewish education primarily for youth, teens, and young adults in the United States.

“Taken together, this newest slate of grants reaffirms a core principle that dynamic Jewish education can occur at camp, in day schools, through service learning, and numerous other environments,” says Al Levitt, President of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “The Foundation continues to partner with talented organizations to grow these educational opportunities, to develop and support educators, and to advance the field.”

Major Grants from spring board meeting

Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore Inc.: General Operating Support of Leading Edge (2016-2017)
Up to $350,000 for operating support for Leading Edge (known formerly as the “Jewish Leadership Pipelines Alliance”) to address the leadership pipeline issue in the Jewish nonprofit sector.

Center for Jewish Day Schools, Inc.: National Jewish Day School Support (2016-2017)
Up to $2,000,000 for national Jewish day school support to fund operating costs to launch and support the first 18 months of a new organization as it executes its business plan. The new organization is a consolidation of Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools (PARDeS), Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE), RAVSAK, Schechter Day School Network, and Yeshiva University School Partnership (YUSP).

Foundation for Jewish Camp, Inc.: Specialty Camp Incubator III (2016-2020)
Up to $9,883,465 to establish Specialty Camp Incubator III. Funds will be used to launch and support four new Jewish specialty camps, provide funding to the camps during their planning, start-up, and first three years of operation, and evaluate each camp’s development and outcomes. (Total Foundation support to all three Incubators, creating 13 new camps, is up to $27,226,167)

Gann Academy: The New Jewish High School of Greater Boston, Inc.: Early Career Fellowship (2016-2021)
Up to $1,500,000 for piloting an Early Career Fellowship Program (“Fellowship”) to develop and position young leaders for careers in Jewish education. The pilot program is led by Gann Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts; Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York, New York; and de Toledo High School in Los Angeles, California. This funding is structured in part as a matching grant and includes recruiting and selecting participants for two cohorts, a Fellowship curriculum, annual convening of the Fellows for professional development institutes, and creating formative and summative evaluations.

Mayerson JCC in Cincinnati: Community-Based Jewish Teen Education & Engagement Initiative (2016-2020)
Up to $1,500,000 to support a multi-faceted Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Initiative in Cincinnati to both increase the number of teens involved in high quality Jewish learning and engagement experiences, and to enhance the knowledge of Jewish teen education and engagement professionals. The Mayerson JCC seeks to achieve these goals by strengthening cross-organizational collaboration, Jewish teen education and Israel engagement in partnership with the iCenter. The initiative, funded in partnership with the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, will also launch a teen micro-grant program and establish a professional development program to assist teen professionals by providing them with tools, connections, and education, as needed, to better serve Cincinnati teens. (This grant was awarded within the framework of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative; the Foundation has awarded up to $22,423,448 for community-based Jewish teen education and engagement initiatives).

Repair the World: General Operating Support (2017-2018)
Up to $2,000,000 to fund general operating support to enhance and grow Repair the World’s work engaging young Jewish adults in meaningful Jewish service throughout the United States. This grant will help to continue to pilot and expand Repair the World’s community-based peer-to-peer engagement strategy for young adults, further strengthen Repair the World’s national work building the field for Jewish serving learning, and increase organizational capacity to fundraise from national and local donors.

Expedited Grant

The Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties: Portrait of Bay Area Jewish Life and Communities (two years)
Up to $250,000 to support a new Jewish community study, “A Portrait of Bay Area Jewish Life and Communities.” The study will include: 1) a thorough, methodologically rigorous survey of the Bay Area Jewish population that will collect information on current socio-demographics, Jewish connections and engagement, and human and social service needs; 2) the development of an online community index, based on data collected in the survey, that will establish and display current benchmarks of Jewish connections and engagement; and 3) detailed research plans for follow-up, longitudinal data collection designed to regularly update the community index in the future and track progress toward Federation and community strategic goals of doubling Jewish engagement over the next decade.