The June 26th Conference Organized by Guidestar Israel — a collaborative project of the Justice Department, Registrar of Corporations, Guidestar International, NP Tech, Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and Yad Hanadiv (a.k.a. The Rothchild Foundation) — was June’s best prediction for “The Tomorrow of Jewish Philanthropy.”

In the global nonprofit sector there is much talk of cooperation and the need to combine forces to increase efficiency and cut costs, yet this synergy is hard to find. Guidestar Israel, in contrast, is actually doing it. Local charities, international organizations, private funds and government resources have all cooperated to bring the Guidestar Israel project into fruition. (And yes, it took over six years for the parties agree and get things off the ground, but we’ll choose not to focus on that for right now.)

Like many conferences, there was the good and the less good, but for those paid attention, there was also the surprising — announcements foretelling actual progress.

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