Mayberg Foundation Grantee-Clients Embrace the Value of Collective Effort

One of my favorite lines from Pirkei Avot, a collection of ethical sayings by Talmudic personalities, is attributed to Rabbi Tarfon:

“It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it” (Avot 2:16).

I’d like to reinterpret this statement as a question, posed to those of us in the nonprofit-philanthropic sector:

“I have identified a problem. What is my part in helping solve it?”

Most of us recognize that social challenges are not experienced in a vacuum, but that culture plays a role in how challenges are recognized and addressed. In this light, no single organization can offer services that speak to an individual’s holistic needs, much less the needs of an entire community. Grantmakers and nonprofit organizations must see themselves as operating in an ecosystem with the people they serve. For grantmakers in particular, it is essential to maintain a learner’s mindset by engaging in frequent discussion with nonprofit partners to cultivate as deep an understanding as possible about the needs of a region and the services available for its populations.

This orientation towards ongoing learning as grantmakers lies at the heart of the Mayberg Foundation’s core value of collective effort. By continually listening to our grantee-clients, we have had the opportunity to see the broader effects of their collective efforts, meeting the communities they serve where they’re at and addressing communal needs as holistically as possible.

In July 2020, during the height of the COVID pandemic, one such collaborative effort was born. Responding to the increasingly complex needs of DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia, the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington (JFGW) and Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA)  launched 703-J-Caring in partnership with a number of local Jewish human service agencies. JCaring’s community support hotline has been serving as a conduit, connecting community members to trained staff who help them navigate available resources for childcare, food security, mental health, employment, interest-free loans and more. 

“There's been increased recognition that addressing people's health and functioning is not just about medical issues,” Todd Schenk, JSSA CEO, recently told me in one of our regular check ins. “They might need mental health support, and there are other complicating factors that can make people's health that much more precarious; housing, poverty, lack of healthy food, lack of access to transportation and social isolation." Through relationships cultivated with clients, Todd and his colleagues have recognized the importance of ongoing partnerships in the public, private and NGO sectors to serve as many of their needs as possible.

Referrals through J-Caring to other grantee-clients, like the Hebrew Free Loan Association of Greater Washington, (HFLAGW), have meant that organizations needed to step up to meet increased volume. When she last checked in with the Mayberg Foundation, Shuli Tropp, Executive Director of HFLAGW, mentioned seeing a direct link between collaboration with other organizations like JSSA and applications for interest-free loans: “In 2020, HFLAGW provided 82 loans, compared to 30 loans in 2019 and 13 loans in 2018. Our call volume and inquiries about our loans has increased, the number of applications has more than doubled and the quantity of loans we are providing has skyrocketed.” 

In order to reach even broader potential audiences, including individuals who may not know they qualify for a loan, HFLAGW has been partnering with other Mayberg Foundation grantee-clients such as the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse (JCADA), Yad Yehuda of Greater Washington, Bikur Cholim of Greater Washington, as well as communal organizations like JCCs and synagogues. Together, these organizations see themselves as a network with the power to change life in Greater Washington.

Not every challenge can be anticipated, and nearly all of our grantee-clients have had to adapt their services and methodologies to their clients’ needs. Organizations like A Wider Circle, a grantee-client that provides a menu of essential services to individuals and families living with low income, has been convening its Implementing Partners Groups to discuss strategies for collective action at the organization’s two locations in DC neighborhoods Washington Highlands and Shaw. A Wider Circle convenes this group to learn, first and foremost, what clients are saying. Also responding to an unexpected challenge, Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse (JCADA) Executive Director Amanda Katz’s staff spoke to the Montgomery County Food Council on the warning signs of domestic abuse after their staff and volunteers reported a disturbing uptick in violence and aggression in food pickup lines. During the pandemic, during which domestic violence rates increased in both rate and intensity, JCADA worked with over 55 local community partners in 2020, both inside and outside the Jewish community, to address the holistic needs of their clients.

Sincere collective effort aspires to address problems identified not only by funders or the nonprofits they support, but also by the populations being served; ultimately, the end user is the expert. As a foundation, our goal in making this choice was to become better listeners who are more attuned with the needs of grantee-clients. We continue to prioritize the importance of learning, constantly adjusting our approach based upon feedback from grantee-clients. More and more, funders need to reevaluate their grantmaking processes — down to details like reporting requirements and payment scheduling — in order to respond more nimbly to immediate communal needs. Better yet, we will work in partnership with our grantee-clients to learn how to better anticipate the work that needs to be done.