The Foundation of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation Launches Community-Wide “Create a Jewish Legacy” Program
The Foundation of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation has launched a new endowment program that will empower every member of the community to have a long-term impact on Jewish institutions and organizations at home, in Israel and around the world.
The Foundation’s new Create a Jewish Legacy (CJL) program represents a shared commitment by area agencies, synagogues and day schools to work together to collectively secure endowment gifts on behalf of local, national and international agencies.
“This program is a real game changer,” said Barbara Black Goldfarb, Chair of the Create a Jewish Legacy Steering Committee and immediate past Board Chair of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. “It does two important things at the same time: It enables donors to fulfill their philanthropic wishes by supporting specific needs in the Jewish community, and provides critical resources for our agencies, synagogues and community to meet unforeseen challenges and build for the future.”
Through Create a Jewish Legacy, a donor has the ability to establish one legacy gift to benefit one or more organizations. The donor can make a commitment either through a current or future gift to a Jewish organization’s endowment fund or by declaring his/her intent to remember Jewish causes in a will or estate plan.
A legacy gift of any size can be customized and structured to fit a donor’s desires, lifestyle, family and financial needs. The donor can provide support for a particular institution, such as a synagogue, day school or social-service agency. Alternately, he/she can designate support for an area of interest, such as caring for the elderly, educating children, or advancing Jewish life, Jewish camp experiences, college campus programs or support for Israel and Overseas programs.
Miami Jewish synagogues, agencies and day schools were presented with the opportunity to apply and participate in the inaugural year of this program. Applications were submitted, reviewed and selected by the CJL Steering Committee based on a set of objective and subjective criteria.
In its introductory year in Miami, CJL is partnering with 12 local institutions:
• Beth Torah Benny Rok Campus and Hochberg Preparatory School, A David Posnack Jewish Day School
• Dave and Mary Alper Jewish Community Center on The Jay Morton-Levinthal Campus
• Greater Miami Jewish Federation
• Hebrew Academy (RASG)
• Jewish Community Services of South Florida, Inc.
• Miami Jewish Health Systems
• Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center on the Sanford L. Ziff Campus
• Temple Beth Am and Temple Beth Am Day School
• Temple Beth Sholom
• Temple Israel of Greater Miami
• University of Florida Hillel
• University of Miami Hillel
Representatives of these Jewish agencies, synagogues and day schools will participate in community trainings in coming months to learn how to help their donors create legacy gifts for the causes they care about today, so those institutions will thrive for generations to come. The Steering Committee plans to expand participation in Create a Jewish Legacy in future years by recruiting the participation of more institutions.
Joining Barbara Black Goldfarb on the Steering Committee are Foundation Chair John Bussel, Mojdeh Khaghan Danial, Shelley Niceley Groff, Steve Kravitz, Norman Lipoff, Mike Segal and Lily Serviansky.
Conceived by the San Diego Jewish Community Foundation in 2004, the CJL concept has since gone national with great success. In 2006, The Jewish Federations of North America began helping communities across the country establish CJL programs. Currently, more than 46 CJL partner communities nationwide have secured more than 2,500 legacy gifts totaling $582 million.
For more information about The Foundation of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation’s Create a Jewish Legacy program, contact Coordinator Ilana Saposnik by telephone at 305.576.4000, ext. 435, or by email at [email protected].
