Israeli universities do not generally disclose the lists of their donors and how much they have raised, but in the past year three of them boasted especially high contributions. The latest was Tel Aviv University. This month, it received the largest ever donation received by an Israeli academic institution from a single individual during his lifetime: $125 million from Jonathan Gray, president and chief operating officer of New York-based asset management firm Blackstone, for the university’s medical faculty. Before that, Bar-Ilan University and the Weizmann Institute of Science each announced huge donations ($280 million and $113 million respectively).
These donations come at a difficult time for Israel’s universities and research institutions. The country’s image is under attack, and pressure by the BDS movement has already led to the cutting of ties and the loss of research budgets, making their need for donations all the greater.
Do the recent high-profile donations represent a growth trend, and has there been any change in the identity of donors and the kinds of disciplines to which they prefer to donate?
Prof. Ariel Porat, president of Tel Aviv University, took us behind the scenes of the business of raising donations.
How was the connection formed between you and Jonathan Gray?
"Our staff are constantly working to find wealthy Jews who might contribute to Israel. I asked for a meeting with him, without having any prior knowledge that he was particularly interested in contributing. He had not personally contributed to Israel before the war. Sometimes meetings that begin that way are successful, and sometimes they aren’t.
"We sat for about half-an-hour, an hour, and I felt that what I had to say touched him. At the end of the meeting, he said, ‘Send me a few proposals.’ My guess was that we might receive $1 million, $2 million, but nevertheless we sent several proposals on different scales, and one of them was to give a new name to the Faculty of Medicine. Two years ago, we removed the name Sackler (because of the Sackler family’s involvement in the opioids affair in the US, G. W.). It’s important for us to stress that the removal was with the agreement of the family, who wanted to help us in this respect. They understood that that way we would be able to attract another donor."
Gray adopted the most ambitious proposal, and offered a sum that was above all expectations. "Gray his wife Mindy have accompanied the construction of the plan closely. They are charming people. Exceptional."
Porat says that the amount of money donated to the university has not declined in the past two years, and even that "in the past two years there has been a trend of people for whom October 7 brought home to them the significance of being Israeli. World Jewry is growing closer to Israel. It’s a pity that this is what brings about closeness."
"Growing competition"
Porat sees several stages in the impact of the war on donations to academic institutions. In the immediate aftermath of October 7, he says, it was clear that Jewish philanthropists were focusing on the immediate needs of the State of Israel as it fought back and recovered. "Donations to emergency services such as Magen David Adom came at the expense of longer-term causes, such as education. Now, we are back to a situation in which donors realize that the university is the future of the State of Israel."
Yaniv Halily, head of communications and spokesperson for the Idan and Batia Ofer Family Foundation, and a consultant on strategic philanthropy for other organizations, adds, "Since October 7, competition over donations has grown. Many more people need aid: families of hostages held by Hamas, reserve soldiers, bereaved families, people who have been evacuated. Philanthropy closes the gap where the state falls short."
The list of donors is not available to the public, but Porat says that the vast majority are Jews from the US. The second largest sector is wealthy Israelis. "There are more of them today than we had in the past, but the gap versus the American Jews is still wide." Halily points to another group, yet smaller, of Christian evangelists. "In the past, they mainly donated to inter-faith tolerance. After the war, they raised money for immediate needs, such as rehabilitation of evacuated families. They could now become interested in other areas."
Some Jewish donors to the major universities in the US halted their donations because of the anti-Israel protests on the campuses. Has any of the money that became available found its way to Israel?
Porat: "It has happened, but it’s marginal. A donor to Harvard will transfer his donation to another elite university. The donation by the Grays to Tel Aviv came in addition to their donation to the University of Pennsylvania, where they met. The US universities are also in trouble now, because of the various cuts by the Trump administration. My heart goes out to them."
Halily: "There you go, that is a precise example of a mistake that Israeli institutions made. They identified Americans who had cancelled donations and said to them, ‘I heard that you have money that has become free. We need it!’ That is not a strategy for philanthropy.
"Strategy is to tell a story, to explain why people should donate to you, to create dynamic projects with genuine impact. The whole of Israel was damaged by October 7, but what distinguishes you? What’s your X-factor?
"For example, asking for money for scholarships for 500 students is a worthy cause, but you can get much further as far as impact is concerned with a specially adapted program of studies and help in professional placement afterwards. I frequently see academic institutions in Israel challenged when it comes to creating a meaningful story."
Building the story correctly
Do you approach donors differently now from the way you did before the war? With different stories?
Porat: "Some of the donations we have received are connected to the current situation, for example a national post-trauma center, or scholarships for reserve soldiers. We have been asking for help in preserving our manpower, and bringing it back. That perhaps is more important today than in the past."
Halily gives as an example the donation by Idan and Batia Ofer to the scholarships fund named after the late Salman Habaka, the commander of the 188th Armored Brigade's 53rd battalion, who helped save lives in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, and who was later killed in action in the Gaza Strip.
"They contacted the family and asked, ‘What can we do for you?’, and the Habaka family responded by saying, ‘We don’t need money, but we do want to perpetuate Salman’s memory. We entered into discussions with the family to understand who Salman was, and the first thing that stood out was that he very much believed in education as a tool of social mobility, and in general. We added money from other non-profit organizations to our donation and set up a leadership program in his name for Druse students."
The identity of the donor is also very important in building the story. "For example, Jews abroad who are left-leaning politically won’t donate automatically just because they are Jews, but they might donate to a project that sounds good overseas, such as a coexistence project," says Halily.
A scholarships program is about people, and is perhaps easier to make into a story. How do you distinguish a building?
Halily: "Putting up a plaque is easy, the philanthropy of the past. I can walk around an academic institution today and work out who gave what according to the size and location of the plaque. There’s no creativity in that. We prefer to take a slice of the donation, not a huge slice, and create a dynamic project around it that arouses interest, that has a greater impact on people’s lives, and generates collaborations. That’s strategic philanthropy. It’s especially important for a society that needs a long process of healing. Sometimes it really does succeed in preserving someone’s legacy, and that after all is what many donors want."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on May 26, 2025.
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