by dan pine
staff writer
Looks as if the Bay Area’s two largest Jewish federations have met their match. And federation leaders couldn’t be happier.
Thanks to the generosity of a few local philanthropists, both the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay have launched $1 million matching grants. Under the terms of the grants, donors to the federations’ annual campaigns will have their increases over last year’s gifts matched dollar-for-dollar.
New and returning donors will have their entire gifts matched.
In the East Bay, the funds go to the permanent community endowment of the Jewish Community Foundation. In the case of the S.F.-based federation, matching funds go to the annual campaign.
“I just like to see success,” said Nancy Grand, who with her husband will co-fund the Nancy and Stephen Grand 2008 Million Dollar Challenge Grant. “It’s one thing to do good deeds, and another to feel you’re being the most effective you can. Everybody’s gift is more powerful.”
Along with the Grands, partners in the S.F. challenge grant include Lisa and John Pritzker, Cathy and Jim Koshland, Annie and David Steirman, and Carol and Norman Traeger.
“I love that five families feel very strongly about wanting to invest in this community and the direction the federation is taking,” says Roberta Zucker Catalinotto, chief development officer for the federation. “We find this an incredibly generous act.”
Funded by the Goodman Family Foundation, the East Bay federation’s $1 million matching grant applies to any 2008 annual campaign gift increase, as well as to any first-time gifts to the campaign over $100.
“I’ve been a strong proponent of the [endowment’s] unrestricted fund,” said Richard Goodman, referring to the beneficiary of his matching grant. “In the East Bay it constitutes only a tiny fraction of the foundation, about 5 percent. That’s the only portion of the endowment that benefits the Jewish community as a whole and is available for the long term.”
The Goodman Family Foundation is a supporting organization of the Jewish Community Foundation of the Greater East Bay.
Amnon Rodan serves as this year’s campaign chair for the East Bay federation. He says putting together the matching grant required close collaboration between the federation and its affiliated endowment, with the two “acting as one.”
“The motivation is to have existing donors answer the rallying cry, and to entice new donors to get involved and allow them to jump into the federation with a leveraged deal,” Rodan said.
He is grateful to Goodman, who made the challenge grant possible.
“Through his family foundation, Richard was looking at ways of getting the community energized and motivated,” Rodan added. “He wanted to focus on the long term that would lift the Jewish community in perpetuity, rather than just be a blip in the funding perspective.”
While it’s too early to know how the S.F. federation will allocate these matching funds, Catalinotto says the money will be put to good use. “The [annual campaign] goal is $27.5, million, $2 million more than last year. [The challenge grant] will enable us to have more funds to allocate for more impact.”
The S.F. challenge grant runs through the federation’s fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2008. The East Bay federation’s matching grant runs through the end of next year.
“We do what we’re motivated to do,” Goodman added. “I feel strongly that the Jewish community is in need of strengthening and broadening. I feel like I’m leveraging the grant, and the donor feels like he’s doubling his contribution. It’s a win-win.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California