$400,000 Challenge Fund returns for 2020 Annual Campaign

The generosity of the Challenge Fund donors and Ottawa’s Jewish community are helping to build and maintain the Jewish Superhighway.

By Matthew Horwood

In advance of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa’s 2020 Annual Campaign, three generous donor families came together for a second and final year to create a $400,000 Challenge Fund to match new and increased gifts to the Annual Campaign.

Through the Challenge Fund, gifts from new donors, and the increase in gifts from previous donors are matched. Thus, new donors’ gifts are effectively doubled, as are the amount of any increase in the gifts of previous donors.

The 2019 Challenge Fund resulted in $1 million in new funding available for Federation to support four key priorities: Jewish education, Jewish experiences, care for the vulnerable and security.

Ottawa’s two Jewish day schools – the Ottawa Jewish Community School (OJCS) and Torah Day School of Ottawa – received a total of $113,500 in strategic funding and $76,000 for special education support from the 2019 Challenge Fund in addition to other funds.

Jon Mitzmacher, head of OJCS, said the Challenge Fund allowed the school to “better meet the needs of students with diverse learning needs.”

Mitzmacher said with the extra funding, OJCS was able to purchase new furniture and devices for children with special needs (including voice-to-text devices, sound-cancelling headphones, special chairs and desks), to purchase a new diagnostic tool for English-language reading and train the faculty in its operation, and increase resource contact time for children in both Hebrew and French.

“As a trilingual school, we have always been looking to be able to match what we do in English, French and Hebrew. We were able to begin doing more of that last year thanks to this gift,” Mitzmacher said.

The Challenge Fund allocated $225,000 to support Jewish Jumpstart, a two-year incentive grant meant to encourage unaffiliated individuals and families to join the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC) and Ottawa’s Jewish congregations.

For synagogue membership costs, the Jewish Jumpstart grant covers up to 75 per cent in the first year and 50 per cent in the second year, while for SJCC membership costs, the grant covers up to 60 per cent for the first year and 40 per cent for the second year. Of the over 125 Jewish Jumpstart applicants, 57 per cent are families with children, and nearly 60 per cent recently moved to Ottawa.

Jewish Jumpstart has incentivized families and individuals to join Kehillat Beth Israel, Congregation Machzikei Hadas, Temple Israel, Or Haneshamah, Ottawa Torah Centre Chabad, Young Israel of Ottawa, Adath Shalom Congregation, Congregation Beit Tikvah – and the SJCC.

Rabbi Eytan Kenter of Kehillat Beth Israel said Jewish Jumpstart made membership possible for some families “in a way it hadn’t been before” and gave others “the impetus to take the plunge.”

Rabbi Kenter said he is grateful to Federation for the Jewish Jumpstart program. “I think it is a wonderful opportunity for families to find a Jewish home in a place they feel is right for them.”

Stacy Goldstein, director of community building at Congregation Machzikei Hadas, said Jewish Jumpstart has been “really enriching for a lot of people.”

“I spoke to people who have been coming to our shul for years for services and never got a membership, but because of this program they decided this was the year they would join,” she said.

Patrice Berdowski, the SJCC membership director, said over 30 families have joined the centre thanks to Jewish Jumpstart, including “many young families, a base we want to reach out to.”

Berdowski said several families have told her they had been wondering how to fit the SJCC into their budget, “and Jewish Jumpstart came along and made it affordable.”

Now that these families have memberships, Berdowski said the SJCC must continue to engage with them, show them “all we have to offer” and convince them to retain their membership.

Other allocations from the Challenge Fund have included $50,000 for security enhancements; $105,000 for Jewish Journeys; $70,000 for Jewish Experience Microgrants; $240,000 for increased care for the vulnerable; and $25,000 to a fund for excellence in supplementary schools.

“The Challenge Fund is a unique way of encouraging others to give so our Jewish community can continue to flourish,” said philanthropists Barbara Crook and Dan Greenberg, who created the $400,000 Challenge Fund in 2018 with Roger and Robert Greenberg, and the Stephen Greenberg family.

Rabbi Reuven Bulka, co-chair of the Annual Campaign, said last year’s challenge fund was “successful beyond our imagination.” Rabbi Bulka said he is confident the community can meet the high bar that was set last year.

Rabbi Bulka credited some of the success of the Challenge Fund to Aviva Ben-Choreen, co-chair of the 2019 Annual Campaign, and to Karen Palayew, the 2020 co-chair, who he said are both “terrific and hard workers.”

Rabbi Bulka said he hopes the 2020 Challenge Fund will “set the tone for the next generation to realize that community doesn’t get built out of nowhere, and everyone has a part to play.”

Jewish Federation of Ottawa President and CEO Andrea Freedman said she feels “ecstatic” that the generosity of the Challenge Fund donors and Ottawa’s Jewish community are allowing the Jewish Superhighway to be built and maintained.

Freedman said Federation aims to use the Challenge Fund to make investments that are “strategic, nimble and not permanent allocations,” but which are infusions of cash that make a difference for community members and the organizations that serve them.

As this is the final year the Challenge Fund will take place, Freedman said the community has “one final opportunity to recreate and reimagine the level of sustained funding for our community going forward.”

Visit https://jewishottawa.com/giving/challenge-fund for more information on the Challenge Fund or to donate to the Jewish Federation of Ottawa 2020 Annual Campaign.