7th Grade Fund
The Seventh Grade Fund is a charitable foundation run by the Seventh Grade Class of Temple Isaiah.
Fund Goals & Objectives
Goals
- To educate students in philanthropy and to teach about the power of educated charitable giving.
- To emphasize the value of Tzedakah as an integral part of adult Jewish life.
- To provide a meaningful alternative to the materialism that is often a large part of the B’nai Mitzvah experience in contemporary America.
- To relieve some pressure on families by agreeing voluntarily and collectively that donations to the Seventh Grade Fund will replace customary gifts to B’nai Mitzvah.
- To provide targeted financial gifts to advance the cause of one or more charitable service organizations.
- To foster a sense of responsibility and effectiveness within the Seventh Grade Community by giving them the power to make positive change in the world.
Objectives
We will invite a staff person from a local foundation to make a presentation on the principles of targeted philanthropic giving. In addition, we will invite local charitable service organizations to make presentations to the Board on two Sundays during the year. The presentations and discussions that follow will provide valuable education on the practice of philanthropy.
We will educate the members of the Board on the imperative of Tzedakah as a Jewish obligation.
The fund will act as a vehicle for channeling financial resources away from consumer spending and toward social action causes. It does not represent an additional expense, but instead a redirection of family resources that might otherwise go toward the purchase of gifts.
A $360 suggested contribution from each family will be used to form the Seventh Grade Fund, whose mission will be to provide financial support for one or more local community service organizations at the discretion of the SGF’s Board of Directors.
The Board of Directors will be comprised of the entire seventh grade class (whether or not they make a contribution to the SGF).
Frequently Asked Questions
- How will the goals of the Seventh Grade Fund be accomplished?
A study unit on the history and practice of philanthropy and the Mitzvah of Tzedakah will be incorporated into the Seventh Grade curriculum. In addition, the students will prepare and distribute an application to potential grant recipients, review the submitted applications, and invite selected organizations to follow-up their applications with presentations before the Board.
The Fund will act as a vehicle for channeling financial resources away from consumption and towards social justice. It does not represent an additional expense, but instead, a redirection of family resources that would otherwise go toward the purchase of gifts.
Distribution of money from the Seventh Grade Fund will benefit one or more charitable service organizations.
During its first meeting, the Seventh Grade Fund Board of Directors selects an issue or cause on which it will focus its grant-giving activities. Each Board member takes responsibility for identifying several potential grant recipients to which Request for Proposal and Applications will be sent.
Every student in the class will have a role in raising money and deciding how that money will be distributed to organizations that foster positive change in our community.
The Board of Directors of the Seventh Grade Fund is comprised of all members of the Seventh Grade Class (regardless of their families’ financial participation in the program) and is advised by the Seventh Grade teachers and TA’s and interested parents. All decisions of the Board are made by simple majority, with a practical system of point-awarding in order to make the final decision.
- What is the Target Population?
Temple Isaiah ’s Seventh Graders are the chief target population of the SGF. During a process of constant Tzedakah education, brainstorming and researching, and decision by majority, the Seventh Graders are transformed into the Trustees of a real charitable foundation. Tens of thousands of dollars in grants are distributed each year to qualifying organizations approved by the Board of Directors (the Seventh Graders). Each Seventh Grade class consists of anywhere from 40 to 90 students.
We request an 80% majority secret ballot vote in favor of this project in order to implement it each year. The family of each Seventh Grader will receive one vote per child in Seventh Grade.
We may invite interested and qualified parents to form an advisory committee that will work cooperatively with the teaching staff to educate the Board on the principles of philanthropic giving, collect contributions to the Fund, maintain proper accounting records, solicit matching funds, and solicit grant requests.
- What is the Role of Congregational Involvement and Volunteers?
The SGF is advised and coordinated by a staff of four adult teachers and four teenage teacher’s assistants (TA’s). The Seventh Grade Coordinator oversees all logistics and finances for the SGF.
The students undertake research and fundraising projects essential to the operation of the SGF with the support and participation of parents.
- What is the History of the Seventh Grade Fund?
Temple Isaiah’s Seventh Grade Fund was inspired by a program at Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco. (For the article that inspired Temple Isaiah’s Seventh Grade Fund, see: Don Lattin, “Taking the Torah to Heart: 7th-graders give bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah money to charity,” sfgate.com: San Francisco Chronicle, 3 April 1998—Click here for the article). After hearing about that remarkable success, we decided to pursue a similar project in our supplemental religious school program. The program got underway during the 1998-99 school year has been in continuous operation since then, raising and donating over $350,000.00 to over eighty different organizations as of this writing.
The Fund’s history of giving is diverse and extensive. Each year, the Board made slight to significant departures from the previous year’s theme, encouraging the staff to learn about a new field and a range of new non-profit organizations. The cyclical nature of the process forced us into a healthy and productive critical evaluation of the program each year, leading to multiple revisions and refinements. We’re very excited to share the history of Temple Isaiah’s Seventh Grade Fund as a challenge and inspiration for your own efforts on this program.
This program promotes social and economic justice by following an in-depth series of lessons on social action causes and the humanistic Mitzvot of Judaism with a profound and deeply felt act of collective Tzedakah in which all students share and of which all students are an integral part.
The life-saving and life-changing carried out by non-profit organizations with funds from the SGF is the most obvious effect of this program. But those who experience it know that its benefits do not stop there. The Seventh Graders do not just learn about peace and human relations, the necessity of defending the weak, and defense of human and civil rights. They study in-depth, real life cases of desperate need- and they heed the call to action in the framework of a highly organized and well-planned Jewish structure.
Seventh Graders most often complete this program with a new set of Jewish values and priorities that puts paramount importance on Tikkun Olam. They will wake up every morning of every day knowing there is something they can do to help. We have set up a small but powerful force for good, whose ripple effect has positively impacted thousands over the years- and saved an unknowable number of lives.
In 2002, an organization that assists children who had been attacked by roving governmental gangs that often used violent physical intimidation, pled with the SGF Board of Directors for financial assistance to carry out crucial work with those communities. The organization’s director stood face-to-face with our Seventh Graders, and stated bluntly that his appeal was a matter of life and death. One student later wrote:
“Our top choice for the Seventh Grade Fund this year is the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities. It was unlike any other. Like a sudden, shrill scream, this organization projected a desperate cry for help. Most people today think that the worst problems are being taken care of with donations, volunteer work, and military and political help. However, the worst problems are those that few or no people know about other than the victims and the perpetrators… The desperate cry has finally been answered.”
The Seventh Grade Fund has become an institution at Temple Isaiah, and at present, we plan to continue the program indefinitely- as long as consecutive 7th grade families continue to vote the Fund into existence and support the program.
7th Grade Fund History
|
GRANT YEAR |
CAUSE(S) |
TOTAL |
RECIPIENT(S) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2022-2023 |
Reproductive Justice |
$15,482 |
Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) Planned Parenthood Northern California MSI United States |
|
2021-2022 |
Mental Health Issues, with a focus on Eating Disorders and Suicide Prevention |
$11,334 |
Pacific Center for Human Growth |
|
2020-2021 |
Racial Justice |
$9,500 |
Miles Hall Foundation |
|
2019-2020 |
Global Warming/Climate Change |
$9,000 |
Coral Reef Alliance Friends of the Congo |
|
2018-2019 |
Homelessness |
$11,391 |
Contra Costa Interfaith Housing |
|
2017-2018 |
Mental Health Issues, with a focus on Depression |
$11,556 |
Ann Martin Center |
|
2016-2017 |
Environment |
$17,310 |
Urban Adamah |
|
2015-2016 |
Cancer |
$26,500 |
Chai Lifeline |
|
2014-2015 |
Hunger |
$13,590 |
Stop Hunger Now |
|
2013-2014 |
Education |
$13,500 |
JK Kapnek Trust |
|
2012-2013 |
Anti-Bullying |
$22,600 |
Bay Kids Studios |
|
2011-2012 |
Water |
$15,500 |
American Jewish World Service |
|
2010-2011 |
Special Needs |
$20,000 |
Center for Early Intervention on Deafness |
|
2009-2010 |
Cancer |
$15,000 |
Prevention International: No Cervical Cancer |
|
2008-2009 |
Child Abuse and Child Poverty |
$13,500 |
ELI, The Israeli Association for Child Protection |
|
2007-2008 |
Genocide and Persecution |
$20,000 |
Jaffa Institute |
|
2006-2007 |
Health and Medicine |
$14,000 |
Okizu Foundation |
|
2005-2006 |
Africa (four categories) |
$20,000 |
Abiriba Communal Imrovement Union |
|
2004-2005 |
Human Rights, Health and Disease Research |
$18,300 |
American Nicaraguan Foundation |
|
2003-2004 |
Children’s Health |
$20,000 |
American Jewish World Service |
|
2002-2003 |
World Health |
$18,000 |
American Nicaraguan Foundation |
|
2001-2002 |
Human Rights |
$18,000 |
Anti-Slavery International |
|
2000-2001 |
Animal Rights, The Environment |
$22,000 |
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals |
|
1999-2000 |
Medical Research and Treatment |
$17,125 |
American Heart Association |
|
1998-1999 |
Children in Need |
$16,500 |
Bay Area Young Positives |