“Sometimes the most rewarding aspect of philanthropy isn’t making grants, but making connections between our grantees—then watching how the sparks of innovation start to fly in new directions,” CEO Ruth Salzman writes in a Letter From Our CEO. “Our team takes great pleasure in our mission of identifying and supporting exceptional organizations doing groundbreaking work. When these organizations find creative opportunities to partner, their impact becomes transformative.”
Since March, The Russell Berrie Foundation has given more than $5.2 million in emergency COVID-19 grants to organizations responding to urgent medical, economic, societal and educational needs in their communities. In this video, seven of our outstanding Israeli grantees describe how they rose to the challenge. They include changemakers like Ogen, which gives loans to non-profits, small businesses and others underserved by traditional commercial lenders, and The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine at Bar-Ilan University, which developed innovative ways for medical student volunteers to support much-needed health care delivery in the diverse communities of their region.
Israel’s Sheba Medical Center, a world leader in medical science and biotech, is partnering with Holy Name Medical Center, in Teaneck, N.J., on its latest healthcare innovation effort: the Accelerate, Redesign and Collaborate program, or ARC. It’s the latest development in a decade-long partnership that began after Angelica Berrie introduced the two RBF grantees. “Our role was to do a shidduch”—make a match—“between Holy Name and Sheba,” Berrie tells The Jewish Standard.
As COVID-19 and all of the systemic challenges being highlighted unfold, philanthropy has a critical role to play by being “fast, nimble and catalytic,” Ruth Salzman, RBF’s Chief Executive Officer, says in an interview with The Philanthropic Initiative. The interview, which kicked off TPI’s “Adaptable Funders” blog series, came as RBF’s COVID-19 emergency relief grants topped $5 million. “If philanthropy can help get the right people around the table, help them generate solutions and then catalyze action by funding innovative ideas as R&D, we will have made a significant contribution,” Salzman tells TPI. “And we are the sector that can ensure that inclusion, diversity, and equity are consistently incorporated.”
The Russell Berrie Foundation was recently featured in Inside Philanthropy, in an article titled “How a Private Foundation Backed Trusted Partners When Crisis Struck its Home Region.” The piece describes how RBF responded to the pandemic by issuing $4.48 million in emergency grants, to support organizations in the U.S. and Israel that were providing COVID-19 relief efforts. “The funder’s approach is an illustrative case study of a relatively modest private foundation responding to a global crisis—by moving new funds, but also relying on longstanding relationships and knowledge about its existing areas of giving,” the article notes.
In two Bergen County cities with high rates of diabetes, fresh produce is now delivered regularly to those in need—an illustration of how The Russell Berrie Foundation and our partners have pivoted quickly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to address newly urgent priorities, writes CEO Ruth Salzman. “To make lasting change, we must build the close relationships that enable us to adjust our responses when the landscape abruptly shifts,” Salzman writes. “If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that change is the only constant.”
“As Americans, we share the profound sorrow and shame at the death of George Floyd and many others before him,” writes Angelica Berrie. “‘I can’t breathe’ are words that call out to all of us, a powerful reminder of the moral responsibility to address the injustice of inequality in our country. As philanthropists, the deep pain of our fellow human beings forces us to re-examine our work, to ask ourselves if we have failed to see the extent of their suffering and if we can do more to allow our communities of color to breathe freely.”
As we face a fast-moving and alarming public health crisis locally in Northern New Jersey and around the world, The Russell Berrie Foundation is supporting the resiliency of organizations that are providing critical services and assisting vulnerable populations.
“Blood Sugar Rising,” a documentary that puts a human face on the country’s diabetes epidemic, premiered on PBS in April. RBF was proud to support the making of this film, alongside our other investments in diabetes treatment and prevention. Diabetes and pre-diabetes affect over 100 million people in the U.S., costing more than $325 billion yearly. The issue is more urgent now than ever, as those with diabetes are at risk for severe forms of COVID-19 and face additional challenges managing their disease in the current environment.
