Naomi Eisenberger, the founder and executive director of the grassroots-focused The Good People Fund, hugs Julie Fisher, the group’s associate executive director who will succeed Eisenberger in July, at the organization’s 18th anniversary celebration last night at Tel Aviv’s Renaissance Hotel, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports from the scene. Read eJP’s interview with Fisher from December here.

During the event, which also marked the impending leadership transition, Eisenberger got teary-eyed reflecting on the fund’s 18 years of work and her nearly 15 years of philanthropic activities at GPF’s predecessor, the Ziv Tzedakah Fund. “It has been an incredible, incredible honor for me to spend my days for the last time 30-plus years doing this… This, as I have said to Julie many times, this is holy work — with a capital H and a capital W. And that is the truth, that people give us their hard-earned money to take it and give it to people who are often invisible and to give them that boost,” she said, addressing the many grantees in the room, some of whom got their first funding from GPF.

“It’s very unusual for a small organization to be able to have its work continue. And I am sort of pinching myself that this organization will be able to continue,” Eisenberger said. “As I look around this room and I see so many of you who are from the early days — my cup runneth over, it really does. I cannot believe that this is what I was able to do with my life… Julie has guided this transition. When Julie came on board, we did a strategic plan, we came up with a plan. Founder-led organizations run a certain way, and when they get to be big, they have to be run a certain other way. And I’m living through the rules. Julie, it’s truly an honor for me to turn it over to you.”