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Ḥeshbon federation finder

Where does your federation's money come from, and where does it go?

Find your local Jewish federation on the system map. Its latest tax return shows what it took in, where its grant dollars went, and what it spent, with tabs for the two returns before it, and how it compares with the federations most like it.

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The system map: every federation

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A federation. A bigger stop raised more.A foundation on its ownNo detailed return on fileThe one you have open

1

Inbound: where the money comes from

Every dollar on the revenue page of the return, by fiscal year. The blue ring marks the year the page is showing.

Each stop on the track is one fiscal year, and the bar standing on it is everything the organization took in that year. Green is gifts given outright, the closest the return comes to an annual campaign. Blue is gifts placed into donor-advised funds, which the organization holds while the donor keeps advising on where they go. Orange is program fees, and grey is everything else on the revenue page, mostly investment returns. In a year when markets fell, the grey part hangs below the track.

Table view

2

Outbound: where the grant dollars went

Each cause is one line, named underneath its run with the dollars it carried and its share of all the grants. The lines are stacked by size, largest on top. Recipients are stops: money gets off at each one, so a line narrows as it goes and ends at its last stop. Money sent to the Jewish Federations of North America rides to a transfer in New York, where the national body keeps a part and sends the rest on. From there it joins the line of grants that name Israel directly, and the two ride together as one Israel line. Choose any line or stop to see every recipient behind it.

Swipe sideways to follow the lines.

Table view: every cause and every recipient

3

The whole fare: everything it spent

Form 990 Part IX, by fiscal year, on the same scale as the inbound chart

Grants are one part of what a federation does with its money. Each bar is a full year of spending. Blue left the building as grants, orange paid for programs it runs itself, purple is management and grey is fundraising. The return files grants under programs, so the usual program share of a federation counts every check it passes along.

Grants to other organizationsPrograms it runs itselfManagementFundraising

Table view

4

Neighboring systems: the twelve its own size

Each track is one measure. The white stops are the twelve organizations most like this one: the same kind of federation first, whether a hometown federation, a metro allocator or an operator, then nearest in money raised, and where possible with the same arrangement of a separate foundation holding the community's funds. The blue capsule is this one with its figure above it, and the orange tick marks the middle of the twelve. At the end of every track stands a signal, and the words beside it say whether this one sits higher than the twelve, lower, or in the middle. Higher means above at least two thirds of them, and lower means above a third or fewer. Where a measure has a better side, the signal is a traffic light: green on the better side of its neighbors, red on the worse side, yellow in the middle. Lower is the better side for overhead, for the cost to raise a dollar and for executive pay, and higher is the better side for growth in giving. The other rows are choices a community makes, such as how much to send to Israel or to its day schools. Their signals carry plain white lamps that only point: top for higher, bottom for lower.

On the better sideIn the middleOn the worse sideWhite lamp: a choice, so the signal only points

5

The whole network: every one of its kind

The same measures against the whole field. Each thin tie across a track is one organization, so a dense stretch of ties is where most of them sit. The blue capsule is this one, the orange tick is the middle of all of them, and the signals are read against the upper and lower thirds of the field. Raw executive pay gets a white pointer here, because against organizations of every size it would mostly measure size. Pay per $100 raised keeps its traffic light.

6

The depot: what it holds

Net assets at each year end, everything it owns minus everything it owes

Net assetsOf which, donor-advised fund balances

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Service notices

What these returns cannot tell you

One return at a timeThe page shows the fiscal 2024 return where one is on file, and the tabs move to fiscal 2023 and 2022. A return that lists no individual grants is named as such, and the ticks in the table view still reach back to fiscal 2014 to 2016.

PricesThe page opens with every dollar adjusted to 2024 prices on the annual consumer price index. The switch at the top puts them back as filed. Shares do not change.

The New York transferMoney sent to the national body is followed through its own returns, year by year. It sent on 60 cents of each dollar in fiscal 2018 and 84 in fiscal 2023. Four cents of each dollar it spent could not be itemized and are counted as staying in America, so every Israel figure is a floor.

SiblingsA federation and its foundation file separately, and money one moves to the other is left off the grant map. The switch in the bar at the top moves between the two.

Causes and namesCauses come from the IRS sector code and the recipient's name. Grants the IRS master file could not match were given a cause from the name, and what is left rides a grey line. Recipient names are the ones the IRS holds for each tax ID.

Overhead and payOverhead is management plus fundraising over all spending, pooled across fiscal 2018 to 2022 for 146 federations. Grants count as program spending. Chief executive pay is Part VII of the return, columns D, E and F together: pay from the organization, pay from related organizations, and other compensation, in 2024 dollars, counted once where one person runs two organizations.

What the map holdsGrants the return itemizes to organizations (Schedule I), plus grants abroad reported by region (Schedule F). Grants to individuals, scholarships, and grants under $5,000 are not itemized, so the map can hold less than the grants-paid line on the spending chart, and the note under the map says by how much.

Money inGifts, program fees, and everything else on the revenue page. Government grants are counted among the gifts, where the form puts them. Individual donors are not named on any public return.

Nothing here audits an institutionA signal is a place to start asking questions. Small federations swing widely, because one salary or one bequest moves every ratio.

Ḥeshbon

A data project on how Jewish life is paid for, published in full. Every figure comes from the underlying research, and where a chart simplifies a published result the piece says so.

Each piece here is published, with its own sources, sample sizes and limits stated in place. Percentages describe the samples observed, and several rest on small denominators, noted where they appear. Nothing here audits an individual institution. Aliyah figures are current as of August 2026, at roughly three shekels to the dollar, and Israeli tax and benefit rules move faster than that.