Tag Archive for Interest

Israeli Government Grants: The Broken Promised Land

Obtaining government funding seems to be every nonprofit’s goal, at least in Israel. I have heard countless lecturers, founders, and foundation representatives preach the Darwinian virtues of incorporating government grants into an Israeli charity’s fundraising strategy; after all, the nonprofit is servicing the Israeli public. It is to the Government’s benefit – if not its outright duty – to ensure that this charity’s program continues to exist

Not bad on paper. In practice, however, these Israeli government grants can sometimes be more trouble than they are worth.

For the purpose of this post, as a banker I would like to restrict my focus on the budgetary challenges associated with these grants. Specifically, the two disadvantages that arise because grant monies are dispersed only after expenses are incurred.

Understanding Credit in Israel, Pt 2: Bridge Loan vs. Line of Credit

In a previous post, I mentioned that a loan and a line of credit serve the same purpose. While that may be true in a broad sense, they actually can be quite different. Hence, the different names. The bank will look at both types of credit the same way, evaluating the amount of credit requested against the amount and type of collateral offered. The customer, however, only cares about one thing, which option is cheaper.