On a warm, late-spring evening from a hillside veranda with panoramic views stretching from Downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean, The Foundation hosted a celebration of nonprofit leadership in our community. The symbolism of the setting-a seemingly endless vista of our city-was not lost on me. Symbolic, I say, because surrounding me on that terrace was a collection of visionaries-recent recipients of The Foundation's Cutting Edge Grants Initiative (CEGI), each of whom has his and her own distinct perspective for perpetuating a vibrant Jewish Los Angeles.
The event (see page 4 in our summer issue of Legacy) brought together grant recipients with donors, board members, professional staff and friends. Now five years old, Cutting Edge Grants provide multi-year awards up to $250,000 for innovative programs that address important, substantiated needs in the local Jewish community. Representatives of 13 recipient organizations shared overviews of their programs and, gratifyingly, the attendant impact enabled with seed funding from The Foundation. Since establishing the Cutting Edge Grants, we have seeded 39 initiatives with a total of nearly $6.2 million.
Among those represented were Jewish Jumpstart, which incubates and provides start-up support for nonprofits; Nes Gadol, an initiative of Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, to facilitate b'nai mitzvah for special-needs children; and the American Jewish Committee's Esencia de Judaismo, conceived to promote cross-cultural understanding with the Latino community, to name just three programs. Video footage featuring all 13 of these stirring presentations is viewable online at www.jewishfoundationla.org (click on "News and Events" and then click "Past Events").
In the evening's capstone, we were held rapt as Rabbi Sharon Brous, who received The Foundation's inaugural Inspired Leadership Award, spoke in characteristic eloquent and impassioned form, challenging those of us on that veranda to continue to drive change-through social justice, Jewish engagement and continuity, and community building. The evening was equally moving and electric.
Fast on the heels of celebrating recent Cutting Edge Grant achievements, it was time to select the 2010 recipients, whose programs are featured in this issue. Five programs received multi-year awards totaling more than $1 million in aggregate: Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists; J-CHAI: Jewish Community Housing for Adult Independence; Jewlicious Journeys Project; Fed Up with Hunger/Netiya; and the PJ Library.
Current and past awardees are resounding indication that social innovation is pulsing through Jewish Los Angeles. Our role at The Foundation is to harness the most promising initiatives, provide critical funding and offer expertise on organizational development and infrastructure. Call this, if you will, the intersection of institution and inspiration-in this case, matching our resources with the origin of great ideas.
In this context, support for breakthrough initiatives is a central component of The Foundation's mission to serve the long-term needs of our communities. We are here, in every respect, For this generation…and generations to come, which with this issue of Legacy, The Foundation is introducing as its brand position line. It is a reflection that while grounded in the issues of today, we keep the collective eye trained on the evolving requirements tomorrow will undoubtedly bring. Ever forward looking, The Foundation will be here far into the future-for coming generations of donors, dynamic innovators and the communities they sustain alike.
