Mem Global | The Money Behind the Curtain

Mem Global

March 6, 2020

The Money Behind the Curtain

By Michele Schulman

By Eden Gobuty, Senior Director of Development Operations

As residents, you know that you can rely on your receipts being reimbursed (if it’s an itemized receipt showing the date of purchase!) and your rent subsidy check arriving on time, juuuust before the next month’s rent is due. But there’s a key part of this system that isn’t as obvious: where does the money come from? At Moishe House, almost 80% of our income comes from grants of all sorts—from big foundations such as the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation, to local Jewish Federations and small/medium foundations. The small but mighty Development Operations team at Moishe House leads the charge on grants, and includes:

Eden Gobuty, Senior Director of Development Operations
Lisa Cotherman, Senior Grants Manager
Alex Lewison, Grants Associate
Rachel Leibold, Manager of Development Data and Systems
Josh Moritz, Grants Director
Adam Rossano, International Director of Advancement (which includes significant grant writing)
Sara Gottschalk, Development Administrative Coordinator

In 2019, this team submitted a total of 376 grant proposals and reports—obviously more than the number of workdays in a year. Of these, 51% were submitted 3 or more days early, and 72% were submitted at least a day early—indicating to our funders that we are eager and anxious to get our submission in, rather than waiting until the last minute. Opportunities often come to us from our Directors of Advancement, who find out about grants we can apply for and work with us to ensure the descriptions of our local work feel authentic to each individual community. We also spend time each year researching new funding opportunities, so we are constantly diversifying our funding pool. One of the most fun things about being a grant writer at Moishe House is the ability to share stories—YOUR stories—with our funders. From Shabbat dinners with 60+ attendees to volunteering at Super Sunday, Tikkun Olam Pillars programming, life-changing retreat experiences (#MoisheMoments), community members becoming residents, and more, the grants team has the privilege of sharing your stories with the people who write the checks that make the magic happen. In order to gather more data to share with funders, in 2019 we hosted internal evaluations all over the world, including the Southeastern US, Denver/Boulder, Portland, Los Angeles, Boston, the Bay Area, Northern New Jersey, the Greater DC area, New York City, France, the Former Soviet Union, Phoenix, Chicago and Kansas City. THANK YOU SO MUCH to the residents and Community Managers in these places for your help getting the word out! These internal evaluations gave us invaluable data to share with our funders about the incredible work happening in our Moishe Houses. If you have any questions about the grant writing process or want to know more, feel free to reach out to me via email at eden@memglobal.org! The best thing you can do to support our work is to keep doing what you’re doing – running amazing programs, taking good pictures at programs (Please upload good, high-quality photos to Mintranet!!! We need them!), and sharing your successes with your Community Manager, who relays them to us. Happy Moishe-ing!