Seven Jewish foundations have announced the launch of an $80 million fund that will provide grants and interest-free loans to Jewish nonprofits impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Launched by the Maimonides Fund and Aviv, Jim Joseph, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel, Charles and Lynn Schusterman, Paul E. Singer, and Wilf Family foundations, in coordination with the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF) will support the infrastructure of Jewish life in ways that advance Jewish education, engagement, and leadership in the face of the public health emergency.
To that end, the fund includes two components: an interest-free loan program and an aligned grant program that will provide a combination of emergency funding for immediate needs and strategic funding to address organizational and sector-wide shifts catalyzed by the crisis. The loan program, which will be administered by the Nonprofit Finance Fund in partnership with JFNA, will provide short-term unsecured loans to alleviate cash flow challenges and enable organizations to maintain their services and/or make payroll over the next three to six months. To ensure an efficient process that saves applicants time and provides for the quick deployment of resources, both programs will proactively source funding opportunities rather than accept unsolicited proposals.
“We recognize the dire health and economic needs that the pandemic has created and applaud the heroic efforts by so many to address them,” the foundations involved in the effort said in a joint statement. “We have also seen firsthand the acute challenges Jewish organizations across the country are facing. While this fund alone cannot address all of those challenges, we believe that investing together in these vital pillars of Jewish life will help ensure a stronger future for American Jewry in the months and years to come.”
Source: PND
