In 2022, SRE Network awarded twenty-six grants totaling $1.2 million. Grant areas included Renewal Grants, Spring Grants (gender justice with an intersectional lens and support to victim-survivors of sexual harassment or abuse), Fall Grants (capacity-building support for SRE members), and Strategic Grants.
Fall 2022 Open Grants Recipients
In Fall 2022, SRE Network awarded a total of nearly $300,000 in grants to eight organizations in the Jewish nonprofit sector that will work to create safer, more respectful, and equitable workplaces and communal spaces. Through prior grant pools, listening tours, and other learning programs, SRE Network members conveyed a need for funding to support training and expert consultants for this change work.
We are grateful to the 40 organizations that applied for this funding round and are so proud to be supporting the work of the following organizations:
Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
ALEPH serves as the trans-denominational entity for the Jewish Renewal movement. With two-year grant support from SRE, it will offer training to Ordination Program administrators and core faculty to fortify skills around power dynamics, interpersonal behavior, and a psychologically safe culture. It will also work with its 50+ affiliated network communities to provide guidance in prioritizing approaches to fostering inclusive spaces and building structures and policies that reflect equitable institutional approaches.
Footsteps
Footsteps serves formerly ultra-Orthodox individuals seeking resources and support to build healthy and successful lives. With two-year grant support from SRE and building on its prior strategic plan and climate survey results, Footsteps will strengthen its existing policies to prevent and address harassment and discrimination; develop new policies around hiring and advancement, and will incorporate unconscious/implicit bias into hiring and advancement policies.
Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL)
ISJL provides programs and services for the Jewish community across the thirteen states of the US South.
With two-year grant support from SRE, ISJL will conduct an in-depth review of current policies and procedures in the area of cultivating respectful workplace and update materials with input from experts; will increase its communication of these policies and procedures to its staff, will provide respectful workplace training to all of its staff, and will incorporate s, r, e as a key strategic priority in its 2024 strategic plan.
Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA)
Jewish Federations of North America is the entity that represents the nearly 150 independent Jewish Federations and a network of 300 smaller communities across North America. With support from SRE, Jewish Federations of North America will work to develop a speak-up culture throughout the federated system. Specifically, it will develop toolkits for federations in creating speak-up cultures, giving and receiving feedback, and identifying and responding to microaggressions, and will provide training to 300 professionals and lay leaders across 30 federations.
Mishkan Chicago
Mishkan Chicago is a Jewish spiritual community in Chicago. It has dedicated significant resources to developing its s, r, e capacity over time, including developing a robust reporting policy for staff and community members, assembling a Safety, Respect, and Equity team of lay leaders who can receive complaints and provide oversight and transparency into the complaint process, and publicizing their reporting process with a public landing page to share community norms, a code of conduct, and an overview of the reporting process. With two-year grant support from SRE, it will deepen the confidence and competency of their staff and lay leadership to implement this work through more in-depth training.
Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies (NJHSA)
NJHSA is an international membership association of over 150 nonprofit human services organizations in the United States, Canada and Israel. With support from SRE, it will launch Phase 1 of a multi-phased Pay Equity pilot to provide local service agencies with the knowledge, insight, tools and resources needed to move towards achieving pay equity in their organizations. In Phase 1, a cohort of 6 agencies will engage in learning, training, exploration, and individual consultation to craft agency-specific roadmaps for implementing the culture and organization change and actions needed to achieve pay equity for all staff.
SketchPad
SketchPad serves as a hub to promote collaboration and innovation for Jewish nonprofit organizations and professionals in Chicago through its coworking space and various initiatives. It is embarking on a multi-phase initiative focused on equitable hiring, onboarding and advancement practices and policies, articulation and documentation of policies that include anti-discrimination and harassment, family leave and paid time off, and compensation. With support from SRE, SketchPad will launch Phase 1 to conduct an environmental scan, assemble and engage a task force, and develop processes and practices for implementation.
Yeshivat Maharat
Yeshivat Maharat is the first Orthodox yeshiva to ordain women as clergy. With two-year grant support from SRE, Maharat will address bias and microaggressions that women in the Orthodox community experience, by reviewing and enhancing their organizational policies for board, staff and faculty, as well as providing mandatory training to students and faculty (optional for alumni) to learn about respectful environment and bias, with a focus on leading self, leading others, and leading communities and organizations.
Spring 2022 Open Grants Recipients
In Spring 2022, SRE Network awarded a total of $300,000 in two-year $50,000 grants to six organizations to support the areas of gender justice with an intersectional lens and to support victim-survivors of sexual harassment or abuse. We are grateful to the 35 organizations that applied for this funding round and are so proud to be supporting the work of the following organizations:
Beloved + Maharat
Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Orthodox Women in Senior Leadership Roles: Beloved and Maharat are joining forces to provide holistic support for a cohort of 5-7 women who can build and sustain new communities, including: inspiring leaders (training, mentorship), supporting leaders (financial, organizational, operations), nourishing leaders (convening), expanding the definition of pulpit, and establishing transparent salary bands.
JCADA
Victim Advocacy and Judaica Replacement: Finding housing with kosher food, a safe mikvah or congregation, replacing a damaged head covering, or purchasing new Judaica can be both essential for survival, as well as restorative and healing. This grant will support JCADA’s Victim Advocacy department to further their work with survivors, and create a partnership with a local Judaica shop to offset the cost of replacing Judaica.
Jewtina Y Co.
PUENTES Fellowship: The PUENTES Fellowship is a 5-month fellowship providing participants with the opportunity to engage in cohort learning with other Latin-Jewish changemakers. Jewtina will take PUENTES to the next level by applying a special focus on gender justice within the next two upcoming cohorts.
Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA)
Support Group and Helpline Expansion: As part of their support offerings, ORA plans to expand its current support group from a single monthly call to include components such as more frequent, comprehensive therapeutic workshops, financial literacy classes,and career planning. ORA will also expand its Jewish divorce helpline services by offering increased availability for complex and urgent cases, adding an SMS/chat function, increasing its phone lines to include volunteers, interns, and additional staff, and advertising its services across multiple platforms.
SVIVAH
Restorative Torah Beit Midrash: As part of SVIVAH's monthly HerTorah program that uses foundational text as a medium for community and connection, SVIVAH will launch Restorative Torah, a series that will address the experience of survivors of gender-based violence and those who have experienced abuses of power by Jewish communal leaders. Through connective Torah exploration and honest and open communal conversation, Restorative Torah hopes to create an authentic space for restoration and transformation where lived-experience and the voices and stories of women* are honored and celebrated.
TischPDX
Emerging Jewish Leadership Incubator: TischPDX is an emerging incubator for young adult Jewish artists and activists - primarily LGBTQ+, BIJOC, Sephardi, Mizrahi, and/or outside of formal Jewish organizations - who are seeking to amplify and deepen their current projects. Year-long cohorts explore Jewish learning, organizing skills, Torah study and justice practices together with alums, mentors, peers, and partners to build just, vibrant, accessible and inclusive communities in Chinook Illahee/Portland, OR.
Grant Renewals
Footsteps
Footsteps provide comprehensive services to people who have chosen to leave their ultra-Orthodox communities, including social and emotional support, educational and career guidance, workshops and social activities, and access to individualized resources.
Gender Equity in Hiring Project
Gender Equity in Hiring Project works to build Jewish workplaces that tap into the best of talent and human potential and works to remove gender bias from hiring and employment processes in Jewish organizational life to help women rise to positions of leadership.
Jewish Women International
Here for You: Jewish Women International provides a series of trauma-informed, survivor-centered training for JCC staff and works with JCC administration and security teams on policies and procedures that support survivors. Additionally, JWI will create Jewish Coordinated Community Response Teams in each community.
Moving Traditions
Culture Shift: Moving Traditions will provide an opportunity to expand the current curriculum, focused on supporting teens in building healthy relationships in the overnight camp environment, to Jewish Youth Serving Organization programming and travel programs.
Sacred Spaces
Sacred Spaces provides Jewish institutions with the professional services necessary to develop robust policies and training to prevent opportunities for abuse and guide them responsibly when they occur. This year, with support from SRE, Sacred Spaces launched the Keilim Policy Toolkit, which guides organizations in developing policies and procedures that create safer, more respectful, and more equitable environments.
Shalom Hartman Institute of North America
Created Equal: Shalom Hartman Institute of North America is a research and education project that confronts the struggles of educational leaders directly by considering the relationship between Jewish thought and the deep-rooted issues facing gender inequity and ethical leadership.
Ta’amod
Ta’amod transforms Jewish life by equipping institutions and individuals with the resources they need to build healthy, safe, and equitable workplaces.
Women’s Rabbinic Network
Women’s Rabbinic Network is the organization of Reform female-identified rabbis, supporting and advocating for the physical, emotional, and financial health of women in the rabbinate.
Strategic Grants
Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), in partnership with the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), and Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA)
Cross-Denominational Ethics Process Re-Envisioning: Providing two years of cross-denominational training for the Ethics Committees of the CCAR, the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) which will focus on acting with a trauma-informed lens, conducting investigations, counseling congregations, and more.
Elluminate
Jewish Women CEO’s Initiative: Elluminate (formerly Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York) cultivates leaders, funds innovative programs and advocacy efforts, and provides education on vital issues, while encouraging donors to view philanthropic giving through a Jewish and gender lens. The Jewish Women CEO’s Initiative will bring in-house the monthly networking and support group for Jewish Women CEO’s that was co-led by coach and communal leader Nancy Kaufman under the auspices of SRE Network. Formed early on in the COVID pandemic, the group under this grant will expand and deepen its work, while leveraging Elluminate’s network of Jewish women leaders.
Jewish Women International
Here For You Expansion to Jewish Day Schools: Jewish Women International (JWI) champions women and girls by protecting their rights and safety, strengthening access to long-term economic security, and lifting and mentoring women leaders. SRE was among the first and primary funders of Here For You, a set of trauma-informed and survivor-centered trainings for JCC preschool, camp, and security teams. Here For You includes a Theory of Change, educational workshops, a toolkit of resources and a customized action plan for each organization that is based in a Community Response Team partnership. JWI will use these additional funds to support an expansion of Here For You to Jewish day schools through a partnership with Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools that will bring Here For You to 8-10 school communities.
National Council of Jewish Women
73 Forward: Jewish Movement for Abortion Justice: Through this campaign, NCJW will increase on-the-ground access to abortion services, educate about and normalize medication abortion, advocate to remove unnecessary FDA roadblocks to obtaining medication abortion pills, and ensure self-managed abortion is considered in state law. Since the overturn of Roe v Wade, NCJW has also launched the Jewish Fund for Abortion Access which will connect real people who need abortions with the money they need to access care.
If you have questions about the 2022 Open Grants Process or about SRE's Community Investments, please email info@srenetwork.org.