Women Score Successes
Jewish Women's Foundation shapes a philanthropy that advocates for women and girls.
SHARON LUCKERMAN
StaffWriter
W
hile difficult economic times
have forced most charitable
organizations to cut back
their financial support, one organization
has actually increased its giving by 40
percent.
The Jewish Women's Foundation of
Detroit (JWF) announced at its fourth
annual board of trustees meeting Sept. 8
that it would award $70,100 to 10 pro-
grams in the Detroit area and Israel —
$20,000 more than determined as part
of their 2002 strategic five-year plan.
"We are fortunate to be growing and
in the financial position to support more
projects than we anticipated to further
our mission of helping women in our
community and in Israel," foundation
chair Beverly Liss said to more than 125
attendees at the Max M. Fisher
Federation Building in Bloomfield
Township.
JWF, started in 1999, has 120 trustees
whose goal is making the world a little
better for Jewish women and girls, said
treasurer Patti Baum.
The grants included an $8,000 grant
to the David B. Hermelin ORT
Resource Center's Back to Work
Program for Orthodox Jewish Women,
which trains women in the latest tech-
nology while providing support such as
day care and transportation; $6,000 for
Hillel Day School of Metropolitan
Detroit's Tzenuit project that assists girls
in addressing social, emotional and
physical challenges of adolescence; and
$8,000 to the Lester J. Morris
Hillel Jewish Student Center at
Michigan State University for its
Jewish Women's Leadership and
Identity Initiative. (See adjacent
complete list of grants.)
Currently, JWF is one of 27
Jewish women foundations, which
are an outgrowth of the feminist
movement of the 1970s, said
guest speaker Barbara Dobkin,
current chair of the Hadassah
Foundation and founder of
Ma'yan, the Jewish Women's
Project, a program of the Jewish
Community Center in
Manhattan.
There are 150 women's funds
worldwide, but none yet in Israel,
Dobkin said. The oldest and
largest of these women's founda-
tion is the Ms. Foundation, estab-
lished in 1972.
However, while Jewish women's
foundation dollars increase, the
JWF Chair Beverly Liss with Barbara Dobkin, an expert on women's philanthropies.
percentage of United States grant dol-
lars for women and girls has declined,
she said. So the goal of women's phi-
lanthropy is social change, which will
things," but the issue of why Jewish men
When Jewish agencies came to
help shift power and advocacy for strate- and women don't marry goes deeper, she Dobkin to fund their grants for women,
gies that benefit women and girls.
said, and touches the kinds of issues that she found that many grants were based
concern women.
on a deficit model — what women
Women's Perspective
"Women philanthropists are defining
don't have. But it's not only what
Dobkin discussed the different ways
what it means to do gender-lending phi- women personally lack, but the lack of
male and female philanthropists work.
lanthropy and, like medical models
opportunities that need changing. She
"The big news in the 1990 popula-
based on men (which were used unwise- said that research shows that in sports,
tion study was intermarriage," she said.
ly to determine the needs of women
for example, girls have two years less
"Male philanthropists decided to fund
until recently), funding 'norms' don't
experience than boys. Frustrated by their
Birthright Israel programs to keep us
necessarily benefit Norma."
situation, girls tend to drop out faster
Jewish. And they've done wonderful
Women Helping Women
The following 10 grants, totaling
$70,100, were awarded to recipients
from Detroit, Lansing, Ann Arbor
and Israel by the 5-year-old Jewish
Women's Foundation:
• David B. Hermelin ORT Resource
Center's Back to Work Program for
Orthodox Women: $8,000
• Friendship Circle's Women
Helping Women, a substance abuse
recovery program: $6,000.
9/17
2004
20
• Greater Detroit Chapter of
Hadassah's Beyond the Mirror, for
fourth- through sixth-grade girls,
addressing issues that effect self-
esteem by promoting positive body,
self-image and healthy lifestyle choic-
es: $6,000.
• Hillel Day School Tzeniut, work-
shops for adolescent girls: $6,000.
• JARC's We Are Women, with
support from the Todi Barnett
Memorial Fund, a program that will
help developmentally disabled
women, build understanding about
their body and empower them to
avoid victimization: $8,000.
• Jewish Family Service's Girls'
Services at Yeshivas Darchei Torah in
Southfield: will provide clinical social
work services to elementary and mid-
dle-school girls: $7,900.
• Jewish Home and Aging Services'
Opening Windows for Widows pro-
vides support groups for widows who
are also Holocaust survivors: $6,000.
• Lester J. Morris Hillel Jewish
.
Student Center-MSU's Jewish
Women's Leadership and Identity
Initiative: $8,000.
• University of Michigan's Sol
Drachler Program in Jewish
Communal Service's Drachler
Program Alumni Institute —
Forwarding Jewish Women
Professionals Summit: $7,200.
• Israel, Upper Galilee Rape Crisis
Center's Project Education: $7,000.
— Sharon Zuckerman, staff writer