VANCOUVER — The Jewish leaders of tomorrow can be thankful for people like Lynn Schusterman.
In 2006, Schusterman founded the Center for Leadership Initiatives (CLI), a Vancouver-based foundation dedicated to developing Jewish leaders and promoting managerial excellence in the Jewish community.
The centre recently allocated more than $400,000 for projects undertaken by the Return on Investment Community (ROI), a global community of young Jewish innovators, also created by Schusterman in 2006, as a partnership between CLI and Taglit-Birthright Israel.
More than half of the funds will be allocated to the ROI innovation fund, which will provide five grants of approximately $50,000 each.
“Preference will be given to projects that support and deploy the existing ROI network of some 400 people,” CLI director Yoni Gordis says.
About $80,000 will be allocated to the ROI seed fund, which provides small grants ranging between $2,000 and $10,000 to help members of the ROI community with projects in the start-up phase. In 2009, 40 seed fund grants will be given, as compared to 34 in 2008.
“We have a fairly sophisticated strategy when it comes to working with young leadership, using a mixture of teaching them the skills of running non-profits, horizontal and vertical networking and fiscal support,” Gordis says. “We believe these three ingredients, when put together in the ROI community, are a powerful braid to help people progress to the next step.”
The goal, he says, is “to open and lubricate the doors so young leaders can reach the younger generation and actualize their visions. This new innovation grant will take it to a whole new level.”
Two Canadians were among those who received ROI grants in recent years: Daniel Rattner, in 2007, for Revival, a one-hour documentary on the history and rebirth of Hebrew, and Julie Schneiderman, in 2006, for her work on the fight against AIDS. Schneiderman did a two-week assessment project in Ethiopia with Canadian and Israeli HIV and urological experts, in order to provide initial training of local staff.
Both Canadian recipients attended the third annual ROI Summit in Jerusalem last year, meeting and networking with other ROI entrepreneurs from all over the world.