The Foundation for Planned Giving
Last Updated on Thursday, 28 January 2010 18:50
The Foundation for Planned Giving is the only permanent source of endowed funds serving the entire Jewish community and ensures the viability and continuity of Jewish life, Jewish agencies and Jewish programs and services in perpetuity. Funds donated by individuals during their lifetimes or upon their passing provide help for the elderly and disabled, assist troubled families and individuals and offer education for Jewish youth and cultural and socialization opportunities for everyone. In that spirit, the Foundation manages the endowed funds most of the Jewish organizations in our community.
The Foundation receives continuing guidance from its volunteer leadership: individuals who lend their professional expertise in financial and estate planning areas to help the Foundation fulfill its mission of ensuring the continuity and strength of our Jewish community. As of October 2009, the Foundation managed total assets of approximately $17.6 million. These assets are supervised by the Foundation’s Investment Committee with a strategy focusing on total return.
Since 2002, 97 teens have made commitments to the B’nai Tzedek program. This initiative enables teens to establish their own endowment funds with monies received as gifts for their bar and bat mitzvahs along with small grants from the Lewis D. Cole B’nai Tzedek Fund. Each year, participating teens are able to select the charities they would like to support with a portion of the income generated by their funds.
Through the Lion of Judah Endowment Fund (LOJE), women who make an annual gift of $5,000 or more to the Women’s Division of the Annual Campaign can provide for their “Lion” gifts to be made in their names forever. Eighteen women have already made this commitment to the community’s future and a number of other women and men have chosen to endow their Campaign commitments at other levels.
Over the last 10 years, endowment monies have been used to: commit to establishing a Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Louisville; fund the “Facing History & Ourselves” 9th grade civics curriculum in the Jefferson County Public Schools; help numerous students take part in Jewish educational and camping opportunities in this country and in Israel; and through the Goldstein/Leibson Scholar-in-Residence Fund, bring outstanding Jewish speakers to Louisville. A Foundation grant also provided funds for the videotaping of Holocaust survivors’ testimonies so their words could be preserved in perpetuity.
Over the last year, the Foundation also helped underwrite the Federation’s Jewish Outreach Initiative, which resulted in the creation of three exciting new programs. The highly successful Mother’s Circle, a program created by the National Jewish Outreach Institute to support women who are not Jewish but are committed to raising their children in the Jewish faith, is funded locally through a Foundation endowment established by the family of the late Buddy Schwartz. The Louisville PJ Library is part of a national program that mails free Jewish books/CDs each month to the homes of participating youngsters. Thanks to funding from the JCL’s Foundation for Planned Giving, The Stephen, Sandra and Donald Linker Family Fund and a grant from the Grinspoon Foundation, close to 400 children in our area have signed up for the program.
January 2009 saw the kick-off of Louisville's new Shalom Baby effort. Shalom Baby is a national program designed to connect young families who anticipate or have recently experienced the birth or adoption of a child (newborn through 12 months of age) with the Jewish community and help them build social networks. Mothers, fathers and babies attend social programs during the year. Funding from the Ann and Coleman Friedman Endowment pays for menorahs for the Shalom Baby welcome baskets.
Endowments have been established to provide for youth programming, summer camp scholarships for children with special needs, support for State of Israel Bonds and community enrichment efforts. The Foundation also helps underwrite expenses for the Melton Adult Mini-School, an international adult educational experience.
Director: Alan Engel
