Build-a-Tzedakah Fund-you are Never too Young to Start

How can we put the Mitzvah back into Bar or Bat Mitzvah? Teaching tzedakah is one way we can help our children to be the Jewish adults we want them to be.

The Build-a-Tzedakah Fund allows young adults to participate in the mitzvah of tzedakah by contributing $600 from their Bar or Bat Mitzvah money, with an additional $400 matched by a generous donor in the community. Thus, their own $1,000 fund is established at the Jewish Foundation and anyone, can add to the fund at any time. The young adult can make recommendations to the Foundation to distribute up to 5.5% (the Foundation's current spending policy) of the fund's fair market value to charity, either in the New Haven Jewish community, or elsewhere, in perpetuity.

For example, Tallie establishes a fund with $600 from her Bat Mitzvah that is matched by $400 from a generous donor in the community. Tallie has just established a $1,000 charitable endowment. Even if no other contributions are made to her fund, and each year, for five years, the fund appreciates, and she recommends 5.5% to charity-- by the time she turns eighteen she will have recommend and $275 to the charity or charities of her choice, made possible by her initial $600 contribution--and she will still have a charitable fund at the Jewish Foundation from which she can continue to make charitable recommendations for her lifetime.