Fundholders listen to a presentation at Shalom Austin Jewish Foundation Fundholder Appreciation event at the Dell JCC. Credit: Allison Teegardin

By Jennifer Kohn Koppel 

October 5 was a wonderful evening for Shalom Austin Jewish Foundation Fundholders as more than 70 fundholders gathered in the Jennifer and David Kaufman Family Living Room at the Dell JCC. The guests included representatives from ten community partners.  The event was designed to bring philanthropists together to learn more about how the Shalom Austin Jewish Foundation is performing and benefiting the community. 

Foundation Committee Chair Marcia Silverberg and Vice Chair Marianne Rochelle welcomed and thanked Fundholders for their trust in the Foundation. The program included a fund report delivered by committee member Lenny Krasnow underscoring growth, grants and fundholder privacy. 

Presently, the Shalom Austin Jewish Foundation assets are more than $15 million and fundholders have distributed more than $9 million in grants in the Austin community and beyond since the Foundation was created in 2014. 

The highlight of the evening was a tribute to one of the Jewish Foundation’s most ardent supporters, Sandra Freed of blessed memory. Helping deliver the tribute was a panel including Rabbi Alan Freedman, Rabbi Emeritus at Temple Beth Shalom, Shari Stein, one of Sandra’s three daughters and Amy Hyman, the senior development director at Shalom Austin. 

As the stories illustrated, Sandra and Buddy Freed were a beautiful example of the everyday philanthropist. Their philanthropic planning started with a Donor Advised Fund. This simple tool created the capacity to build philanthropic strategy over time; and that’s what they did. 

Realizing the tax advantage of donating the required minimum distribution from their IRAs to support charity, the Freeds created and grew the assets of a Designated Fund that will ensure annual gifts to Shalom Austin in perpetuity, 

Knowing that she could use the Jewish Foundation to seed an agency endowment, Sandra was a catalyst for her synagogue community to support youth engagement for generations to with the creation of the Rabbi Alan and Lori Freedman Future Fund. 

Additionally, Sandra set up donor advised funds for each of her children to pass on the strong commitment to philanthropy to her children and grandchildren, and crafted a succession plan for her donor advised fund that included a major gift and an endowment in Fort Worth, a community that was part of their Jewish journey. 

And for all fundholders and future fundholders, Sandra asked the tough questions as a Foundation committee member to ensure that our community has a solid Foundation to facilitate any person’s passion – Jewish, secular, in Austin or anywhere else in the world. 

Rabbi Freedman spoke to the context of the Freed’s legacy, “We speak often in Judaism about “eternal life,” he said. “When you engage in philanthropy by endowing a program or position, that effects the lives not only of those who will benefit from that endowment after the funder’s death but also will inspire those beneficiaries to engage in philanthropy themselves, which will then affect subsequent generations. The initial gift continues to reverberate not only for the next generation but also for generations to come well after the death of the initial funder. That is what eternal life looks like.” 

The event underscored that the Foundation team is here for organizations in the community to build capacity for legacy giving. These efforts will help to grow endowments as well as provide ways for individual philanthropists to ensure they can confidently navigate opportunities to support the causes and organizations dear to them.