GPF in the News

Not all charities and nonprofits are big. Not all of them need huge infusions of cash from single donors, big foundations and funds, and other large organizations. Not all of them have to be filtered through a logistically and bureaucratically necessary but still time- and soul-sucking set of requirements.

Some of them are small and nimble. The help they provide is less systemic than individualized and personal. Their creators can use mentoring to guide the internal fires that propel them.

Both kinds of organizations are necessary, but the smaller ones can be less visible.

Naomi Eisenberger sees them. And her background as a serial entrepreneur, shul leader, and volunteer has developed her internal Rolodex, taught her to listen intently, and equipped her to provide those nonprofits with the help they need.

Her 17-year-old Good People Fund has given more than $23.2 million to support 242 programs, spent not quite five percent of what it’s raised on expenses, and because some donations are designated for administrative costs, has spent nothing else on overhead.

That’s not bad for an organization that until this year has had only one employee — Naomi Eisenberger.

So who is she?

To begin with, Ms. Eisenberger’s got deep roots in New Jersey. “I’m from Caldwell,” she said. “My parents came from Manhattan and the Bronx to Caldwell in 1932. My father, George Kaplan, came with his brother-in-law to start a men’s clothing store, and he and my mother, Molly, basically became pillars of the Jewish community.”

Caldwell was a small town then; much of it was farmland, Ms. Eisenberger said. “My parents were one of the first Jewish families in town. They opened a small synagogue, Agudath Israel” — now it’s a prominent, flourishing Conservative shul — “and my father was president there.”

Men’s clothing stores seemed to run in the extended Kaplan family’s DNA. Ms. Eisenberger’s father’s store, the Caldwell Men’s Shop, “stood in the middle of Bloomfield Avenue until 1996,” Ms. Eisenberger said; in 1986, she and her husband, Gerry, bought it from her father.

After she graduated from public school in town, Ms. Eisenberger went to Montclair State, and then taught history in Whippany Park High School. She and Gerry moved to Millburn. Then they had children — two of them, Andrew, who now is married, the father of three children, and an oncologist at Columbia Presbyterian, and Sara, a former social worker, the mother of three daughters, who lives nearby in Short Hills — and she became a serial entrepreneur. “I started a plant decorating business, and then I had a needlepoint finishing business, and then I became a kosher caterer,” she said. It was the 1980s, and those businesses were on trend. People decorated their houses with plants, they loved making needlepoint but didn’t know how to turn the finished product into something usable, and it was possible to run a catering business out of your own kitchen. “I was following trends, and I did things that I was good at and cared about,” Ms. Eisenberger said.

She was also learning a great deal about working with people, figuring out what they wanted and what they needed, and how to adapt as time, technology, and the world around her changed.

In 1991, her children were in college, she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was the newly elected president of her shul, Congregation B’nai Israel in Milburn. “I was in the rabbi’s study” — that was Steven Bayar, now rabbi emeritus — “just about to go on vacation, and I saw some books on his shelf written by Danny Siegel.

“I had never heard of him.”

Danny Siegel is a philanthropist, poet, writer, and charismatic animating spirit behind the Conservative movement’s youth group, USY; he was the international president in 1962, and has influenced generations of once-young people ever since. Ms. Eisenberger had been a USYer, but she hadn’t gone on Pilgrimage, as the group’s summer trips were called, and she hadn’t been active on the national level. Somehow, she hadn’t been influenced by Mr. Siegel — at least consciously.

“So when I saw these books, I asked Rabbi Bayar ‘What is this about?’ and he said ‘Take these books and read them on vacation.’

“I did, and I was blown away.

“So I came back and said that we have to bring him here. Our plan was to start a tikkun olam committee — we didn’t have one then — so we hired him for a Shabbat as speaker in residence.

“Like most people, I was totally blown away.”

That was the first time they met, and they stayed in touch. “Then, a few years later, he asked me if I would like to volunteer for his organization, the Ziv Tzedakah Fund, and I said omigod yes! It kind of felt like being anointed.

“So I drove down to Rockville,” Maryland, where he lived, “and I gathered up all the records, and I became the volunteer administrator.

“At the same time, we were running our family business, which by that point we had bought from my father.” It was a lot, even for someone as energetic as Ms. Eisenberger.

“I went to Israel with him in the summer, I became very interested in his program, I got to know the grantees, I went to CAJE conferences with him” — that’s the now-defunct Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education.

“And then in ’95, when we decided to close the store, I said to Danny, ‘I can’t continue to do this. I have to get a job. You either have to hire me or I have to go.’

“He was of the school that you don’t use donated money to pay anyone’s salary, but he found a donor who would pay a half-time salary.” So Ms. Eisenberger worked half-time for the Ziv Tzedakah Fund and half-time for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, out of USCJ’s New Jersey office.

That didn’t last, though. She was far more interested in philanthropy than movement politics. “So I said to Danny, ‘Full time or nothing,’ and I ended up working full time as the managing director of the fund.”

That lasted until 2007, “when Danny announced that he was retiring. ‘You’ll land on your feet, Naomi,’ he told me.”

When she began to work for Danny Siegel’s fund, it was raising $250,000 a year, she said; by the time he shuttered it, it was raising $2 million annually, and that money was doing good work. So “the night the board voted to close, I just blurted out, ‘This work is too important. We are doing too much good. Our donors believe in us. I’ll start over.’

“The next morning I got on the phone and called seven donors.

“I sat down with a friend and we wrote a business plan — he was my first board chair. We came up with a budget. I had to raise $175,000 for each of the first two years. I reached out, and those seven donors I called gave me the money we needed to start.

“We incorporated in the state of New Jersey in 2007. We opened the Good People Fund on May 1. That was 17 years ago.

“My office then was in my son’s bedroom. And it still is.”

What drives her?

“This is not a job,” Ms. Eisenberger said. “This is holy work. Literally holy work.

“I don’t have a bad moment, because it is only doing good, and I get to hang out with the best people God has put on this earth.

“We seek out and support small grassroots organizations in the United States and in Israel. They don’t have to be Jewish — in Israel they can be Jewish or Bedouin or Muslim. We fund them.

“And we mentor them.

“Something that’s common to all of them is they each have an individual or small group of people who are visionaries. People who have identified problems in the world and have found creative ways to solve those problems.

“And it’s give and take. Sometimes she’ll call me and ask me for advice.

“She is able to make anybody feel that they are the most important person in the world. She is available. When you call her, she just picks up the phone.

“She is absolutely for real,” Ms. Judas concluded.

Debra Orenstein is the rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in Emerson. “I love Naomi, and I love what she does,” Rabbi Orenstein said “I have invited her to my synagogue to speak to the Hebrew school. She is so relatable.

“When you talk about big problems in the world, it can be overwhelming. Massive amounts of money are needed. Her approach to tzedakah is targeted and personalized. It enables people to connect, and it also allows a few dollars to make a very big difference.

“It’s not as if we don’t need the bigger charities — we do — but this is not either/or. Naomi’s approach is really helpful both to the organizations that are running on a shoestring and the donors who can see how their money makes a difference.

Rabbi Orenstein has known Ms. Eisenberger for years, but they hadn’t been in touch until earlier this year, “when I read a beautiful email that she wrote about hope,” she said. “I was about to teach an online course about hope, so I called her to ask what if I were to teach it in partnership with the Good People Fund and raise money for her cause.

“The proposal was totally out of the blue. Everything was easy. There was no red tape. She just said, ‘Yes. Let’s do this.’

“What amazes me about Naomi is that she always has her finger on the pulse,” Rabbi Orenstein continued. That was true when she ran her small business from her home, decades ago, and it’s true now, too. “She knows where the community is, and what it needs. I was very involved with freeing slaves, and she was very involved in that, too. When I first spoke to her about #MeToo, she already was involved with #GamAni,” Me Too in Hebrew. “She knew people’s stories. She is so remarkably plugged in.”

It’s not clear how that works, Rabbi Orenstein said. “It’s not that she’s in any kind of boys’ club elite. She knows those people, but she’s not one of them. But somehow she knows Jewish organizational life, writ large, in all of its different incarnations — the big, the small, the medium.

“She knows people, she connects with people in such an authentic and deep way that people share with her, and she shares with them.

“She is easy to partner with. Her default answer to so much of life is yes. That is rare. Most people who are in the difficult but enviable position of being able to grant money see themselves as gatekeepers. They feel they have to say no. But Naomi — who is always totally responsible about where and to whom she gives money — is always game to meet someone new, to try something new.

“Her default is yes, and that is what makes her so delightful.”

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This article first appeared as the cover story in The Jewish Standard, June 14, 2024 print edition and on their website.

When Elie Klein was 13, he knew that giving back meaningfully and making a mark on the community was part of becoming a Jewish adult; this translated to donating about a tenth of his gift money to charity, he told eJP. But today’s “mitzvah project model” is more effective as an educational tool, he said, “because it highlights personalization and promotes advocacy and action.”

Now the North American director of development at ADI, an organization that cares for and empowers Israelis with disabilities, Klein listed some of the ADI-based projects that b’nai mitzvah have participated in: twinning with an ADI resident of a similar age, running bake sales, bike-a-thons and other small-scale fundraising projects to help the organization secure equipment, therapies and opportunities for those who benefit from ADI’s services, adding that these experiences will enable young leaders to “choose their own adventures.”

As Jewish youth learn the cantillation for their Torah portions, worry about the notes of the haftarah and navigate the social pressures of the parties, they are also giving back to their communities as part of their b’nai mitzvah training, raising funds and awareness for favorite causes or new initiatives, learning new skills and developing their passions.

The mitzvah project has even been in the pop culture spotlight recently: “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” which debuted on Netflix in August and is still a subject of conversation in the Jewish community, featured a throughline of protagonist Stacy’s search for a mitzvah project that spoke to her. The film portrays the mitzvah project as a one-off event, more like a single good deed. Stacy considers making friendship bracelets for dogs or volunteering at a retirement home (where her crush just happens to regularly visit his grandmother). But Rabbi Rebecca, Stacy’s quirky, tough-love-wielding Hebrew school teacher, tells her that “the sooner you do your mitzvah, the sooner you’ll find things falling into place.”

“Mitzvah projects are the norm in hundreds of Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Renewal communities, but very few synagogues dictate the exact nature of the mitzvah project,” Rabbi Daniel Brenner, vice president of education at Moving Traditions, told eJP. He explained that the “project” designation encouraged students to do something beyond writing a check to charity, and gave it additional visibility by making it a part of the d’var torah or b’nai mitzvah speech.

Rabbi Jason Miller, who has been officiating private and customized bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies for more than two decades, told eJewishPhilanthropy that the mitzvah project can be a space to be creative and discover new passions. When in-person volunteering was not possible during the pandemic for health reasons, Miller said, two students whose b’nai mitzvah were a month apart joined forces on their mitzvah project: they volunteered to cook food for parents staying at a Ronald McDonald House in Ann Arbor, Mich., whose children were in treatment at a nearby hospital.

“The problem was that neither of these boys had ever cooked before,” Miller said. “They were determined, though, and spent hours learning how to cook by watching YouTube videos and then made breakfast on several occasions for dozens of parents at the Ronald McDonald House. These two boys loved the mitzvah project so much and they both love to cook now. They just never realized it was a passion.”

Elana Beame, who spearheads the mitzvah project program at Tzedek America, recalled a student in Southern California who was extremely passionate about food waste. “He learned how grocery stores and markets will throw away produce no longer at selling standards. This produce was still completely edible. He took the initiative to go to his local grocery stores, markets and farms and started rescuing the produce that would be thrown away and instead donated them to local food banks,” Beame said. “He used rescued produce to create table centerpieces at his celebration, which were then donated to a food bank immediately following the party.”

This week, Tzedek America founder Avram Mandell spoke with a student who has the Torah portion of Bo, which talks about the plague of darkness. “We talked about vulnerable populations and the connection to feeling vulnerable during the plague of darkness, and she connected darkness to depression and no one wants to feel that kind of sadness,” Mandell said, adding that this framework “made her feel more inspired to work with the vulnerable population she chose.”

Todd Shotz, founder of b’nai mitzvah prep company Hebrew Helpers and the Mitzvah Learning Fund, which provides grants for Jewish learning opportunities, said that his organization’s students are encouraged to pick an ongoing project, to “use this moment as a launching pad for a life dedicated to tikkun olam.”

“Our mentors frame it as the student putting their new role as a fully responsible member of the community into action,” he told eJP. Hebrew Helpers also asks its students — now more than 1,200 b’nai mitzvah trained — to go beyond fundraising and actively volunteer for their chosen cause if possible. “It is always engaging to a student if the charitable cause is centered around an interest or passion of theirs,” Shotz said, recalling students who knitted baby blankets for the local children’s hospital; made and gathered dresses for Dress For Success; and made dog toys and raised money for the Israel Guide Dog Center.

Many Jewish programs preparing students for their b’nai mitzvah require that they complete their community service commitment by the date of the synagogue service, as if the project is just another to-do on the b’nai mitzvah checklist, which may not encourage longer-term engagement with the cause in question. And some families do opt out if volunteering is not required.

At Congregation Beth El in Bethesda, Md., Robin Finkelstein, b’nai mitzvah coordinator and hazzan assistant, said her synagogue strongly encourages students to participate in mitzvah projects, but does not require it — of this year’s 26 b’nai mitzvah students only 13 have reported mitzvah projects, “definitely a drop from last year,” she said. This year’s projects included helping new immigrants, cooking meals at an interfaith center, collecting toys for a hospital pediatric unit, raising money for The Trevor Project, supporting an education nonprofit for kids with disabilities and park cleanups.

Making mitzvah matches

From 2000-2013, longtime Jewish educator Sheri Gropper had a thematically appropriate 13-year run helming “Mitzvah Mania” fair, where families would receive a packet of materials, listing various nonprofits grouped by areas of interest with contact information and ideas for helping them. The fair would draw more than 130 families of pre- bar/bat mitzvah students per year, she told eJP.

Today’s technology enables a different approach, but today’s students and their parents still need help to find their mitzvah project match: enter Tzedek America’s Mitzvah Project Central, a password-protected database of partner organizations that have volunteer opportunities available for b’nai mitzvah-aged students. The opportunities are tagged by topic and shown on a map (some of them are marked as opportunities that can be done from anywhere).

“If a student comes to us and is unsure of what social justice topic to focus on, we explore the different options together, or we look at their Torah portion for themes that can be connected to a social justice topic,” Beame said. “Students tend to want to focus on organizations that are in their backyard so they can volunteer in a hands-on way. We encourage the students to look at all of the organizations we partner with, regardless of location, to get inspired and learn more about what different regions focus on.”

Also helping teens find meaningful mitzvah matches, the Atlanta-based Creating Connected Communities (CCC) started as a bat mitzvah project 25 years ago, when Amy (Sacks) Zeide organized a small holiday party for a local shelter.

“The theft of kids’ Christmas presents from a local Atlanta agency inspired Amy to use bat mitzvah gift money to create Amy’s Holiday Party, an annual event that brings local kids together for a fun day of games and music, and to distribute holiday gifts their families might not be able to afford,” Naomi Eisenberger, the executive director of Good People Fund, told eJP. “This annual party is a key activity for CCC teen participants,” she added.

Today, CCC is an independent 501(c)(3) and builds community, provides Jewish teen leadership training and guides young teens, synagogues and other groups in creating meaningful mitzvah projects. A division of the organization, Amy’s Holiday Party, pays tribute to the original project, but now serves thousands of children and families in need year-round, and engages hundreds of teens in hands-on volunteer work.

“As a community, we want giving to become a central part of our young leaders’ identities, and the best way to achieve this is by plugging into what they are already passionate about,” Klein said. “We empower them to use what they love to rally their communities around the cause and help us make a profound impact for disability care and inclusion. In addition to providing the perfect recipe for self-motivation, this method also ensures the greatest possible satisfaction, as teens are excited to be the ones running the show and imparting knowledge and values to the adults in their lives.”

During tough times, the world relies on people and organizations committed to doing good. In fact, that’s true even when the world is doing well. To that end, Naomi Eisenberger and the Good People Fund are dedicated to serving others in the United States, in Israel and throughout the world.

Executive director Naomi Eisenberger, 76, is no stranger to helping others. Indeed, the Good People Fund is inspired by ordinary people with an extraordinary drive to make deep, uplifting impacts in communities in the United States, Israel and elsewhere around the world, trying to find new and creative ways to address seemingly intractable social and economic challenges. It is her second major venture in this field after a career that includes being a high school history teacher, kosher caterer and part of a family retail business.

He went in search of “good people” he called “Mitzvah Heroes.” These heroes were actually regular Israelis quietly working to make the world a better place through their actions.

Prior to the meeting in Bayar’s study, Eisenberger hadn’t heard of Siegel. She read both books on her vacation and was hooked. “I am totally enthralled,” she told Bayar upon her return. And she had an idea. “I am being installed in June. Let’s bring Danny Siegel as a scholar and use him to found our shul’s chesed committee.”

‘Inspired by life experiences’

Eisenberger and Siegel immediately hit it off during his weekend at the synagogue. In addition to his talks in the synagogue, Siegel spoke at a small Saturday-evening gathering in her home. The idea for a “Hearts and Hands” committee was born.

“He challenged us,” recalls Eisenberger. “If you have extra Torahs in your shul, halachah [Jewish law] is that you can sell it for the purpose of tzedakah.”

Eisenberger was inspired and motivated. “I never back away from a challenge. I convinced the board. We sold TWO Torahs, and this became our endowment so we could allocate funds in Israel, in the United States and locally.”

Eisenbeger kept in touch with Siegel. Soon after, he asked her to do some volunteer work with the Ziv Fund. He and Ziv were badly in need of an administrator. Flattered and interested, she traveled to Rockville, Md., to meet with Siegel. Eisenberger returned to New Jersey with boxes of records, opened an account and served as a volunteer administrator for nearly three years.

Over time, Eisenberger needed paid employment. She eventually convinced Siegel to hire her. Eisenberger served as managing director of the Ziv Tzedakah Fund for more than 10 years.

The fund reportedly gave away more than $14 million in its 32 years of operation—mainly to small, innovative programs and projects in Israel and America that needed assistance—before Siegel and the board decided to close it down in 2008.

Nonetheless, Eisenberger was determined to continue doing mitzvah work: “I said, ‘I’m starting over; this is too important!”

“Having met and worked with Danny, I discovered a whole different philosophy and way to look at the world and life,” reports Eisenberger, who started the Good People Fund in that same year, 2008, to provide financial support and management guidance to small and mid-sized nonprofits committed to tikkun olam, “the repair of the world.”

The fund currently supports programs in 15 states, Israel and countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and India. While the majority of programs are not run by Jewish people, Eisenberger says they are all “based on Judaism” and Jewish principles. And the fund finds them on its own; it does not take proposals.

Another characteristic of all grantees, adds Eisenberger, is that “most have been inspired by their own life experiences.” She playfully notes an additional shared feature: “Very few have studied or know the first thing about nonprofit management; this is an additional reason our work with them is so important.”

It is this latter role that distinguishes Good People from other funders. “Our ability to offer mentorship is a significant and unique part of our work,” she said, “and it makes all the difference in the world!”

Eisenberger has a knack for identifying organizations in their very early stages when they need the greatest support. “I have a well-cultivated gut. After 25 years, I know it when I see it. I am looking for people with drive, passion, visionaries without any sense of ego—all selfless people.

And she has found people doing good and important work in such diverse areas as elder care, fighting hatred, healing broken communities, health and well-being, human needs and self-sufficiency, hunger and food rescue, inclusion and disabilities, kids, poverty and fundamental needs, refugees and women’s empowerment. Eisenberger says she cares deeply each grantee: “They drive me—they inspire me!”

He went in search of “good people” he called “Mitzvah Heroes.” These heroes were actually regular Israelis quietly working to make the world a better place through their actions.

Prior to the meeting in Bayar’s study, Eisenberger hadn’t heard of Siegel. She read both books on her vacation and was hooked. “I am totally enthralled,” she told Bayar upon her return. And she had an idea. “I am being installed in June. Let’s bring Danny Siegel as a scholar and use him to found our shul’s chesed committee.”

‘Inspired by life experiences’

Eisenberger and Siegel immediately hit it off during his weekend at the synagogue. In addition to his talks in the synagogue, Siegel spoke at a small Saturday-evening gathering in her home. The idea for a “Hearts and Hands” committee was born.

“He challenged us,” recalls Eisenberger. “If you have extra Torahs in your shul, halachah [Jewish law] is that you can sell it for the purpose of tzedakah.”

Eisenberger was inspired and motivated. “I never back away from a challenge. I convinced the board. We sold TWO Torahs, and this became our endowment so we could allocate funds in Israel, in the United States and locally.”

Eisenbeger kept in touch with Siegel. Soon after, he asked her to do some volunteer work with the Ziv Fund. He and Ziv were badly in need of an administrator. Flattered and interested, she traveled to Rockville, Md., to meet with Siegel. Eisenberger returned to New Jersey with boxes of records, opened an account and served as a volunteer administrator for nearly three years.

Over time, Eisenberger needed paid employment. She eventually convinced Siegel to hire her. Eisenberger served as managing director of the Ziv Tzedakah Fund for more than 10 years.

The fund reportedly gave away more than $14 million in its 32 years of operation—mainly to small, innovative programs and projects in Israel and America that needed assistance—before Siegel and the board decided to close it down in 2008.

Nonetheless, Eisenberger was determined to continue doing mitzvah work: “I said, ‘I’m starting over; this is too important!”

“Having met and worked with Danny, I discovered a whole different philosophy and way to look at the world and life,” reports Eisenberger, who started the Good People Fund in that same year, 2008, to provide financial support and management guidance to small and mid-sized nonprofits committed to tikkun olam, “the repair of the world.”

The fund currently supports programs in 15 states, Israel and countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and India. While the majority of programs are not run by Jewish people, Eisenberger says they are all “based on Judaism” and Jewish principles. And the fund finds them on its own; it does not take proposals.

Another characteristic of all grantees, adds Eisenberger, is that “most have been inspired by their own life experiences.” She playfully notes an additional shared feature: “Very few have studied or know the first thing about nonprofit management; this is an additional reason our work with them is so important.”

It is this latter role that distinguishes Good People from other funders. “Our ability to offer mentorship is a significant and unique part of our work,” she said, “and it makes all the difference in the world!”

Eisenberger has a knack for identifying organizations in their very early stages when they need the greatest support. “I have a well-cultivated gut. After 25 years, I know it when I see it. I am looking for people with drive, passion, visionaries without any sense of ego—all selfless people.

And she has found people doing good and important work in such diverse areas as elder care, fighting hatred, healing broken communities, health and well-being, human needs and self-sufficiency, hunger and food rescue, inclusion and disabilities, kids, poverty and fundamental needs, refugees and women’s empowerment. Eisenberger says she cares deeply each grantee: “They drive me—they inspire me!”

‘The inner strength of people’

The warm feelings and admiration are mutual.

Yoni Yefet Reich, the co-founder of Amutat Beit Zayin in Israel, met Eisenberger more than a decade ago in Israel. “From my first interaction, I immediately recognized that she was a different type of funder representing a different kind of collective. She clearly understood the issues at hand and was an ‘out-of-the-box’ strategist.”

He and his team wanted to develop Kaima Farms—a socially responsible education network that many others deemed untenable. Fast-forward and today, Be’erotayim is one of five Kaima farms where youth are responsible for planting, nurturing and harvesting crops and for running a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) venture. Other farm communities include Kaima Nahalal, focused on helping young girls, including many who have experienced sexual trauma and have not succeeded in more traditional educational settings.

Reich says “we count ourselves fortunate to receive not only funding, but friendship and professional guidance that have helped us develop from a single youth-run, CSA operating farm into a network of four in Israel and one in Tanzania. Our unfolding story would simply not be possible without the involvement of the fund, and, of course, Naomi.”