This announcement was originally published in eJewish Philanthropy's Newsletter on June 20, 2022.

Excited chatter in Hebrew, English, French, Portuguese and a variety of other languages filled the patio of Jerusalem's Hotel Yehuda last night, as 150 professionals from around the world came together for the first gathering of the ROI Community in three years. The ROI Community, a network of Jewish leaders and activists, is a project of Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. 

ROI summit participants — ranging from Jewish professionals to startup founders to community activists — will engage in four days of programming, collaboration and conversation centered around the idea of building community. Past years' summits have produced social initiatives to rebrand Russian-Israeli culture, provide aid to Ukrainians — and have even led to some marriages. The network of more than 1,700 alumni spans more than 60 countries, dating back to the first ROI summit in 2006.

"As a philanthropist, I am constantly working with my team to determine what is the best way to produce real, tangible impact. And one of the things we have found is that investing in talented people works," Schusterman Family Philanthropies Chair Stacy Schusterman said at the summit's opening session last night. "We also believe that networks serve as effective multipliers. They amplify the work of individuals, create the type of friction that fosters innovation and enable effective solutions to be strengthened and scaled. That is the type of impact we are striving for." 

The 2022 cohort includes individuals who had completed the application process earlier this year, in addition to applications who had applied for the 2020 cohort prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and were invited to reapply this year. There was no cohort or summit last year. As case numbers are rising in Israel, COVID-19 precautions were present at the summit, with all participants receiving an on-site test prior to entry.