Public philanthropy is on the rise

The majority of the public donations are made in small increments with the median donation standing at some NIS 250, according to the report.

By LIDAR GRAVE-LAZI
Israeli billionaire industrialist Stef Wertheimer. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Israeli billionaire industrialist Stef Wertheimer.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Only 11.4 percent of the income of nonprofit organizations is received from the public, according to data presented at the Israel National Nonprofit Conference that took place in Tel Aviv this week.
The report was complied by the Central Bureau of Statistics, and examined some 390 nonprofit organizations with income exceeding NIS 500,000.
The majority of the public donations are made in small increments with the median donation standing at some NIS 250, according to the report.
The data further indicated that income for the third sector comes primarily from government funding totaling some 50.3%, an additional 34% of funding comes from assets and interest, and the rest from other sources.
Despite this seemingly low figure, the conference revealed that the number of public donations in Israel has been on the rise as more and more individuals and households contribute to charities.
“Since the social protests, we have seen an intensification of the third sector, stemming from the understanding of the Israeli public that in order to make a difference they have to mobilize, get to work, and roll up their sleeves,” said Yonatan Ben-Dor, CEO of Israel Gives, the leading website for charitable giving in the country and the initiator of the conference.
There has been a constant increase in donations from households to nonprofit organizations in recent years, a move, Ben-Dor said, that really will “help to make a difference in Israel.”
The report revealed that as of 2011, NIS 5.7 billion in charitable donations were made by Israelis, while NIS 8b. was received from abroad.
Maya Lapid Edut, director of Committed to Give, an initiative working toward the encouragement of significant private philanthropy, explained that there is a feeling of a lack of active and involved donors in Israel.
“A report from 2011 showed that in Israel there are some 10,000 families with available capital of at least a million dollars, but only a thousand of them contribute NIS 100,000 or more a year,” she said.
Regardless, the past few years have seen an increase in charity and a growth of some 21% in Israeli philanthropy as donors are becoming strategic partners in Israeli society, she added.
“They [the donors] are more involved and social change is increasingly important for them, more than before,” she said.
The Israel National Nonprofit Conference focused on the “Present and Future of Philanthropy in Israel” and was attended by leading philanthropists, businesses, and third sector organizations from Israel and abroad.