Challenge
In 2010, the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati seized an extraordinary opportunity. Through the sale of the community’s Jewish hospital, the Foundation realized $200M in additional assets, to enable $10M per year of new grantmaking. Despite their collective grantmaking experience, the Foundation’s trustees realized that these dramatically increased resources would require a completely new way of thinking about the Foundation’s role in the community, what its mission and vision were, and how it would carry out its work on an ongoing basis.
Approach
Rosov Consulting supported the Foundation through a long-range planning process, which included reaffirming its mission to serve the Cincinnati Jewish community, identifying the interests and needs of community stakeholders, and developing clear objectives for each new funding area in terms of desired impact. This was accomplished through a series of facilitated retreats, interviews and focus groups, and expert presentations on areas of interest.
Results

As a result of the Foundation’s work with Rosov Consulting, it has developed:
- A vision for strategic philanthropic giving beyond simple grantmaking;
- Guiding principles for how the Foundation, now staffed by a professional team, should operate;
- Five clearly articulated funding areas, accompanied by specific objectives the Foundation accomplishes through an array of new initiatives; and
- A strong sense of identity for the Foundation as a trusted, high impact investor and partner in the community
Today the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati has a reinforced commitment to evaluation, and it more deeply understands how evaluation can be leveraged with key stakeholders and inform grant monitoring and organizational learning. The Foundation also has entered numerous grantmaking cycles with its newly articulated priorities.
As a result of its work with Rosov Consulting, the Foundation has become even more creative in using its increased resources and incorporated a rich mix of philanthropic approaches to benefit the community going forward. Executive Director Brian Jaffee notes, “The discipline of Rosov’s approach will serve us in the long run and has given us a great foundation to build on.”