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Ḥeshbon → Where to start

You are deciding where to give

A gift passes through more hands than the envelope suggests, and what each hand keeps is on a public tax return. These pieces follow the money from the campaign letter to the program it pays for.

Start with your own town

Every Jewish organization in the country files something. These read the filings back to you, starting with the ones a few miles from your door.

Isometric night town with gold lines running from the federation to each building that receives its grants Start here Your Town in the City of Giving Enter a ZIP code and see the Jewish organizations near you. Every Jewish organization on the IRS rolls stands in one city of 20,370 buildings. Give a ZIP code and a stage of life, and the city narrows to your own town, with the doors you are likely to walk through lit and eleven years of federation grants drawn between them. Open the tool
Isometric night city where every Jewish organization is a building, lit if it files a public return The City of Jewish Giving Twenty thousand organizations drawn as buildings, lit by what they file. Open US map with a circle on every Jewish federation, sized by what it raises The Federation Finder Every federation on a map, with its own tax returns. Open

Read these six first

Short, and each one answers a question you already have. They run from the plainest to the most technical.

US map of charitable giving intensity in Jewish-community ZIP codes Giving · 8 min read

How much more charity do Jews give?

At matched income, Jewish-community ZIP codes report roughly four times the charitable contributions of their neighbors. IRS returns, mapped and measured.

4×the giving of matched-income neighbors Flow diagram tracing $100 given to a federation through each organization that handles it Giving · 10 min read

How many hands does a charitable dollar pass through before it feeds anyone?

$100 into a federation, followed through the tax returns of every organization that touched it, until it turns into a meal, a classroom seat or a bed.

$86.97of every $100 reaches an organization that runs a program A slot machine whose reels carry the logos of Jewish federations, foundations, schools and camps, with a payout line across the middle Giving

The Giving Ledger: your own town, then ten stories

The whole giving season on one page, played as a slot machine. It opens on your own town, then two maps of the system, one of your federation and one of every Jewish organization on the IRS rolls. The reels carry the organizations a charitable dollar passes through, and the payout line carries what the filings say came out the other end.

10stories, one machine Two columns of bars tracking a $180 gift to Israel along a direct and a federated route Giving · 7 min read

Should an Israel check go to the federation, or straight to the cause?

One $180 gift, two routes, priced stop by stop from Form 990. Two organizations open the first envelope. Four open the second.

$8.21separates the two envelopes at the door Bar chart of modeled annual security cost by Jewish institution type Giving · 9 min read

What does it cost to keep a Jewish building secure?

Guards, cameras, doors and security staff across 143 communities, priced one building at a time and divided by the people they protect.

$853a year for a family of six, against $94 in 2016 Stacked bars comparing local and out-of-town allocations in shrinking federations Giving · 10 min read

When a federation raises less, where does the money go?

Thirty-three communities whose campaign fell by more than a fifth after inflation. Raising each dollar got dearer, and less of what went out stayed home.

33¢of every allocated dollar stays local, down from 45¢

Then the rest of it

Longer, more technical, and worth it once the shape is familiar.

Not quite you?

I’m a student thinking about yeshiva, seminary or college We’re newly married and planning ahead We’re a family looking for a more affordable community We’re weighing a move to Israel I sit on a school board, or fund one