Teen philanthropy? That sounds like an oxymoron on a par with civil war and random order. Aren’t teens supposed to be too self-centered and materialistic to think about philanthropy?
As our story this week on the Jewish Community Teen Foundation shows, the answer, at least for some young people, is a resounding “no.”
This year the 100 teenage members of the foundation’s five local chapters collectively raised nearly $204,000 — a new record, donating it to 35 local, national and international charitable organizations.
Making mostly small grants, the foundation supported diverse projects providing everything from clean drinking water in Africa (powered by a children’s merry-go-round) to schooling for impoverished Indian children. Locally, the Jewish Coalition for Literacy received a grant to teach non-English-speaking parents how to practice reading with their children at home.
The Teen Foundation is a partnership between the Jewish Community Endowment Fund of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and the Jewish Community Foundation of the Greater East Bay, and began five years ago with one chapter in Palo Alto that raised $11,500 in one year.
Since then, it has grown to five chapters with fundraising power rivaling more established, adult-run foundations.
That’s significant. In a world where teens are often told “You’re not old enough” or “Maybe next year,” their work with the Jewish Community Teen Foundation proves to them — and the organizations to which they donate — that they’re a formidable force in the philanthropic world.
More than 150 organizations applied for grants from the foundation, proving to the teens that adults take them seriously.
Sue Shwartzman, director of youth philanthropy for the endowment fund, said the yearlong program rests on a youth empowerment model. They take themselves seriously, too. They run their monthly meetings, write fundraising letters and make all the decisions about where the money goes.
That they’re doing this in a Jewish framework is significant. As much as we all would like to think children are born perfect little angels, the truth is, tzedakah — charitable giving — is a learned behavior.
For these teens, philanthropy is not about buzzwords like “requests for proposal” or “501(c)(3) status.” It’s about opening a window onto a wider world of compassion and civic involvement.
As donors, they come to understand that parts of their community and the world are broken, but they’re not too young to try to fix them.
If they can inspire their peers to take action, then we can rest a little easier that the next generation of Jews can be counted on to do the right thing.