As cultural and generational shifts impact the ways in which community members support causes they value, Jewish Federation in the Heart of New Jersey continues expanding on strategies to augment Annual Campaign funds, its primary financial resource for addressing critical issues in Jewish life, including for support of agency partners serving people in need. 

In 2019, Federation connected with a foundation outside our community that aids Holocaust survivors, securing dollar-for-dollar matching funds for a local donor's $10,000 gift. Instead of 'passing through' the donor's $10,000, Federation used them to generate $20,000 for survivors — enabling human services partners to provide twice as many hours of needed in-home care for activities of daily living, such as dressing, bathing, and meal preparation and enabling more Kosher Meals on Wheels applicants to come off a waiting list.  

In the ensuing years, Federation has cultivated that foundation relationship, raising increasing amounts to apply for the foundation's dollar-for-dollar match.

In 2023, the original foundation — recognizing our Federation's commimtent to this cause and our track record of financial responsibility — introduced and vouched for us with ANOTHER national foundation that also provides matching grants for Holocaust survivors.

In 2023, to date, Federation has grown the level of financial resource development through this channel from $20,000 to $150,000 a year.  

As a result of similar successes identifying other foundations outside our Jewish community that match funds — and raising funds to be matched — in 2023, Federation has also been able to double donors' impact on behalf of differently-abled individuals and their families in Monmouth and Greater Middlesex counties. The programs and services to receive twice what they would have — had Federation not proactively sought matching funds — include socialization programs with therapeutic benefits, opportunities for inclusion in Jewish life, and education for parents to access public resources for children with special needs and/or disability. 

In recent years, we used this type of leverage to bring in such resources as:

• $1 million in NJ state funding for Kosher Meals on Wheels — a 20-fold return on donors' dollars  
• $11.5 million in nonprofit security grants — a 35-fold return on donors' dollars
• $16.5 million in legacy gifts benefiting more than ten Jewish organizations — a 25-fold return on donors' dollars
• $3 million in PJ Library books and youth programs — a 7-fold return on donors' dollars
• $250,000 filling a shortfall in Holocaust survivor aid — a 10-fold return on donors' dollars, and more.

This demonstrates the Federation multiplier effect: when you give a dollar to Jewish Federation, we often generate more than a dollar's worth of impact through programs, services, or support for beneficiaries. 

Federation's Annual Campaign continues to be critical to meeting the needs in Jewish life as funds not only go directly toward critical programs and services, but also because Federation can often leverage those resources to develop even more.

Thank you.