Tzedek Project Challenges Seventh Graders to Think Like Philanthropists

At Tuesday morning’s Tzedek tefillah, the seventh grade announced the recipients of this year’s Tzedek Fund grants. Representatives from the recipient nonprofit organizations (NPOs) were on hand to receive the checks and thank the students. Representatives of NPOs—ranging from child abuse prevention to wildlife protection, to help for the homeless of San Francisco and the refugees around the world—were universal in their admiration for the students’ deep knowledge of their organizations, expressing their awe of the astute questions asked by the seventh graders who interviewed them. The Tzedek Project—begun by San Francisco Brandeis Hillel families in 1998 and written about by New York Times personal finance columnist Ron Lieber in both his book The Opposite of Spoiled and in his New York Times Your Money column—pools parent donations, in lieu of b’nai mitzvah gifts to one another’s children, which are awarded by the seventh grade to NPOs the students have investigated and voted on. Seventeen NPOs received a Tzedek Project Grant of $400, and five NPOs received a Tzedek Impact Grant of approximately $3,000, for a total allocation of just over $20,000. The Impact Grants were awarded to CARE, Compass Family Services, IsraAID, SEGA Girls School, and the What If? Foundation.

 

The Tzedek Project requires students to do investigative online research on an NPO and then conduct interviews with official representatives, asking pointed questions about effective outcomes and the ratio of overhead expenses to total funds raised and direct services provided. Working in pairs, the students created oral presentations that they uploaded; their peers then had a week to watch the 21 other videos and fill out a feedback form following each viewing. Said Tzedek Program Manager Jody Bloom, "Within each video, the students described the problem and how their NPO is working to solve it, striving to persuade their peers to help through citing success stories, relevant Jewish quotations, and connections to Jewish values." The students used a point scale to rate factors such as how effectively the persuaders had conveyed information about the goals of each organization, the source of its funding, and how the money is spent; and to what degree the presentation convinced them of the compelling need for this organization.

 

This first phase of the allocation process narrowed the field from 22 NPOs to 11 being considered for an Impact Grant. In the second phase, the students turned from individual researchers, advocates, and presenters for one NPO into a team of thoughtful decision-makers, seeking a group decision.

"We were so lucky to have Amanda Silber Levitt set up the process for us last year," said Ms. Bloom. (Ms. Silber Levitt has facilitated a similar process at the Jewish Community Federation, to help them allocate funds to different NPOs in Israel.) After agreeing that the criterion of "Reflects Jewish values" was inherent in every NPO being considered, the students decided on six criteria. After another round of individual assessment, the students broke into four groups for discussion, facilitated by Ms. Bloom; Jennifer Baumer, language arts teacher; Debby Arzt-Mor, director of Jewish learning; and Neal Biskar, social studies teacher and director of high school placement.

 

"In reflection, the students shared that 95 percent of them changed their individual scores for the NPOs when listening to their peers in the small groups," said Ms. Bloom. "They truly had switched ‘hats’ and were no longer individual advocates for one NPO, but instead were part of a team of philanthropists." MORE PHOTOS