Letter of Intent
Jewish Federation of St. Louis is proud to share that we have initiated a Letter of Intent process to assist our communal institutions in the Community Investment process. Federation is looking to invest in projects, programs, and initiatives that will strengthen our Jewish community by addressing Federation’s priority areas.
Our Letter of Intent Process
The Community Impact team invites and encourages you to submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) describing your project idea before you complete a full investment proposal if:
- Your organization has never before applied for funding from Jewish Federation of St. Louis or one of our supporting foundations
- You have a new idea that you want to run by our staff to see if it might be a fit
- You would like to expand an existing program
- You are not sure which of our investment opportunities would be the best fit for your idea
Before submitting an LOI, please closely review the Guide to the Jewish Federation of St. Louis’ Priorities to make sure that your project idea is aligned with the priorities of Federation.
Within three weeks of submitting your LOI, a member of the Community Impact team will contact you with feedback and direction on whether your idea is aligned with Federation’s work and guidance on which of our investment opportunities to pursue, if any. While LOIs will be reviewed on a rolling basis, the earlier you submit your LOI, the sooner you will receive feedback from the Community Impact team.
If you submit an LOI with the intention of receiving feedback in time to apply for our fall 2019 Priority Outcome Investment process, please be aware that it may take up to three weeks for our Community Impact team to respond. Please note that for the fall 2019 investment cycle, we are specifically looking to invest in programs, projects, and initiatives around these high priority areas:
Expand and strengthen an engaged, vibrant, and flourishing Jewish community
Life Stage:
- Early childhood and families with young children
- Elementary, middle and high school students and their parents
- Young adults
Level of Engagement:
- Moderately engaged
Secure the well-being and safety of individuals within the Jewish community
- Safety and security
- Elderly Jews at risk
- Safety net for those living in poverty or near poverty
- Mental health
Strengthen our connection to Israel and the Jewish People worldwide
- Global Jewry
- Israeli civil society
- Social welfare
- Israel education
Develop the financial and human resources, and infrastructure, needed by our community
- Recruit and develop lay leaders to serve the Jewish community
- Attract and retain high quality professional staff for Jewish organizations
- Promote and increase opportunities for collaboration among Jewish organizations and service agencies
For more information on the Fall Investment process and for a list of all of our Community Investment opportunities in 2019, please see our Get Funded page.
In order to apply and/or receive funds from the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, your project, program, or initiative must be aligned with Federation’s mission and priorities and your organization must either be tax exempt (i.e., a 501(c)(3), 501(c)(13), Jewish congregation) or have established a fiscal sponsorship arrangement with a tax exempt organization. Your project, program, or initiative must have clear and measurable outcome goals.
We strongly encourage you to contact the Community Impact team if you would like to talk through an idea before submitting an LOI or if you have any questions.
- If your organization already has a liaison on the Community Impact team, please reach out to your liaison.
- If you do not already have a liaison, please reach out to Scott Berzon at SBerzon@JFedSTL.org or 314-442-3814.