Aviv Foundation Inc.

Aviv Foundation Inc. is a Washington, DC-based private family philanthropy (EIN 47-4498674) founded in 2015-2016 by Steven and Chani Laufer, who remain its unpaid Treasurer and President. With offices in DC and Tel Aviv, Aviv operates almost entirely as a proactive, invitation-only funder: it explicitly states it 'does not accept unsolicited funding proposals' and its IRS filing marks it as 'preselected_only.' Of its 77 recorded grants totaling $65.97M, a single 'See Attachment' entry covering 6 grants worth $54.1M dominates the ledger — almost certainly pass-through or fiscal-sponsorship vehicles for its largest initiatives (e.g., the ~$33M Doris Duke co-funded child well-being initiative). Strip that outlier out and Aviv's identifiable grantmaking is a mid-six-figure-and-under program built almost entirely around Jewish communal and Israel-focused organizations (PEF Israel Endowment Funds, Shalom Hartman Institute, Pardes Institute, Hadar Institute) alongside a smaller cluster of DC-area human-services nonprofits (Bread for the City, DC Central Kitchen, Martha's Table). The one genuine open door is the Springboard Prize for Child Welfare, a competitively judged $400,000 award (per Inside Philanthropy) for early-stage-through-growth-stage child welfare innovations, run in partnership with ChildFocus and explicitly prioritizing projects serving low-income Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. First-time applicants without an existing relationship should not expect a response to a cold LOI for core programming; the realistic path in is (1) applying to Springboard Prize if eligible, (2) building visibility in the Jewish philanthropy, Open Orthodoxy, or child-welfare funder ecosystems where Aviv's staff and the Laufers are active, or (3) securing a warm introduction through a current grantee or co-funder such as the Doris Duke Foundation. Grantees tend to be established, mission-aligned institutions rather than brand-new organizations — most top recipients (Shalom Hartman, Hadar, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah) are well-established Jewish educational and religious institutions with track records predating Aviv's involvement.

Total recorded giving across all years in the data bundle is $65.97M over 77 grants, but this is heavily skewed by one $54.1M/6-grant 'See Attachment' block and an $8M single grant to Jcrif LLC (Nonprofit Finance Fund) — together 94% of all recorded dollars. Excluding those two outliers, the remaining ~70 identifiable grants total roughly $3.8M, averaging about $54,000 each, with a real range from $10,000 (the floor for dozens of general-support grants to groups like Smile Train, Feeding America, Oxfam, and Doctors Without Borders) up to $382,100 across 6 grants to PEF Israel Endowment Funds and $270,000 across 3 grants to Shalom Hartman Institute. Annual filings show sharp volatility rather than a steady payout rate: grants paid were $8.3M (2019), $11.8M (2020), just $1.6M (2021) — a COVID-era pullback — then $14.5M (2022) and $20.3M (2023), tracking a total-assets base that has fluctuated between $12.3M and $32.8M as large one-time contributions ($24.8M received in 2019) flow through. Geographically, grantee count clusters in NY (33 grants), DC (14), and MD (11), consistent with Aviv's stated 'greater New York City area' preference and its DC headquarters; only single-digit counts appear in CA, IL, MA, MI, NJ, VA, and WI. By purpose, Jewish education and religious institutions (yeshivas, day schools, seminaries, PEF Israel Endowment Funds sub-grants) make up the largest identifiable slice of small-to-mid grants, followed by a COVID-19 emergency-response cluster (2020-era grants to Jewish Federation, Bread for the City, So Others Might Eat) and a smaller civic-engagement thread (VoteOrg, ACLU-Michigan Election Protection). With $10.5M in current assets against filed annual giving that has ranged from $3.3M to $22.9M, Aviv operates more like a pass-through/flow-through vehicle for large joint initiatives than a fixed-payout endowed foundation.

All five peers share Aviv's near-identical $10.5M asset base and generic 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE classification, but three of five have no public website at all — a strong signal that small, closely-held family foundations at this asset tier are the norm rather than the exception, and that most peers are likely even less accessible to unsolicited applicants than Aviv. Aviv stands out among this peer set for actually publishing program priorities and maintaining one genuinely competitive, publicly-run grant program (Springboard Prize), which is unusual generosity of disclosure for a foundation this size.

Aviv's most notable recent action is a $1 million grant to Eshel announced July 6, 2026, described by CEO Adam Simon as a 'flagship investment' to expand the Orthodox LGBTQ inclusion organization's operations — funding two new staff positions (an operations manager and national program director), a larger digital resource library, expanded in-person programming in Orthodox hubs, additional ally training, expanded mental health programming, and a third annual retreat. Simon's public comments tied the grant to rising communal tension, noting Orthodox LGBTQ Jews face pressure from 'both forces on the ends of Orthodoxy pushing against each other' and that post-October 7, 2023 dynamics have left many feeling alienated from mainstream queer spaces as well. This continues a relationship dating to Aviv's first Eshel investment in 2019, following the foundation's 2018 strategic decision to prioritize Orthodox LGBTQ inclusion. Separately, Aviv-backed funding is helping the Israel-based nonprofit For the Sake of Argument expand civic-discourse and dialogue training for teachers and youth-movement counselors across diverse Israeli communities — consistent with the foundation's stated Israel priority of fostering 'an inclusive, respectful, and cohesive society.' At a larger scale, Aviv is a co-funder (with the Doris Duke Foundation) of a roughly $33 million joint initiative to build a prevention-oriented child well-being system, reflecting an evolution from discrete child-welfare grants toward anchoring multi-funder systems-change collaboratives. No leadership changes were identified in the 2025-2026 window; Steven and Chani Laufer continue to serve as the foundation's uncompensated Treasurer and President, with Adam Simon operating as CEO of the foundation's public-facing initiatives (including the Springboard Prize).

Do not send an unsolicited proposal to Aviv Foundation for its core program areas — the foundation states directly that it does not accept them and its 990 filing is flagged 'preselected_only,' meaning grantees are identified and approached by staff, not the reverse. The single legitimate open door is the Springboard Prize for Child Welfare (springboardprize.org, springboard@avivfoundation.org), a competitively judged award reported at $400,000, open to individuals, nonprofits, government agencies, and mission-driven for-profits at any stage from early idea through growth/scaling. Applications are scored on innovation, scalability, achievability of the team, and — critically — inclusion of people with lived experience in the child welfare system; the program 'especially welcomes' applicants serving low-income Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, so proposals should foreground community-designed or community-led elements rather than top-down program design. For all other funding areas, the only realistic strategy is relationship-building: Aviv is active in Jewish philanthropy networks (Jewish Federations, Open Orthodoxy institutions like Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and Hadar Institute) and in the national child-welfare funder ecosystem alongside co-funders like the Doris Duke Foundation — visibility and warm introductions within those circles are what precede an Aviv approach, not cold outreach. When Aviv does fund an organization directly, its check sizes for standalone grants cluster in the $10,000-$150,000 range for general support, with larger commitments ($250,000-plus, as with the 2026 Eshel grant) reserved for existing grantees where the foundation is scaling a proven relationship — a pattern grantseekers should read as 'prove the small grant first, ask for the big one later,' not the reverse. A common mistake is treating Aviv like a conventional open-application foundation: its own materials and Inside Philanthropy's assessment both stress that unsolicited LOIs to info@avivfoundation.org go nowhere for anything but general inquiries. If your mission touches Open Orthodoxy/LGBTQ inclusion, Jewish text-and-values education, bipartisan civic engagement, or Israeli social cohesion, the better use of effort is getting introduced through a current Aviv grantee (e.g., Hadar Institute, Shalom Hartman, Eshel) than drafting a proposal.