Crediting sound investments and talented staff, the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest New Jersey is celebrating a pool of assets that surpassed $210 million in April.

As the largest community foundation in New Jersey and one of the 10 largest Jewish community foundations in the United States, it seeks bequests and endowments of at least $10,000, investing its funds in a variety of equities and securities, and distributing grants to charitable organizations, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

In the past fiscal year, its assets grew 20 percent.

“We started the fiscal year with around $175 million,” said Neil Goldstein, the retried hedge fund manager from Essex Fells who serves as JCF president.

“It means our vision, that the foundation has become the central point for philanthropy for the MetroWest Jewish community, is becoming a reality sooner and sooner,” added executive director Anat Becker. According to Becker. the foundation added 20 new donors to its base of 635, enabling JCF to make $15 million in grants to 1,000 charities in the past year and serve as the largest single donor to MetroWest’s UJA Campaign.

Adding to its coffers are donors from the Jewish Federation of Greater Clifton/Passaic, which has entered into a close cooperation with the neighboring MetroWest federation.

“We brought the Passaic-Clifton Endowment into the fold this year – with a little over $2 million,” Becker said. “We are cultivating them. We feel there is fertile ground there. People in Clifton-Passaic can be developed in terms of growing their philanthropic funds and establishing charitable trusts and annuities for endowments.”

“I am very pleased that the foundation has hit this milestone,” said Max Kleinman, executive vice president of UJC MetroWest. “It is a result of a very philanthropic community, hard work by the leadership and the professional staff, and the fact that it has very good investments to offer.” Becker and Goldstein also said the growth of the foundation came as a result of increased awareness and prudent investing.

“There has been a large effort on the part of staff and lay leaders to focus on endowments and planned giving,” said Goldstein. “We have managed to accumulate some money managers who are very good, so our investment performance for our funds has been above average for many years now.”

Becker warned, however, that, “of course, past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.” “You have to keep in mind that the nature of our business is cyclical,” she added. “It depends on the marketplace and the economic situation in general. It is very donor-driven.”

Calling the foundation “an incubator for new programs,” Becker said its staff continues to devise new and innovative programs for donors. One is the Renaissance Campaign, a community-wide effort to stimulate endowments of $1 million and up which will be used to secure the future of projects vital to the local and overseas Jewish communities. Others include a “teen tzedakah” initiative involving high school students in a special low-level investment fund and the women’s foundation, designed to encourage “women who are not necessarily affiliated with UJC to become philanthropists who think strategically and direct their giving to advance the status of women and girls.”

“We are working very creatively,” Becker said. “We are definitely working outside the box. We will continue to be here to provide a reliable source of support for those in need and also to provide continued support to the institutions we have here – our agencies and schools and libraries and organizations that support the community. We want to make sure they continue to flourish in the years to come.”

Local stories posted courtesy of the New Jersey Jewish News