Mayberg Foundation Inc.

The Mayberg Foundation operates as a high-engagement family foundation with a sharply defined mission: proliferating Jewish wisdom and values in the contemporary world. Founded by Louis and Manette Mayberg — who still serve as President and Vice-President with no personal compensation — the foundation treats each funded relationship as a genuine investment partnership rather than a transactional grant. Beyond dollars, selected grantees receive strategic guidance, operational assistance, and structured impact assessment from staff who have deep nonprofit and philanthropic experience.

The foundation's giving divides into two formal tracks. Core Investments are deep, multi-year funding relationships with flagship organizations including Momentum ($5.6M across 5 grants), Aish Global ($5.8M combined across multiple entities), and Hadar ($837K/5 grants). Three Mayberg initiatives — the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC), MyZuzah, and STAMP: The STa'M Project — are foundation-operated programs rather than independent grantees, meaning a portion of the annual giving figure reflects direct program expenses rather than external grants. Strategic Grantmaking encompasses a broader portfolio of Jewish education, outreach, and humanitarian/civic organizations, with new partnerships formally considered through the New Partnership Questionnaire (NPQ) reviewed on an annual cycle.

For first-time applicants, the foundational truth about Mayberg is that it is relationship-driven and mission-centric. The NPQ at mayberg.org is the formal entry point, but organizations that engage the foundation's ecosystem — through Jewish Funders Network, JEIC conferences, Prizmah, or COJDS — before submitting are far better positioned. Managing Director Amanda Mizrahi, Senior Advisor for Education Grants Rachel Mohl Abrahams, and the newest Senior Program Officer Naftali Ejdelman (joined May 2026) are active conference participants and public voices in the Jewish philanthropy space.

Geographic concentration is real: Maryland accounts for 241 of 621 recorded grants in the database, followed by New York (137) and DC (84). Organizations without a Washington metro or New York foothold can still compete — particularly those working in Israel or at national scale — but DC/MD/NY alignment provides a structural advantage that first-time applicants should assess honestly.

The Mayberg Foundation has grown rapidly and consistently over the five-year period from fiscal 2019 to 2023. Total giving climbed from $6.1M (2019) to $11.3M (2023) — an 86% increase — while total assets nearly doubled from $11.2M to $22.5M. Grants paid to external organizations grew from $4.2M (2019) to $7.5M (2023), with the remainder absorbed by three foundation-operated programs. Revenue, driven by a mix of contributions and investment income, reached $11.0M in FY2023, suggesting the foundation is currently in a spending-near-revenue posture rather than an endowment-growth phase.

Grant size spans an extreme range. Across 119 grants analyzed for the typical_grant_size profile, awards ran from $100 to $1,250,000, with a median of $10,000 and an average of $47,134. This distribution is dramatically right-skewed by a small cluster of flagship relationships. Momentum received $5.59M across 5 grants (average $1.1M per grant), and Aish Global entities received approximately $5.78M combined — these two grantee relationships alone account for roughly 38% of all tracked grant dollars. Mid-tier core partners such as Hadar ($837K/5 grants, ~$167K/year), JewishROC ($758K/5 grants, ~$152K/year), and JewishROC Chesed ($540K/5 grants, ~$108K/year) receive sustained annual support in the $100,000–$200,000 range.

Smaller community organizations — Yad Yehuda ($486K/5 grants, ~$97K/year), Sulam ($194K/5 grants, ~$39K/year), Hebrew at the Center ($140K/5 grants, ~$28K/year) — receive $25,000–$50,000 annually. A third tier of micro-grants (under $10,000) accounts for the low median and likely represents one-time community support.

Programmatically, Jewish education and outreach dominate — effectively 90%+ of total grant dollars by value. The civic/humanitarian portfolio (Capital Area Food Bank $250K/5 grants, Bread for the City $150K/5 grants, Martha's Table $145K/5 grants) is stable but secondary, with annual amounts of $25,000–$50,000 per organization suggesting floor-level community commitments rather than a strategic priority. Israel-based giving is significant: Aish Hatorah Jerusalem ($500K), Central Fund of Israel ($492K/3 grants), and Thank Israeli Soldiers ($235K/2 grants) confirm a consistent international dimension.

The table below compares Mayberg Foundation to its algorithmically matched peers (by asset size in the Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE category) and to selected mission-adjacent funders in the Jewish philanthropy space.

Among the asset-size peers, Mayberg stands out for the transparency and scale of its public reporting and active web presence — the others have no disclosed websites and minimal public footprint. Mayberg's $11.3M in annual giving relative to $26.3M in assets represents a 43% payout ratio, exceptionally high for a private foundation (the IRS minimum is 5%), suggesting an active contributions-in, grants-out operating model rather than a perpetual endowment.

Within the Jewish philanthropic ecosystem specifically, Mayberg competes and collaborates with significantly larger funders — the Jim Joseph Foundation ($800M+ assets), Crown Family Philanthropies, and the legacy Avi Chai Foundation — but occupies a distinctive niche as a high-engagement, entrepreneurial funder willing to incubate programs directly (JEIC, MyZuzah, STAMP) and co-lead field-building collaboratives (JFN Day School Affinity Group) in ways that larger institutional funders rarely do.

The Mayberg Foundation entered 2026 with significant organizational momentum. In May 2026, the foundation hired Naftali Ejdelman as Senior Program Officer for Jewish education and Israel advocacy — the first publicly disclosed senior hire in recent years, indicating active capacity investment. That same month, the DEEP Consortium — a professional development network incubated as a JEIC project for six years — formally launched as an independent organization, demonstrating the foundation's model of funding initiatives from birth to self-sufficiency.

Also in May 2026, the JFN Jewish Day School Affinity Group (co-led by Mayberg Foundation with UnitEd and The Beker Foundation) held its inaugural virtual learning session. An accompanying HaYidion journal piece by Amy Schlussel described the initiative as moving Jewish day school funding 'from fragmented investment toward coordinated, strategic action' — a significant strategic articulation.

In April 2026, JEIC's annual Innovators Retreat gathered nearly 100 educators in Atlanta around the theme of AI and Torah. Vice-President Manette Mayberg delivered a keynote challenging educators to 'reclaim the sacred, human-centric nature of the Jewish classroom.' Foundation leaders also attended Olami's annual gala in June 2026 and presented at the Jewish Funders Network International Conference in San Diego in March 2026.

At the programmatic level, the foundation's support for Hebrew Free Loan Association enabled a 10%+ increase in lending volume (over $1 million in new loans) in 2025. MyZuzah expanded internationally, delivering mezuzot to Jewish communities in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine in April 2026. A new Mayberg-commissioned report on Jewish outreach careers — released June 2026 — drew on practitioner interviews across Chabad, Olami, Aish, and NCSY, further advancing the foundation's professional development agenda.

The entry point is the New Partnership Questionnaire (NPQ). Available at mayberg.org/strategic-grantmaking, the NPQ is the foundation's formal annual intake process for new grantee consideration. It is reviewed on a cycle — submitting in the fall best positions an organization for the spring consideration window. Completing the NPQ is necessary but not sufficient: the foundation is relationship-driven, and staff familiarity with an organization prior to submission dramatically improves candidacy.

Build relationships at sector convenings first. Mayberg's staff actively present at the Jewish Funders Network International Conference (March), JEIC Innovators Retreat (April), Prizmah gatherings, and COJDS events. Attending these venues and meeting Amanda Mizrahi (Managing Director), Rachel Mohl Abrahams (Senior Advisor, Education), or Naftali Ejdelman (Senior Program Officer, Education/Israel) in those contexts before submitting an NPQ is the single highest-leverage pre-application step available.

Use the foundation's own language in your application. The phrase 'proliferating Jewish wisdom and values in the contemporary world' appears in the foundation's own materials — mirror it. Similarly, 'bold ideas to inspire, educate, and strengthen Jewish community' signals what language resonates. Generic phrases like 'Jewish identity programming' or 'community engagement' without specificity will not differentiate a proposal.

Demonstrate a theory of change with measurable outcomes. The foundation explicitly evaluates grantees at three stages: clarity of desired outcomes, quality of the theory of change, and program execution metrics. Proposals that cannot articulate concrete indicators of success are poorly positioned. Bring 2-3 specific metrics you track — enrollment growth, knowledge assessment scores, practitioner retention rates, etc.

Know what the foundation does not fund. General social services, secular education, and civic organizations without an explicit Jewish mission are not competitive. The foundation's civic/humanitarian grants (Capital Area Food Bank, Martha's Table) appear to reflect family community commitments at modest levels, not an open category. Pitching adjacent programs without a strong Jewish organizational identity is a common mismatch.

Treat first-year grants as relationship investments. Multi-year continuity is the norm for core grantees — 39 of the top 50 grantees in the database received 4-5 consecutive grants. Year-one recipients who communicate proactively, hit reporting deadlines, and demonstrate strong execution are the organizations that move from small annual grants into six-figure, multi-year core partnerships. Contact: info@mayberg.org, 301-881-7500.