Changing The Future
To Our Community
In the Foundation’s first annual report, Alexander Holstein described a vision of “a Jewish community that makes everyone feel like they are part of a great big family, an integral part of a growing community: where Jewish agencies and synagogues will be financially stable with sufficient rainy-day funds to carry them through good times and difficult ones.” He noted that the Foundation was created “to help preserveand create strong institutions – Hebrew schools, family and human service agencies, the Federation and synagogues” but that it needs to be a joint venture that would require “many, many people from all walks of life to say, ‘I want to give something back to my community.”
By the end of its second year, the Foundation could boast of more than 50 individuals and families who had created funds or donated to the Foundation since its inception. But Alex continued looking forward. “This is a wonderful beginning,” he wrote, but pointed out that “currently, the monies raised annually for the immediate needs of agencies and synagogues are applied to the here and now – the present. But the present soon becomes the future. Therefore, we need to create endowments to insure the future financial stability of our local Jewish and community organizations so that the generations that follow will have a better tomorrow.”
Twenty years ago, the Foundation declared, “We are on target towards our goal of $2 million in assets under administration.” Twenty years later, the Foundation was the proud administrator of more than ten times that amount, with $25 million in assets under management. We live in turbulent and challenging times. All of us continue to navigate the pandemic, an uncertain economy, political unrest and escalating antisemitism. Throughout all of this, your Foundation remains hard at work raising and managing funds while remaining focused on the future of our vibrant community. The number of endowments and donor-advised funds continues to grow, and we remain committed towards appealing to others to join in the generosity of those documented in this report. What we have achieved and hope to accomplish is because of a dedicated board of directors as well as a talented staff led by our executive director, Michael Balanoff. Michael is ably assisted by Amy Bates, Barbara Davis and Don Cronin who make sure the nuts and bolts of this organization run smoothly. Thanks go out to the aforementioned and Vicki Feldman whose hard work produced what I think is one of the best annual reports you can find anywhere.
I close with a quote by Winston Churchill, of which I am frequently reminded: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
Neil Bronstein
Board Chair