Founded in 1922 by Justice Brandeis, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Robert Szold and a group of distinguished Americans, PEF turns 90 this year. Fortunately PEF has remained true to its founding principles and remains unique in the field of Israel philanthropy.
While PEF has never been a household name, it’s unfortunate that we are not better known. I have been told that PEF is Israel Philanthropy’s best kept secret! Let me assure you that this is not by design. There is nothing clandestine or secretive about what we do, we just don’t advertise or fundraise.
If you are reading this post you have probably heard about us by word-of-mouth. In the past, referrals and networking have assured that those who needed our services found us.
This blog is intended to help raise our profile among those who share our passion for Israel philanthropy. In this blog I will post and invite others to post about PEF’s activities in order to get the word out.
In the last 90 years, philanthropy has become synonymous with fundraising, advertising, branding, event-planning, cause-marketing, matching grants, fundraising meetings and more meetings… and well-funded development teams. PEF does none of the above.
PEF donors contribute over $50 million per year without a solicitation call, direct mail, blast e-mail or benefit dinner. For the most-part, our donors are already committed to supporting charities in Israel and understand the importance of philanthropy. My primary focus and that of my fellow volunteer trustees (our executive management team) is to get recommended grants into the hands of approved Israeli charities without fees, deductions or delay.
The purpose of this blog is to make sure that any philanthropist wishing to provide funds directly to Israeli charities knows our name and address.
We at PEF are not adverse to technology. We have state-of-the-art software to track our donor-advised investment accounts as well as our grants. As a philanthropic organization not engaged in retail philanthropy we have little use for consumer technologies such as electronic shopping carts, crowd-sourcing and credit card processing. It occurred to me however, that at least with regard to social networking, PEF should feel very much at home. Sharing our activities and explaining our unique approach to philanthropy through a blog (with “share” buttons to Facebook and twitter) is a modern day equivalent of word-of-mouth.
In that context we offer our blog as a continuation of our time-honored tradition of sharing, and helping our friends share our unique offer.
In this blog I will share news of organizations that we support, Israeli charities newly approved by PEF, mail and comments we receive, policies of our organization, insights from our donors and grant recipients, excerpted trustee site visit reports and summaries of approved charities that work in particular areas of interest to our donors… to name a few. I hope that in the process, those who follow our blog will get to know us better; including our activities, our staff and our trustees.
I welcome comments and suggestions and invite you to hit the “Share” button (literally and figuratively) and help us grow the circle of friends who take advantage of what PEF has to offer.
Welcome to the PEF blog and to a conversation that has been ongoing for 90 years.
Geoffrey