A New Experience at the JFN Conference

I spent two thrilling days this week at the annual conference of the Jewish Funders Network.  For me, the conference was an opportunity to engage with colleagues and new friends from a different perspective.  AVI CHAI has been shifting its philanthropic approach from a go-it-alone foundation to one that seeks to co-create initiatives with other funders in the fields of day schools and summer camps – with special interest in financial viability, building capacity at key institutions, online learning, Israel education, religious engagement and Hebrew.  This shift is being chronicled by Joel Fleishman, in annual reports available here.
With the help of the Bridgespan consulting group and Dr. Fleishman, we have come to understand that the process of seeking partners requires gaining insight into the goals, challenges and experiences of other funders, because partnership is only possible when the needs of all partners are met.
This understanding has energized me to open different kinds of conversations with funders – less about AVI CHAI and more about them.  At the JFN conference, I had a series of such meetings, and I discovered that my sincere interest in the experience and objectives of other funders changed the nature of the conversations.  I found new openness and candor about the challenges faced by other funders.  And it was liberating for me to put myself in their shoes to brainstorm, rather than thinking about how to market AVI CHAI’s programs.  I hope that my suggestions to them were more useful as a result.
AVI CHAI continues to hold and advocate values and ideas, and a focus on particular fields.  So much is the same.  And yet the flavor of the conversation is different.  One of AVI CHAI’s late Trustees, Buddy Silberman z”l, noted that chocolate and coffee cakes share 90% of the same ingredients, but no one ever confuses the two.  Having tasted the conversations at JFN, I now look forward to many more conversations  representing a foundation that is both 10% different and yet operating in another paradigm.
Yossi Prager
Executive Director – North America