Maccabee Task Force Foundation

Maccabee Task Force Foundation (MTFF) is a family-directed, mission-locked funder, not an open philanthropy. Its board — Miriam Adelson (President), Patrick Dumont (Treasurer), Alan Dershowitz and Joseph Lieberman (Directors) — and executive director David Brog (~$440-487K annual compensation across recent filings) run it as the financing arm for a single, tightly defined goal: countering the BDS movement and defending Jewish students' rights on campus. The foundation's own 990 explicitly notes it is a preselected-grantee funder: MTFF's programs field lists no open RFP, no application form, and no published deadline, and 'accepting_applications' status reflects that it will consider aligned organizations, not that it runs a competitive process. In practice, the funding relationship almost always originates through MTF's own campus staff, who identify BDS-threatened campuses and cultivate the Hillel, federation, or student group already active there — the grant follows the relationship, not a proposal. The grantee list is dominated by two recurring purposes: 'Campus Education' and 'Campus Education and Trip to Israel,' each showing 2-3 grants per organization per filing year, evidence of standing multi-year partnerships rather than one-time gifts. First-time applicants have essentially no cold-inbound path; the realistic strategy is to be visible and active on a campus MTF already prioritizes (high BDS-activity schools) or to build a relationship with MTF's campus field staff and Hillel International before approaching MTFF directly. Organizations best positioned are Hillel chapters, Jewish federations, campus Israel-advocacy groups (e.g., Students Supporting Israel chapters), and international sister organizations (Hillel Ontario, French and South African Jewish student unions, Australasian Union of Jewish Students) — i.e., existing infrastructure MTF can plug into quickly, not new or unaffiliated nonprofits pitching a novel program.

Across the matched grantee dataset, MTFF distributed $18.70M over 218 grants to 50+ tracked organizations, averaging $85,792 per grant, though the typical_grant_size field (drawn from PF990 line items, n=67) shows a more realistic median of $30,090 and a mean of $65,350 pulled up by a small number of large awards (range: $446 to $415,684). Combining both views: most individual disbursements are modest ($5K-$50K), but top relationships compound into seven-figure multi-year totals — Chabad on Campus International ($1,288,457 across 3 grants), Jewish Federation of Metro Chicago ($1,173,483/3 grants), and Hillels of Georgia ($590,158/3 grants) lead the grantee list. By state, California (37 grantees) and New York (23) dominate, followed by Florida (15), Massachusetts and Pennsylvania (11 each), Maryland and Ohio (8 each), and Connecticut, Michigan, and Virginia (6 each) — a footprint matching large Jewish-student population campuses and known BDS flashpoints, not general geographic spread. At the organization level, total giving has been volatile: $11.5M (FY2020) → $7.29M (FY2021) → $8.39M (FY2022) → $10.47M (FY2023), while grants_paid to third parties held in a narrower $4.4-5.5M band for FY2021-2023, meaning roughly half of total giving in recent years has gone to MTF's own direct campus operations (staff, trip logistics, content production) rather than pass-through grants. Total assets are thin for the giving volume — $5.7-8.2M — confirming MTFF operates as a pass-through vehicle funded by fresh annual Adelson-family contributions ($10.2M-$10.97M received in FY2020, FY2022, FY2023) rather than an endowment drawing down a large corpus.

MTFF sits at the small end of this pro-Israel philanthropy peer set by both assets and giving, but it punches above its balance sheet because it recycles nearly all incoming Adelson-family contributions straight back out each year rather than building an endowment. Like its peers, it operates on a closed, relationship-driven model with no public RFP — the practical differentiator for grant seekers is that MTFF's selection criterion is uniquely narrow (active or emerging BDS threat on a specific campus), whereas Adelson Family Foundation and Paul E. Singer Foundation fund a broader mix of Jewish communal, medical, and policy causes beyond campuses.

The clearest recent signal is geographic and programmatic expansion following the post-October 7, 2023 rise in campus antisemitism: MTF (the operating affiliate MTFF funds) grew from roughly 80 to over 100 North American campuses and, for the first time, moved into Europe with a footprint across 11 universities in 6 countries, alongside a first-ever push into Canada (reflected in the grantee list by Hillel Ontario, Federation CJA in Montreal, and the Jewish Federation of Ottawa). CEO David Brog has publicly cited MTF's support for 1,200+ pro-Israel campus events and roughly 1,500 campus leaders sent to Israel in a recent program year, with newer 2025-2026 data claiming 92% of Israel-trip participants shifted toward a more favorable view of Israel post-trip, and a jump from 12% pro-Israel sentiment pre-trip to 72% six months out among cohorts recruited after October 7. MTF also touts a 93% success rate defeating or preventing anti-Israel campus resolutions, citing only one passed BDS vote across partner campuses in the most recent academic year. No leadership changes are evident: Brog remains executive director, and Miriam Adelson has held the board presidency since around March 2021, following Sheldon Adelson's 2021 death (his board role is listed as ending 11/2021 in IRS filings). No large single new grant or program announcement beyond the Europe/Canada expansion surfaced in this research window; the foundation's FY2024 total_giving figure was not yet available in the data reviewed, with only total_assets ($5.70M) and total_revenue ($6.87M) reported.

Do not submit an unsolicited proposal to MTFF directly — its own filings list no application form, no published deadline, and mark grantees as preselected; a cold LOI to the foundation itself is very unlikely to be read. The real entry point is MTF's campus program: the organization actively canvasses campuses it has flagged for BDS activity, so the highest-leverage move for a Hillel, federation, or student advocacy group is to build visibility with MTF's regional campus staff and with Hillel International, since a large share of MTFF's grantee list (Hillel chapters at UCLA, Cornell, Binghamton, George Washington, Vanderbilt, and dozens more) clearly flows through that existing Hillel relationship network rather than independent applications. Because the two dominant funded purposes are 'Campus Education' and 'Campus Education and Trip to Israel,' proposals or conversations should frame programming explicitly around (a) countering BDS/anti-Israel campaigns, (b) coalition-building with non-Jewish student leaders, and (c) subsidized Israel travel for influential campus figures — generic Jewish-life or cultural programming outside this frame is not what the grant history supports. Multi-year, multi-installment funding (most top grantees show 2-3 payments per filing year) suggests MTFF favors sustained campus partnerships over one-time event sponsorships, so organizations already receiving smaller support should aim to demonstrate measurable campus impact (event counts, coalition partners recruited, BDS votes defeated) to justify renewal and escalation, mirroring the metrics MTF itself publicizes (93% BDS-defeat rate, 1,200+ events). A common mistake would be approaching MTFF as a general Jewish-communal or Israel-education funder; its selection filter is specifically BDS-threat intensity on a given campus, so applicants outside a campus context, or on campuses without active anti-Israel activity, are a poor fit. With MTF's 2025-2026 expansion into Europe and Canada, organizations at newly-covered international campuses (UK, other European universities, additional Canadian schools) represent the freshest opportunity window, as MTF is actively building out partner infrastructure there for the first time.