Its members call it the "study group," a name that conjures up visions of co-eds meeting over homework. But insiders in the world of Jewish philanthropy call it the "mega-group," and quake at its mention.
For good reason. Founded a decade ago, the mega-group brings together a shifting collection of a dozen or so of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in America for twice-yearly meetings to discuss the future of the Jewish community. Their goal is to educate themselves on Jewish needs and share ideas on how best to spend their philanthropic dollars. Members include such familiar names as Bronfman, Tisch, Wexner and Steinhardt.
Few outsiders know of the group, which tends to avoid media glare, for obvious reasons. But many know its handiwork, which includes some of the most publicized Jewish initiatives in recent years: Birthright Israel, STAR (Synagogue Transformation and Renewal), the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education and the revamping of the national Jewish campus chaplaincy, Hillel.
Jewish organizational insiders are talking about it, too, if only because it has become one of the most important concentrations of Jewish communal dollars, threatening to challenge and even overshadow the traditional fundraising spigot of the federation-UJA network.
"This is a group of people whose combined giving is... either near or moving toward that which the whole federation system gives," said Rabbi Brian Lurie, former chief executive of the United Jewish Appeal. Federated Jewish philanthropies last year raised just over $820 million for domestic and overseas needs.
It was Rabbi Lurie who convened the original mega-group in 1991, under the leadership of Seagram's scion Charles Bronfman and retailing mogul Leslie Wexner.
The group's success has now spawned imitators. This year, new philanthropic mega-groups are being organized across the country, driven by the growing desire of philanthropists to channel their funds thoughtfully. Members of the various new groups are rumored to include Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus, Snapple baron Peter May — a member of the original study group — and Levi Strauss heir and insurance-company executive John Goldman.
An effort is also underway to start a similar group comprising Jewish philanthropists from Canada, Israel and Europe. Its members are likely to include the Arison family of Israel and the Rothschild family of France, as well as a Canadian Bronfman.
What each of these groups hopes to do is leverage ideas, connections — and huge sums of money.
The most celebrated program to emerge from the proceedings, Birthright Israel, has sent 22,000 Jews aged 18-26 on free, first-time trips to Israel over the last two years. First proposed by Rabbi Lurie in 1992, it was eventually taken up by Mr. Bronfman and retired hedge-fund manager Michael Steinhardt. They set up an organization and won pledges totaling $210 million, some two-thirds of what they had sought from other donors, the Israeli government and established Jewish organizations in America, Europe and Israel.
Another mega-group product is the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education. Mr. Steinhardt proposed the partnership in 1996, recruiting 11 other mega-donors to pledge $1.5 million each over five years. His partners included Mr. Bronfman and his wife Andrea; Mr. Bronfman's brother Edgar, president of the World Jewish Congress; Leonard Abramson, the founder of U.S. Healthcare, and the late Oklahoma oil baron Charles Schusterman and his wife Lynn.
The reinvigoration of Hillel is another mega-group project. Edgar Bronfman, as international chairman of Hillel, had already started to restructure the campus organization when he brought in the support of fellow mega-donors including Mr. Steinhardt, the Schustermans and Richard Goldman, founder of Goldman Insurance Services in San Francisco and a Levi Strauss heir.
Richard Goldman told the Forward he had stopped attending meetings of the study group several years ago because they tended to be dominated by strong egos and by the concerns of East Coast philanthropists. But, he said, without his study-group connection, he would not have become involved with Hillel, "so there are some compensating features."
The process benefits many Jewish organizational staffers, too. "It's helpful to know the framework, the people who know each other," said Rabbi Ramie Arian, executive director of the Foundation for Jewish Camping, which has received substantial funding from mega-group members. "Philanthropist A talks to philanthropist B. If there's a project they're excited about, [someone else] may want to look at it."
The mega-groups have their critics, though they tend to insist on anonymity, fearful of alienating potential benefactors. They worry that the mega-group model seems to bypass an established communal decision-making process centered in community federations and membership organizations, a process that for all its flaws spreads accountability fairly broadly. Instead, incalculable power is concentrated in the hands of a handful of billionaires.
Shalom Elcott, president of the Tel Aviv-based Ted Arison Family Foundation and the organizer of the new international mega-group, acknowledges that individual funders and their family foundations are replacing organizations and institutions as the driving force behind new initiatives.
However, Mr. Elcott stressed that he's not trying to replace Jewish organizations, but rather to broaden the discussion of matters of Jewish import. "Funders are able to think out of the box," he said.
They're also able to take risks with their money.
The billionaires who would become the original mega-group were first assembled by Rabbi Lurie in an effort to raise funds quickly for Operation Exodus, UJA's billion-dollar campaign to bring Jews out of the Soviet Union. The group came to be seen as a fund-raising safety net for worldwide Jewish emergencies.
Over time, the group evolved into a fraternity of moneyed individuals and their spouses, where informal discussions and presentations by experts often lead to collaborative philanthropic partnerships and the occasional business deal.
"Not everybody goes in on all the projects, but we all know what the projects are, and people decide to opt in or out," Charles Bronfman told the Forward.
Last month, in his farewell speech as chairman of the United Jewish Communities, the national network of federations, Mr. Bronfman told a ballroom full of UJC professional and lay leaders that they should prepare for "new initiatives and partnerships that I assure you will be coming to our communities" by setting aside endowment funds.
"These philanthropists are going to be around, and they're going to spend money, and they're going to invest in projects," Mr. Bronfman told the Forward. The question for federations is, "Which way are you going to play it: Are you going to collaborate with them or hunker down in your own cells?" he said.
But already some federations, such as San Jose and Boston, are bringing their biggest donors and local philanthropists together in peer groups where they can discuss communal priorities outside of the regular federation committee mechanisms.
The San Jose group will not be focused on supporting the federation, executive director Jon Friedenberg said.
"Some will choose to do things in partnership with the federation, others won't," he said. "Whatever comes of out of it will be good for the Jews."