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Family Foundations
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"Return On Her Investment"
Special to the New York Jewish Week
Angela Himsel
December 20, 2001
When she was 10 years old, Sharna Goldseker's father acted as his daughter's “banker” and created a “checking account” for her in which he deposited her allowance and any monetary gifts. When Sharna wanted to buy something, she and her father discussed whether it was worth it, and only after determining that her money would be put to good use, did she write out the check.
Goldseker grew up in Baltimore in a prominent real estate family known not only for its philanthropy but also for its unusual approach to making grants. When her great-uncle, Morris Goldseker, a Polish immigrant, died, his assets were liquidated and passed to a foundation, the Morris Goldseker Foundation, which her father would chair. However, the terms of the will were such that, instead of family members giving out the grants, a group of selectors, which included the president of the Jewish federation, the president of Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University, were charged with making the decisions as to where the money went. “It was an important lesson to learn,” Goldseker now recalls, “that philanthropy was important but that the money wasn't ours to give out on a whim, but ours to steward.”
Goldseker, 27, lives in Greenwich Village, and the subject of money and how and to whom it should be given occupies her daily, both in her job at Foundation Service, a department of the UJA-Federation of New York, as well as in her own philanthropic endeavors.
At Foundation Service, Goldseker acts as a liaison between family foundations and non-profits, attending conferences and keeping up to date in four program areas — the environment, reproductive health and rights, legal rights and social justice. After looking at non-profits that work in those areas and developing relationships with them, she solicits a proposal, which she then brings to her foundation clients before they write the checks. Value for your money: the lessons learned from her first checkbook have certainly taken hold.
When Goldseker describes her own, personal funding philosophy, her careful, well-thought-out words seem to echo the way in which she approaches life and her work: with a mixture of intelligence and a quietly passionate belief in money as a vehicle to empower others. “My priorities in the past couple of years have been Jewish life, women and girls issues — the Jewish Fund for Justice, the American Jewish World Service, the Ms. Foundation, the Third Wave Foundation — they all focus on both economic empowerment and also include issues of women and girls.
They [women and girls] receive a disproportionately small amount of foundation dollars out there, and if you can help women with economic empowerment, they can make choices of their own — about family size and education. What you give to women goes to their families, in general.” This notion of “strategic philanthropy” — what to fund, how to fund, when to fund, how will your money affect change within society? — is a concern, too, of the Jewish Funders Network (JFN) which Goldseker has been actively involved in since she was 21. The JFN is a national affinity group of Jewish funders who discuss and learn about grantmaking and the various issues involved in funding both Jewish and secular causes.
Goldseker currently sits on the board of JFN and is co-chair of its 2002 annual conference, the youngest co-chair ever. According to David Friedman, co-chair of JFN, “We felt that choosing not only a younger funder but also one who has extraordinary talent, vision and leadership would be a real contribution to the conference and to our work. Sharna represents those qualities.” When Goldseker was 24, she was asked to speak at JFN's annual conference on a plenary entitled, “Future Forecasting: What Could the Jewish Community Look Like in 2020.” Laughing, Goldseker recalls, “I remember saying to the group, ‘You probably think I'm a little pisher here, but I want you to know that this is what the next generation looks like!' ”
This “next generation,” indeed, has taken on a new name at JFN — the Younger Funders Collaborative — and in every way, they're looking impressive. The Collaborative, a group of 10 men and women in their 20s and 30s, gathered in October on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in an office building in Midtown. The Collaborative emerged in March from the Younger Funders Working Group, (which Goldseker co-chairs), a subset of JFN. This group of young people decided that they would take what they'd learned about grantmaking from the Younger Funders Working Group a step further and act upon it.
They have pooled not just their ideas and experience, but also their money — a minimum of $1,000 per person — and together, have decided to grant their common funds in the general area of education. This year, they expect to grant between $15,000 to $20,000 to either one or two organizations for a one-year cycle. Friedman feels that, “The Collaborative is an incredible experiment. Whatever happens, there are seeds that will be sown from their work.
Hopefully, this will be very important to all of these people, and that's why JFN says, ‘We will help make this happen because we believe in it.' ” On that October afternoon, Goldseker, wearing black slacks and a black sweater relieved by a deep blue shirt peeking out underneath, listened carefully to the presentations by various non-profit organizations involved in education. She took notes and asked questions, analyzing which area of education — economic empowerment, conflict resolution and youth leadership — she felt most passionately about focusing their grantmaking on. Later, the group would together decide that they were most drawn to economic empowerment, and through that lens, would learn about different grantmaking strategies.
At the end of the day, Goldseker and her two co-chairs talked about everything from ways that the meetings could work better, to how their generation connects with Judaism through social justice and what it means to use a Jewish lens to look at your funding. At one point, Goldseker posed the question as to how to influence your family foundations to take into account your own choices for funding. “What would be most exciting,” Goldseker said, quietly but with purpose, “would be to have younger funders in the Collaborative prove themselves to their families and foundations as responsible philanthropists and maybe our family foundations will match or contribute to our grants.” The wheels were clearly spinning ahead, way past this day and far into the future. In addition to hoping to get the older generation to write out checks to support causes she and others of her generation are passionate about, Goldseker would like more young people to become involved in philanthropy. “People can learn the lessons of charity and philanthropy earlier in their lives, instead of waiting until late in their lives,” she points out.
As luck would have it, there are organizations, such as Resource Generation and the Third Wave Foundation, which Goldseker supports, which organize young people of wealth to give to progressive causes. In describing Goldseker, David Freidman's sense of her is that, “She has an inner fire that fuels her to do this work in the world. I don't think it's coming just from her parents or from what she's supposed to do but it's a part of the fabric of her being.” Although Sharna Goldseker's year is filled with making plans for the annual conference, analyzing non-profits and strategizing what to fund, she is contemplating at the same time a little reward for herself. Perhaps she will kayak in the Caribbean in December, or hike to Machu Picchu in March after the conference.
Far removed in every sense from the urban environment and issues which occupy her daily, these places appeal both to her love of travelling and learning about other cultures, as well as to her deep appreciation for the outdoors and the environment. Wherever she decides to go, when she returns home safely, she will walk into her apartment, kiss the mezuzah and, as her grandparents encouraged her to do growing up, drop some money into the tzedakah box next to her front door.
“Things are going well, you got home safely from your travels, life is a blessing,” she softly repeats her grandparents' words, “put a little money in the pushke.” - Article Courtesy of The New York Jewish Week: http://www.ujafedny.org
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