San Francisco’s Jim Joseph Foundation has just one employee — an executive director who, at this point, can only boss himself around.
But even without a staff, a phone or even carpeting for the office, the $500 million foundation is expecting to play soon with the big boys of Jewish philanthropy.
Formed following the 2003 death of Joseph, a highly successful 68-year-old Bay Area developer, the foundation’s raison d’etre is the fostering of educational programs aimed at America’s Jewish youth. This month its newly formed board, as its first action, named Charles “Chip” Edelsberg executive director (and employee No. 1). He will officially assume his duties March 15.
Edelsberg knows his new office will be in San Francisco, at 343 Sansome St., a structure Joseph owned. He knows he’s got a whole staff to bring in, and will even lay out the office design. But other than that, the foundation’s $25 million-a-year grant-making capability could be pushed in any one of myriad directions, and Edelsberg is willing to check out everything.
Currently the vice president of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Edelsberg says his prime responsibility will be to “make grant-making within the guidelines of the Joseph Foundation,” but another pastime will be defining exactly what those guidelines are.
Joseph, who gave away millions in the past two decades, obviously had a deep commitment to Jewish youth and education. One of the tasks before the foundation, however, is to define exactly what constitutes “youth.”
“We have to make a decision in the first two, three, four years about what ‘children and youth’ means. Is it preschool or kindergarten-age children, or high school and college? At the collegiate level, take Birthright for example. There are thousands of people who aren’t going because there isn’t enough funding,” says Edelsberg.
Federal rules governing nonprofit charities require 5 percent of the organization’s overall capital to be given away each year. In the Joseph Foundation’s case, this is upward of $25 million. And when you’re working with that kind of money, Edelsberg believes, you can have a transformative effect on Jewish education for youth of all ages.
With a quarter of a billion dollars to be doled out over the next decade, he notes, an over-arching plan is necessary.
That plan doesn’t necessarily involve reinventing the wheel, either. Edelsberg, a former Jewish educator himself, says many programs and institutions are thriving and need to be rewarded rather than retooled.
“It’s a mistake to not first understand what’s working out there and may be worthy. The day school movement is a perfect example. It’s grown significantly in the past decade.”
But “the cost of living Jewishly is an issue” for the foundation to explore.
In the first few years, at least, the foundation will take a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” approach to grant-making, according to Edelsberg. But, he said with a chuckle, the Jewish community is close-knit, and he fully expects members to give their input to him and his board.
On the board are Phyllis Cook, executive director of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Endowment Fund; Al Levitt, Joseph’s longtime friend and attorney; professor Susan Folkman of UCSF; Dvora Joseph, Jim Joseph’s daughter and an HIV/AIDS expert working for Population Services International; Jack Slomovic, a Southern California businessman and Joseph’s brother-in-law; and Jerome Somers, a Boston lawyer and former head of the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
In Cleveland, Edelsberg oversaw an organization that made more than 8,000 grants yearly, totaling $80 million to $100 million.
He fully expects that in a short time, the name Joseph may rank in prominence alongside Shusterman and Bronfman when it comes to large-scale philanthropy, saying, “This organization will immediately be working at that level with major funders.”