Thursday, March 07, 2013

Building a better philanthropist | Opinion | Jewish Journal

Building a better philanthropist | Opinion | Jewish Journal: In the last couple of decades, a tectonic shift has altered the landscape of Jewish philanthropy. The phenomenon is not only Jewish — the number of foundations in the United States has grown fivefold in the last 20 years; the same growth in donor-advised funds has taken just a decade.

The relative weight of independent philanthropy — as opposed to communal giving — has gone off the charts. The Jewish Federation system in North America holds an impressive $15 billion of philanthropic assets, but based on conservative estimates, the overall “pie” of Jewish philanthropic assets is more than $75 billion.

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