“We love Jewish camps,” Harold Grinspoon told The Chronicle on July 23, and those words don’t just express sentiment.
Grinspoon — a real estate entrepreneur from West Springfield, Mass., and by his own admission “a wealthy man” — has put some of his money where his heart is.
He is founder of the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy, a program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. This institute, according to its Web site, “works with Jewish camps [nationwide] and day schools [in Massachusetts] to help them become more effective organizations.”
And he does this, according to a statement on the foundation’s Web site, www.hgf.org, because he believes Jewish camps are “about more than fun and friendship. It’s one of the best resources to ensure Jewish identity and Jewish continuity.”
At present, about 70 U.S. Jewish camps work with the institute, including seven in Wisconsin. Grinspoon came to Wisconsin last week to visit three of them.
In an interview at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center before he went to the camps, Grinspoon said he wanted to become acquainted with “how the camps work, to meet some of their board people, to get a feeling if there are new buildings they need and what they need them for, what kind of upgrades they’re doing on the camps… and just to let the camps know that we are there for them.”
“If I ever saw an appreciative Jewish world, that is so appreciative of what we do, it is the Jewish world of camping,” he said.
As he described it, the institute provides assistance in developing camp boards, developing camps’ lay and professional leaders, developing strategic plans for camps’ futures, and perhaps above all, helping camps develop fund-raising efforts.
According to Grinspoon, Jewish camps “never saw themselves as fundraisers.” With the institute’s encouragement and assistance, about 45 Jewish camps have raised $40 million since 2006, according to Susan Kline, the institute’s director, who came with Grinspoon on this trip.
And Grinspoon apparently intends for this fundraising to make a statement beyond benefiting the camps. He told The Chronicle. “As you probably know, 80 percent of Jewish [philanthropic] money goes to non-Jewish [causes]. We want all of our programming … to help Jewish people feel good about giving Jewishly.”
Midwest swing
In his first visit to Midwest camps, Grinspoon visited some in Michigan before traveling to three in Wisconsin: B’nai B’rith Beber Camp near Mukwanago, Camp Ramah in Wisconsin near Conover, and the Steve and Shari Sadek Family Camp Interlaken JCC near Eagle River.
He traveled with, among others, two of the consultants that the institute provides for camps: Sara Schley, who works with Beber as well as Camp Moshava of Wild Rose and Camp Young Judea-Midwest in Waupaca; and David Sharken, who works with Ramah, Interlaken and Herzl Camp in Webster.
Rabbi David Soloff, director of Ramah, and Toni Davison Levenberg, director of Interlaken, both have worked with Sharken for three and two years, respectively, on strategic planning and fundraising.
Ramah, one of the Conservative movement’s network of camps, is “in the midst of a major facilities renovation program,” that includes construction of a new kitchen and dining room, Soloff said.
Soloff said his camp, which Grinspoon visited on July 24, has worked with the Grinspoon Institute for about three years. “We have benefited a great deal from its guidance,” he told The Chronicle in a telephone interview. The work has “helped strengthen our board and our effort to raise funds from our alumni and friends of the camp.”
Sharken told The Chronicle in a telephone interview that Ramah is working on a $7.5 million capital and endowment campaign and that it is close to achieving that goal.
Davison Levenberg said Interlaken, which Grinspoon visited July 23, began working on its strategic plan with Sharken during the autumn of 2007.
“We are planning for what we would like the camp to look like in 2016, which will be our 51st summer of operation and when we will have our 50th anniversary celebration,” she said in a telephone interview.
“We are ecstatic to be working with the Grinspoon Institute,” Davison Levenberg added. “We know it has helped to do wonderful things at other camps.”
Schley said she has been working with Beber Camp since last September, and the July 23 visit was her first, as well as Grinspoon’s.
She said Beber’s board of directors was scheduled to discuss its strategic plan on July 27; and that plan includes “their vision, values, a new site plan and a capital campaign.”
Schley also said Beber is in the first phase of the Grinspoon Institute’s “Meet Your Match” challenge grant program, in which the other camps also participate. If Beber raises $300,000, the institute will match it with $100,000, Schley said.
Beber’s director, Stefan Teodosic, told The Chronicle in a telephone interview Monday, “I think it’s wonderful to have an organization like the Grinspoon Institute supporting us in the development of our camp and of Jewish camping in general.
“The areas of strategic planning, board development and fund-raising are critical to the success of a high-functioning, successful camp like Beber.”
During his visit, Grinspoon also saw an event of the Grinspoon Foundation’s “PJ Library” program at the Milwaukee JCC.
The program provides subscriber children with age appropriate Jewish children’s books or CD’s every month. The JCC coordinates this program in Milwaukee in cooperation with local synagogues and agencies. (See Chronicle, Nov. 30, 2007.)
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