28 | NOVEMBER 17 • 2022

OUR COMMUNITY

S

parkIL — a first-of-its-kind
initiative that enables individuals
to support the small business of
their choice in Israel, while strengthening
meaningful connections and relationships
between the lenders and Israel — has
received a three-year, $600,000 grant from
the Michigan-based Max M. & Marjorie
S. Fisher Foundation. The grant brings the
foundation’s total support for SparkIL to
$1.1 million over eight years.
Established in partnership with The
Jewish Agency for Israel and The Ogen
Group, the platform enables users around
the world to participate in crowdfunding
interest-free loans that aim to make a real,
measurable and continuing impact on
underserved populations across Israel.
“
At its core, SparkIL brings the best of The
Jewish Agency’s expertise at connecting the
Jewish global community with Israel and
the Israeli people,
” said Fisher Foundation
Trustee David F. Sherman, chair of the
Foundation’s Jewish Committee that
approved the new grant. “SparkIL also
activates Ogen’s expertise at making loans
… perhaps the highest form of tzedakah
[charity/righteousness], to bring about
change here in Israel … We at the Fisher
Foundation have been privileged to be one
of their partners as well.
”
In additional support for the peer-to-peer
lending network, the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit’s Israel and Overseas
Allocations Committee, chaired by Leah
Trosch and Richard Broder, has approved
the transfer of $100,000 to SparkIL for risk
cushions. These funds will allow SparkIL to
offer more borrowers opportunities to raise

much-needed capital on the platform.
“SparkIL is providing an opportunity
for Detroit to participate using previously
allocated and currently unused funds,
and we are proud to do so,
” Trosch said.
“Particularly at this time, with the influx of
new olim [immigrants] from both Ethiopia
and Ukraine, it is so important that diaspora
communities, partnering with The Jewish
Agency, remain flexible and creative.
”
This past summer, the Fisher Foundation’s
Sherman also visited David Elimelech, one
of the first borrowers to open a campaign
with SparkIL. Elimelech, who is from an
impoverished neighborhood in Ashkelon,
grows his own mushrooms that are now
being sold to restaurants and making an
impact for vegans throughout the country.
According to Elimelech, while
mushrooms are an ideal plant-based
replacement for meat and seafood, “Israel
had no mushroom market to speak of, so I
took my savings and bought equipment to
start growing them.
” And thus, his business,
FUNGGIZ, was born.
“It was hard to navigate the bureaucracy

of establishing my business, but SparkIL
has been incredible in helping us get off the
ground,
” Elimelech said. “Our biggest hurdle
right now is inventory. We are regularly
sold out of products and need a larger
facility so we can keep up with the demand
for supplying restaurant distributors.
Because the demand is so high, we created
at-home grow kits, so folks can incorporate
mushrooms into their daily diets as well.
This loan will help us increase production in
both areas.
”
SparkIL CEO Na’ama Ore said, “We are
deeply grateful to the Fisher Foundation for
their generous early-stage and continued
support for SparkIL, and we welcome
the Detroit Federation in providing risk
cushions that enable us to attract more
borrowers in Israel’s periphery.
“The support from these organizations
is helping us to empower Israel’s small
business owners with the long-overdue
resources that they need and deserve, while
simultaneously pioneering a new vehicle
for creating connections between Israel and
world Jewry.
”

Peer-to-peer lending platform receives $700K
in support from Detroit.

Helping Israeli
Businesses Grow

COURTESY OF SPARKIL

GUY YECHIELY

Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher
Foundation Trustee David
F. Sherman speaks about
SparkIL at The Jewish
Agency for Israel’s Board of
Governors meeting in July.

TOP: Laurence Tisdale, Board of Governors member at The Jewish Agency for Israel; Max M. &
Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation Trustee David F. Sherman; David Elimelech, owner of the Israeli
small business FUNGGIZ; and SparkIL CEO Na’ama Ore. Elimelech, one the first borrowers to
open a campaign with SparkIL, grows his own mushrooms that are now being sold to restau-
rants and making an impact for vegans throughout Israel.