At CLSFF, our primary vehicle for achieving our mission is our grantmaking, which has become increasingly strategic with each passing year.

We focus our investments on building large-scale national movements across our key program areas using four interwoven strategies that we believe make us more efficient and effective:

1. Launching and funding platform organizations to advance entire fields;
2. Incubating and piloting new initiatives that enhance these fields;
3. Creating connections, partnerships, robust networks, and common standards and systems among our grantee organizations; and
4. Employing rigorous evaluation to measure impact, refine approaches and boost the effectiveness of the organizations we support and the fields in which they operate.

Beyond the dollar value of our grants, our team provides tangible support to our grantees, including strategic advice, mentoring, coaching, board service, and convenings, retreats and networking opportunities for leadership at all levels.

We also take our commitment to collaboration very seriously and work with a range of partners to achieve our goals. Our partners include the nonprofit organizations to whom we make grants, as well as the foundations and organizations who may co-fund with us or help us bring together multiple players working toward a common goal.

As one of the largest players in Jewish philanthropy, we continuously challenge ourselves to find the most effective ways to use our financial and human resources to maximize our impact and fulfill our vision.

For more, read The New Philanthropy (Giving Effectively in Challenging Times) by our national director, Lisa Eisen.

Grants Policy

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In 2010, following nearly a decade of steady growth and expansion into new programs, organizations and initiatives, we shifted our emphasis to deepening, rather than solely broadening, our impact. Due to the increasingly strategic and focused nature of our grantmaking, we are not currently accepting unsolicited requests or proposals for funding.

We work continuously to identify potential grant applicants through due diligence procedures and will request proposals from a limited number of organizations that fall within our current focus areas.

With this in mind, we are still interested in learning about the organizations, initiatives and ideas that inspire you. Please use the form below to provide us with a brief description, which we will keep on file for future reference.