וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם
An Interview with Yisroel Quint and Shira Berkovits, Sacred Spaces, President and CEO
As Sacred Spaces has grown, our small but mighty group of supporters has diversified. I’ve been struck in recent years by the innovative ways in which some of our younger donors have given to Sacred Spaces and amplified their impact. Be it high schoolers tithing their allowance, marrying couples soliciting donations on wedding invitations, or Shabbat hosts suggesting contributions to Sacred Spaces in lieu of food contributions, young people are making a difference with limited resources. In my desk drawer I keep a handwritten note sent in by a fifth grader and taped to a $20 bill, in gratitude for our work in partnership with his school, to support a friend who had been sexually abused. Today, I share some of the inspiration I feel from this creative giving, in a spotlight on Yisroel Quint, a longtime donor and friend of Sacred Spaces’ consultant Danielle (Dani) Pitkoff. Below, Yisroel shares his unique philanthropic approach and the “why” behind his giving. I hope you enjoy reading this interview, as much as I enjoyed conducting it.
| Shira: Hi Yisroel! Can you start by introducing yourself and sharing where you’re calling from? | |
| Yisroel: I’m Yisroel Quint calling from Oakland, California. | |
| Shira: Can you share a little bit about who you are and how you came to be connected with Sacred Spaces? | |
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Yisroel: I work in the philanthropic and nonprofit space as a program officer in a few different foundations and run a nonprofit organization that raises money for indigenous environmental justice organizations providing them with pro bono technical assistance. My background is in nonprofit capacity building. About 5 or 6 years ago, my friend Danielle Pitkoff was telling me about the amazing work she was doing with Sacred Spaces. Growing up in the Orthodox community in the Tri-State area, I saw a need for this type of challenging work that communities are not always open to. I was excited to be able to support an organization like that, and I wish it had existed when I was younger. I was excited that this organization would be doing things to change the spaces for my nephews, cousins and future Jewish kids. |
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| Shira: I wanted to interview you because you have a unique approach to philanthropy – both at the large gift level and with small giving. Even before your work in the nonprofit space, you were already starting to think about how individuals can make a difference in the world with whatever they have. Can you talk a bit about your approach to philanthropy? |
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Yisroel: Meaningful giving does not need to be about a large dollar amount but using your capacity and skills to support organizations in meaningful ways. When I was 24 and not making a lot of money, that meant making a small contribution every month to Sacred Spaces because I knew that was within my financial capacity. I think that value came from my father, a very learned person who always wanted to give maaser (tithe) and support things in the community. I knew from a young age that I wanted to be giving, whether that was a dollar amount or use of my time or skills supporting positive social change. That might mean using some of my nonprofit skills, having conversations with Sacred Spaces about a monthly donor program and why that was so critical and important, or giving blood. Really thinking broadly, what are all the ways I can support my community and those in need? |
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| Shira: You mention how important monthly giving is. You were our very first monthly donor; can you talk a little about that? I think for some folks it’s like, “Well I’ll give at the end of the year, because that feels easiest.” Why is monthly giving so important to you? |
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| Yisroel: The more certainty nonprofits have around the money they will receive and when they will receive it, the more effectively they can plan their approach to making decisions, their fundraising efforts, and their communication with partners. So having the confidence of knowing that there are regular monthly gifts in the future can be really transformative for organizations, especially when they are smaller and just getting started. If someone wants to just give at the end of the year, GREAT, and you can commit to making a recurring annual gift so that organizations know they will have funds in the future. | |
| Shira: I love that because you are not only supporting the work but supporting a healthy way of doing the work. Following your monthly gift, more monthly gifts started coming in, and I don’t know if I ever told you that.
I also really love the way you think creatively. I first heard about you from Danielle when she mentioned how you brought your friends into the giving. So instead of just contributing yourself, you were introducing the nonprofit to another 10 people. I thought that was kind of bold. A young group of 20-somethings isn’t normally discussing nonprofits they want to support. I thought that was a really intentional way of building a philanthropic community of peers. |
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| Yisroel: Yes! I used Facebook to create a fundraiser for a different nonprofit each month. People could make any donation they wanted to support the fundraiser, and I would enter them into a raffle to receive a book related to the cause. Everyone was entered; it didn’t matter if you donated $5 or $100. That was a way of getting more people involved, learning about these organizations and then also hopefully learning more about the cause through the book. For my birth month, I chose Sacred Spaces.
So much of it was about showing people, yes they can already contribute and it doesn’t matter how much. Also, people want to get involved in this! The same way Dani shared the work she was doing, I was like, “Yes this needs to be happening. Thank G-d someone is doing this work.” A lot of my friends from high school and elementary school felt similarly, so it was really an opportunity for them to learn about Sacred Spaces because they wanted to be making an impact in this way. It is both supporting the “now” for youth that are part of these programs and also thinking about the future. I thought it was a really beautiful opportunity for others to be investing in that future that they want for the community. |
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| Shira: What do you wish people knew about giving? | |
| Yisroel: What everyone in this space really knows is that you learn by doing. Thinking I can’t give until I can have X impact or I shouldn’t give until I know everything isn’t really the best approach. It’s really about finding things that are meaningful to you: finding groups and individuals who are leading organizations that you trust and are trusted by others in the community, and doing whatever you can to support them. Those small donations make a big difference in the long term, especially as they add up. No matter where you are today, you can support this work. If that is $3 a month to start, then that’s what it is. You can increase that by a dollar every year, and you will be giving $100 in no time to that organization. $36 in and of itself is also a meaningful gift. And then you can think more broadly about the ways in which you can influence others. You know people who have different skill sets that are useful to a nonprofit in some way. It is always better for a nonprofit to do something for free than to pay someone to do it. Similarly, inviting others into giving. If you give $3 every month but you find nine other friends and together give $30 a month, that becomes a dollar a day. So giving doesn’t have to be a solitary thing. And in fact, as you said, it is really beautiful when you can work with a group of friends or family to support the change that you want to see. | |
| Shira: You are so social in your giving. It sounds fun! | |
| Yisroel: Yes absolutely, and it makes giving more impactful. I can’t do that much on my own, so it is always better together. I think about this also with corporate matching. Lots of us don’t even know that we can get matches from our companies, so always think about how you can leverage your dollars more effectively. Getting twice as much is twice as nice for an organization. |
Yisroel Quint: Yisroel is a Program Officer at Pacific Foundation Services. In his role, he embraces the opportunity to support the work of frontline communities and contribute to clients’ positive social impact. Previously Yisroel worked as a Program Associate on the Organizational Effectiveness team at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. During his time at the Packard Foundation, he supported conservation & science grantees to identify and design projects to strengthen their organizations. Yisroel has also founded a grantmaking nonprofit, the Dollar a Day Fund for Indigenous Environmental Justice, to increase grassroots giving to Indigenous communities. He is active on the board of directors for two nonprofits: Operation Period and Bay Area Cancer Connections (BACC).
