Just over a year ago, we convened hundreds of Jewish community members and presented harrowing, deeply disturbing stories of some of the nameless who have endured and suffered gender harassment across the spectrum of our Jewish communal spaces.

Painful, but we know that personal testimonies have the collective power to upset the order.

Naomi Eisenberger, executive director of The Good People Fund. (Courtesy)

NEW YORK — As the founding executive director of the Good People Fund Naomi Eisenberger considers her job to be “the antidote to all that’s going on out there.”

Based in New Jersey, the $13 million fund is a relatively under-the-radar grant-making organization targeting social and humanitarian projects in the United States and Israel. Projects range from helping ultra-Orthodox women in Israel through the divorce process, to making sure homeless shelters get adequate supplies of personal hygiene products. One grantee brings music education to underserved kids in New Orleans, and another helps feed the hungry in Tel Aviv.

“I like to see good people do good things,” said Eisenberger, 72, who assumed her role after spending more than 10 years as the managing director of the Ziv Tzedakah Fund.

Eisenberger is also one of the founders of the #GamAni movement, which is the Hebrew translation of #MeToo. The movement was launched in 2016 after a female grantee contacted Eisenberger for advice on how to handle an instance of sexual harassment. Soon after hearing the story, Eisenberger developed a survey with Martin Kaminer, a trustee of the grant making Kaminer Foundation. The nearly 200 responses Eisenberger received convinced her it was time to act. Today #GamAni is training Jewish non-profits on how to properly address and prevent sexual harassment.

The Times of Israel recently sat down with Eisenberger to talk about how she targets her charities, why she believes she has the best job in the world, and what she hopes for her granddaughters and the young women of their generation.

The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Naomi Eisenberger, executive director of The Good People Fund, makes a site visit to Kaima and its CEO, Yoni Yefet-Reich, in Israel. The program seeks to give direction and hope to kids at risk through organic farming, leadership development and business learning, and is one of the Israeli organizations supported by The Good People Fund. (The Good People Fund)

The fund works with a broad spectrum of organizations in the US and Israel. What is the common thread linking them together?

Clearly, the common thread is good people. I will often say to people who ask, there are a myriad number of good programs out there that need funding, but for us there has to be that individual, or that small number of people, who have vision and passion.

I can sit down with a potential grantee and know within five minutes if it’s going to be a “yes” or a “no” based on their personality and how they present themselves. Sometimes there’s too much ego and I’ll pick up on that right away. Generally speaking, these are just ordinary people. These people are our guides on how to live a good life.

People might be surprised to learn not all of the GPF grantees are Jewish, and that not all of their clients are Jewish.

We are an organization based in Judaism. We’re guided by Jewish thought. As much as we are commanded [by Judaism] to help everybody, we do. Obviously the programs in Israel are Jewish, but they need to be open to everybody. Some of them are clearly self-selecting, such as programs that deal with ultra-Orthodox women. Of course there’s not going to be any non-Jews in there.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a donation that said “Use only for Jews.” I have gotten donations that said “Only use for Israel,” or, “Don’t use for Israel,” but I think everybody understands we are here for everybody. We fund things that are Jewish, we fund things that are synagogue based and we fund things that are church based. We are ecumenical.

I have a tendency to want to help people who have fewer resources than others. It’s just how I was raised. It was what I saw at home. My parents were very involved as volunteers. My father was president of the synagogue and he was a volunteer fireman and he was president of his Kiwanis. It never dawned on me to do anything different, and I hope I have passed that on to my kids.

Naomi Eisenberger, executive director of The Good People Fund, addresses heads of grantee organizations in Israel at a 10-year anniversary gathering and celebration in February in Tel Aviv. (The Good People Fund)

In a headline driven culture where big donations and big organizations get the attention, can you speak to the philosophy of micro-philanthropy and how that can be a model for people looking to make a change?

I never look at the glass half full. I abide by the premise that small things can make a significant difference.

When someone asks me to explain the Good People Fund I use the starfish parable. There’s a grandmother and grandchild walking on the beach and there are a thousand starfish on the shoreline. The grandchild starts throwing them back in the water, one at a time. The grandmother says, “Why are you doing that? You’ll never get them all back.” And the kid says, “But it makes a difference to the ones that I did throw back.”

That’s how we look at this, changing one life at a time. That is always what guides me.

People who want to put their names on buildings are not going to understand us. We deal with modest sums of money. At tops our grants are $15,000 to $20,000. For small organizations that’s a good deal of money. We’re not dealing with people who have millions to give away.

The #GamAni movement has been described as a #MeToo movement among those doing Jewish communal work. Is that an apt description?

I’ll preface it by saying #GamAni is indicative of where I think we, as an organization, should be. I see us as partners with our grantees. So this young woman had just come back from coffee after meeting with a potential donor and he had accosted her. She didn’t know what to do. She felt horrible, she felt dirty. She reached out to me.

I felt personally tied to the issue because she was my grantee. So I started looking into whether anything had been done on harassment. I couldn’t let it go and I called Martin [of the Kaminer Foundation]. We put together a questionnaire and the responses absolutely raised the hair on the back of our heads like you would not believe.

The private #GamAni Facebook page allows a common place for people to share experiences. I know a few perpetrators have been identified, but they have not been dealt with yet. [Eisenberger declined to divulge names as the Facebook page is a closed group.]

Participants march against sexual assault and harassment at the #MeToo March in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on November 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

A very significant issue of sexual harassment in the Jewish world was uncovered, but what is happening is no different than what is happening on Wall Street, what is happening in the media, really what is happening everywhere.

But do I equate this with the #MeToo movement? No, and I’ll tell you why. I have a lot of concern about the #MeToo movement and the excesses of it. There have been a lot of people drawn and quartered who I think should not have been.

What progress has #GamAni made and what pushback have you received for it?

I apprised my board from day one and told them if you want me to step back I’ll step back. But, because we are part of the communal world I don’t see this as a disconnect for our mission.

I did have two donors who expressed displeasure that we are doing this. Both of them equated it with #MeToo and the excesses of #MeToo. I explained it overlaps with our work, and that I could not step away from this any more than I could step away from our other work. I was taught to be this way and this is the way I live my life.

For the most part the organized Jewish communal world has gone along with it. I think some of the organizations may not be going along happily, but they are going along because they saw the train has left the station on this.

Naomi Eisenberger, right, executive director of The Good People Fund, helps in food rescue efforts of one of the group’s non-profit partners, Second Helpings Atlanta. (The Good People Fund)

One of the things we did was to bring some training to Jewish communal organizations, some of which are very small. Last December we had 12 New York based organizations for a daylong training. The ultimate goal was for them to develop their own policies. Most had none in place, or the policies weren’t adequate. It was uncharted territory for them.

There is a call for more women in leadership roles, but having women at the top doesn’t guarantee the culture will change. How do you really change the culture?

This is an evolution. I’m hoping by the time my 16-year-old granddaughter, or maybe my 12-year-old-granddaughter, reach the workplace they will start to benefit from what their grandmother was part of. When I look at myself, and think “How did you get here? What does it matter at 72?” First of all being a victim myself has driven me. That’s near the top. Also, I’m always looking for the underdog. It’s just who I am. It’s always where I’m going to go.

Could it have been professional suicide to do this [#GamAni]? Maybe, but I’d like to hope there are a few good people left in this world and I believe that there are. Truthfully, what I do every day is what keeps me going. There isn’t a bad moment in my day, and who has a job like that?

Scrolling through the daily barrage of philanthropy-related news releases, I often encounter numerous articles from large foundations announcing prizes, summits and fellowships. Indeed, these are all noteworthy organizations doing significant and impactful work, but should donors looking to support nonprofits only look to large foundations and ignore micro-philanthropies? Are prospective donors aware of the benefits of working with a micro-philanthropy when it comes to impact and engagement?

Following a Different Path

As the co-founder and executive director of The Good People Fund, I believe that too often donors overlook organizations such as ours that specifically address the needs of these small grassroots efforts, who by their very nature lack the means to be visible to larger numbers of donors despite the effectiveness of their work. With grants totaling nearly $8 million during the past eight years and a modest infrastructure, I like to believe that we are changing the philanthropic landscape.

The Good People Fund is an organization that works exclusively with small grassroots nonprofits started by inspiring individuals committed to changing the world. In the past eight years, more than 150 grantees, all small to mid-sized organizations, have benefited from our insight and support.

Each operates with low overhead and on a personal scale, developing creative solutions that address poverty, hunger, disability, trauma recovery, social isolation and other significant challenges, but whose work would otherwise go unsupported. At The Good People Fund our vision is clear: Help donors do a maximum of good with each dollar spent by connecting donors with the Good Person (grantee) whose work best realizes their personal giving goals.

Emphasis on Direct Mentorship and Guidance

What makes our work both unusual and highly effective is the strong personal relationships we build with grantees. I strongly believe in our 4S model: Scope (focusing on programs that address a wide range of social needs), Screening (carefully vetting each prospective grantee), Supervision (mentoring and guidance continues well beyond the issuance of a check) and Speed (working efficiently and with minimal bureaucracy).

What we emphasize to both grantees and donors about our philosophy is that a newly established or a smaller scale nonprofit has their best chance of success if they can take advantage of the benefits of a personal connection; a mentor to guide them in addition to the shared experiences of other successful nonprofits. This connection to direct mentorship and guidance is too often overlooked by donors. We are very closely tied in to the grantees’ work in ways that larger entities can not be.

With so many years of involvement with small nonprofits, I find donors appreciate the strategic perspective we provide and grantees appreciate the unique way we handle their needs. We have established a deep network and general knowledge of the nonprofit world and take pride in facilitating partnerships, connecting people and programs, and offering guidance and expertise.

“I have been supporting the work of the Good People Fund since it began back in 2008,” explained one long-time donor. “I believe in its mission and have seen first hand how my donation can directly impact this work. They are attuned to what is important to me as a donor and I appreciate the guidance they provide in selecting to support an organization that shares in my values.”

Traditionally, funders donate, step away and perhaps ask for a report on how their funds were used. The Good People Fund works on a much more personal level and believes that our model could play an even more significant role in philanthropy today. It is not just about site-visits and grant reports; relationship building, hands-on support and acting as a partner, collaborator, advocate and sounding board for both donors and grantees is essential to our model’s success.

Naomi Eisenberger co-founded The Good People Fund in 2008 and became its first executive director. Follow @goodpeoplefund on Twitter.

At the Good People Fund, we mentor and support grassroots community-based organizations led by visionaries who respond in creative ways to address society’s most intractable problems whether its focus be as insurmountable as hunger or as defined as supporting women leaving forced or arranged marriages. Since our inception in 2008, we have granted more than 5.3 million dollars to more than 60 nonprofit organizations in Israel.

In each case the individual or small group’s actions inspire others to join their work to effect change. To date, we have been able to provide more than $8,000,000 in grants to more than 150 nonprofit organizations based primarily in the United States and Israel. For the recently concluded 2015/2016 fiscal year grants of nearly $1,500,000 were made to programs based in those countries.

Highlights of the grants made in Israel this past fiscal year include; $335,000 for organizations focused on kids including Kaima, a program that utilizes sustainable organic farming to help young people who cannot learn in traditional environments and S.A.H.I. an organization that embraces compassion and giving as tools to help youth-at-risk; $123,000 to organizations that alleviate hunger such as Pesia’s Kitchen in Tel Aviv which distributes quite literally tons of donated food and fresh produce; $81,000 to IDF-related organizations like Tzvika Levy’s Lone Soldier Program; $58,000 to organizations helping to ease poverty including Ten Gav, a unique crowd-funding platform that assists social workers as they manage the needs of Israel’s most vulnerable citizens; $45,000 to organizations that promote women’s empowerment including Yotsrot which trains women, exiting the cycle of abuse and prostitution, for fashion-related careers and Ba’asher Teichi which supports Haredi women navigating the divorce process; $55,000 for organizations that offer alternative healing, like HAMA Israel’s animal-assisted therapy program that reduces emotional pain in varied situations; and $8,800 to organizations like In Their Shoes which creates awareness and understanding of dementia and aging.

Project Kruvit is our most recent Israeli grantee. Inspired by Dr. Ravit Hilleli when she was only a teen, this all-volunteer program prepares and distributes high quality meals to thousands of people for Passover, Shavout and Rosh Hashanah; a logistical challenge that involves an army of volunteers (about 8,000) who cook, shop, and deliver meals during a 48-hour period immediately before the chaggim (holidays) begin.

Highlights of the Fund’s U.S. grant recipients include; $51,000 to organizations that address the needs of children including Atlanta’s Creating Connected Communities that trains local teens in leadership skills with a special focus on homelessness and advocacy and connects them to meaningful volunteer opportunities with disadvantaged kids; $38,000 to organizations like Boston-based Courageous Parents Network that empowers parents to care for children with serious illnesses by maintaining up-to-date virtual community resources; and $18,000 to organizations focused on alternative healing such as Shelter Music Boston that performs live classical chamber music for displaced shelter residents who might not otherwise have the financial means or opportunity to experience music and its healing powers in less-accessible venues. Other grants were directed towards programs focused on eldercare, hunger, women’s empowerment, poverty and veterans.

One of our most important goals is to give visibility and recognition to these nascent efforts so that others will join us in helping to support their work. We know that with the right amount of fiscal support and mentoring these small efforts can flourish. With this in mind we continue our commitment to seek out these inspiring individuals and their good work and invest in their growth and success.

Naomi Eisenberger is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Good People Fund, based in Millburn, New Jersey. For the past decade, she has drawn on her extensive business and nonprofit experience to help grantees build their own successful nonprofit organizations.

Over the past 25 years, Naomi Eisenberger has sought out individuals who do good in their own communities and beyond. As the Executive Director of The Good People Fund (www.goodpeoplefund.org), she is responsible for discovering and supporting grassroots organizations that respond in creative ways to society’s most intractable problems. While certainly not household names, each program is making an impact in their respective areas. There are approximately 75 grantees under her guidance throughout North America and abroad. These dedicated Good People work quietly, most with little recognition and minimal funding, in an effort to improve the lives of society’s most vulnerable.

Eisenberger’s years of experience with small nonprofits makes her uniquely suited to advise her grantees in many areas. She realizes that there are some basic ideas that all organizations should embrace. “I work very closely with each of our grantees” explains Eisenberger. “Together we focus on board development, fundraising, staffing, administration and more; all critical to the success of any organization. I challenge them to think realistically about how best to implement this growth. It is a delicate balancing act that requires sufficient funding to underwrite the costs of additional staff. II approach each grantee as a partnership and most admit that having a friendly supportive voice on the other end of the phone makes their efforts easier. Very few of our grantees have any formal training in nonprofit management so having someone to help answer the difficult questions is important. I have created and implemented a unique ideology that includes vetting and supervising each grantee, as the means to making the Good People Fund’s work both unusual and highly effective.”

One organization that has benefited from Eisenberger’s guidance and funding is Amir Project, which places sustainable gardens within summer camps and uses them as a tool to foster and teach social justice practices. Amir’s founder, David Fox, created the organization while still a college student. Upon graduating he formally incorporated Amir Project and set about raising funds to make his dream possible. One of David’s first fundraising attempts was a visit with Eisenberger where he detailed his vision. Eisenberger immediately recognized David’s passion for this work and Impressed with David’s ideas and his personality, immediately offered him his first grant, a matching grant to hopefully inspire others. David found the matching funds and Amir Project was on its way. That first GPF donation led to additional grants over the next five years as well as ongoing mentoring to help David resolve challenges related to the organization’s growth. Today more than 8,000 young people have been exposed to the Amir Project which operates in 30 camps nationwide.

Eisenberger has always believed that small actions can have huge impacts, whether it is to start a nonprofit or support one, and shares that belief with others. Since its inception in 2008 the Good People Fund has raised and granted more than $7 million dollars to these small programs working diligently, but quietly, to improve lives.

Naomi Eisenberger is the founder and Executive Director of The Good People Fund. For the past decade, she has drawn on her extensive business and nonprofit experience to help grantees build their own successful nonprofit organizations.

As a support counselor at Jubilee Association of Maryland, Jared Ciner worked with the agency to provide services to adults with developmental disabilities. But when he began researching exercise programs for his clients, the University of Maryland graduate came up empty.

“I realized that all of the people I was working with at the agency had being more physically active listed as one of their goals,” Ciner said. “Meanwhile, I couldn’t find any resources or programs to encourage them to participate in or bring them to.”

That’s how Ciner founded Spirit Club. Opened in April 2013, the club offered fitness courses to adults with disabilities to encourage them to eat healthy and exercise regularly. Based in Kensington, Spirit Club has classes in locations in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and is seeking to expand to Baltimore.

Ciner — who is working with FX Studios, which built the corporate gym for Under Armour, to host classes at the Under Armour Performance Center at 10 Light Street and build a new center in Montgomery County — said he recently attended a Special Olympics conference where parents from Baltimore City and Baltimore and Howard counties packed a standing room-only hall.

“It’s a really big market,” said Ciner, who estimated that he received about 60 information cards from parents expressing interest in Spirit Club.

Ciner, who grew up in Denver before graduating from Maryland with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, said he first saw the value in fitness when he spent the summer after his junior year in Ethiopia, where he organized athletic programs for youth there.

Drawn by the plight of disabled adults, Ciner found a 2010 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that stated that obesity rates for adults with disabilities are 57 percent higher than rates for adults without disabilities.

“There are no fitness classes for them to participate in unless they’re extremely independent,” Ciner said. “A vast majority of people with disabilities take medication, and a lot of those medications cause weight gain as a side effect. Another reason is that the majority of people with disabilities are unemployed and therefore they’re even less active than the average person who is at least getting up and getting out of the house and going to work.”

Ciner’s first Spirit Club class drew six participants. Now, about 130 clients regularly attend exercise sessions.

“Once I was teaching it, I started to be less surprised [by the growth] because it was just clearly a valuable opportunity for people,” said Ciner, who has teamed with Sam Smith, a marathon runner with autism, and his roommate Justin Frevert to teach classes. “I could just tell that a majority of them had just been craving for an opportunity to exercise, but never had one.”

Ciner’s work caught the attention of Max Levitt, founder of Leveling the Playing Field, a multisport equipment donation business. Levitt recommended Spirit Club to The Good People Fund, and after speaking to Ciner and visiting Spirit Club in October, executive director and co-founder Naomi Eisenberger agreed to award Ciner a $5,000 grant.

“He really hit the bull’s-eye with us because he took his passion for exercise and paired that with what he was doing and working with that population,” Eisenberger said. “From what I saw when I was there, it was a very popular program. The session that I saw was filled with many people with different disabilities, and they all seemed to be having a wonderful time.”

Ciner, who credits his wife, Gabriele, and mother, Anne, for helping him, said he finds daily inspiration from Smith, his co-founder who is a certified personal trainer and a marathon runner despite being autistic. Ciner said he also feels fortunate to work in a job he loves.

“I’ve found a good balance between working hard and making a living and making sure not to lose sight of the mission,” he said. “I find that if I let the mission drive my energy, that leads to positive things and success. It’s a great job and I couldn’t imagine doing anything that would be more fulfilling.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-gl-good-works-jared-ciner-fitness-developmental-disabilities-1130-20151129-story.html