The planned closing of a Jerusalem-based Talmud program for Orthodox women is calling attention to the increasingly tenuous position of not-for-profit organizations in Israel, which are still reeling from the effects of the global economic downturn.
"It's a matter of resources," says Gila Meyerson, a staff member at Matan - The Sadie Rennert Women's Institute for Torah Studies, a program that is popular among native English-speakers in Israel. Last week, three students enrolled in Matan's Advanced Talmudic Institute authored an online Times of Israel essay in which they disclosed that Matan informed them of its plans to close the institute at the end of the school year "for budgetary reasons."
About 25 percent of the program's participants over the years have been native English-speakers or have come from English-speaking homes, according to Tehila Elitzur, a Matan instructor.
The program, which was founded in 1999 with the major foundational support of Avi Chai-Israel, has 12 full-time fellows in its sixth "cohort," with each receiving a financial stipend. "We hoped that our start-up support would enable the Institute to continue to operate without Avi Chai's funding, and such was the case until recently," Eli Silver, Avi Chai-Israel's executive director, said in a statement released to Haaretz, noting its $1.5 million in grants to the institute through 2005. "We are saddened by the news of the institute's planned closing and hope that others will come forward to enable this important program to continue."
In a statement released Wednesday by the 24-year-old organization's executive board, Matan appeared to pull back, somewhat, from its plans to close the program. Citing an "overwhelming response by new and already committed donors and supporters" in the wake of this week's "outcry," the statement said Matan was now "enabled" to "pursue reinstating" a component of a "restructured" program.
But some fundraising professionals familiar with Israel's not-for-profits suggest that recent events have fundamentally altered the fundraising landscape, making it difficult for similarly small niche programs to survive.
"If one wants to point blame as to [the institute's] demise, one needs to point to Bernie Madoff, whose fraud, together with the crash of 2008, cost both Ira Rennert, the program's philanthropic founder, and The Avi Chai Foundation, millions," observes David Epstein, CEO of Israelgrants.com, an Israel-based consulting firm that provides resource development services to Israeli nonprofits.
In a message on the Avi Chai website, Chairman Arthur W. Fried maintained that in 2008, "twenty percent of the Foundation's endowment was eroded by the markets," forcing its "remedial action" to reduce annual spending from $60 million to $40 million over the next decade until its mandated "sunset," or cessation of operations, in 2020. As a result, says Epstein, Avi Chai's new economic calculus has forced it to re-evaluate funding priorities and take a harder look at the number of people each program serves, as well as its "measurable impact."
"A three-year program for a 12-person cohort is a significant investment in a relatively small number of program participants," Epstein says of Matan's Talmudic institute. As Avi Chai winds down it operations, Epstein predicts the Matan case "does portend a painful scenario that will be repeated each year until the 2020 Avi Chai sunset."
Other industry observers suggest that Matan's closing of the institute is a clear call to nonprofits to expand their base of support. "In the last year or so, several major Jewish foundations have closed or announced their impending phasing-out from funding," says Stuart Saffer, a partner with Israel Strategic Initiatives, a Jerusalem-based fundraising consultancy. "Without a doubt, this phenomenon will have a crucial and often decisive impact on a whole range of nonprofit organizations in Israel and around the Jewish world. The clear message to all NGO directors is to take assertive action in diversifying funding sources and not be solely dependent on a single donor or foundation."
Organizations that do not diversify will be doing so at the risk of extinction, Epstein suggests. "Clearly, if obviously good programs are not able to attract other individual or philanthropic funding sources to step up to the plate," says Epstein, "the demise of the Matan Talmudic Institute for Women will certainly have many sequels in the coming years."

Haaretz.com