Nitzavim Trust

Nitzavim Trust is a closed-door, relationship-based Orthodox Jewish community foundation, not an open-application grantmaker. Third-party grant directories (Instrumentl, Cause IQ) describe it as contributing solely to preselected charitable organizations and note it does not accept unsolicited requests, even though its IRS filing marks 'accepting_applications' as true while listing no application instructions at all — a mismatch that itself signals an informal, referral-driven process rather than a portal or RFP cycle. Manager Hershel Parness (listed on the 990 as 'Herschel Parnes,' Foundation Manager, uncompensated in every year reviewed) runs the trust largely as a single-trustee vehicle. The trust's own mission statement offers no programmatic detail beyond 'solely engaged in grant-making activities and following the special rule,' so applicants must infer priorities entirely from where the money has actually gone.

That spending pattern is unambiguous. Of 95 tracked grants totaling $1,862,258, 59 went to New York recipients and 32 to New Jersey — 96% of all grants — with only 4 total outside that corridor (2 in IL, 2 in MD). Every organization in the top-50 grantee list is an Orthodox/Haredi Jewish institution: yeshivas, kollels, congregations, and tuition-assistance funds, with purposes overwhelmingly coded 'TUITION FOR NEEDY BOYS/CHILDREN,' 'SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT,' 'RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES,' and 'EDUCATIONAL FACILITY.' First-time applicants should understand this is not a general Jewish-communal or interfaith funder — it is narrowly focused on Orthodox yeshiva education, tuition relief, and synagogue/kollel operations, with recipient names (Beth Medrash Govoha, Cong Agudath Israel Of Boro Park, multiple Lakewood- and Brooklyn-area yeshivas) pointing to deep roots in the NY/NJ Haredi philanthropic network.

Given this closed, informal structure, the realistic path in is a warm introduction — through a shared rabbi, a board member of an existing grantee, or another trusted communal contact — rather than a cold letter of inquiry. Most top-50 grantees appear exactly twice across the years captured, suggesting Nitzavim renews known relationships year over year rather than funding one-off projects. Organizations outside Orthodox Jewish education and tuition relief, or outside the NY/NJ corridor, should not prioritize this funder; those inside it should plan for a multi-year relationship, not a single transactional ask.

Nitzavim Trust's typical grant size (per its own 990 data) runs from $410 to $493,311, with a median of $5,000 and an average of $22,158 across 45 recent awards — the wide gap between median and average signals a small number of large, concentrated gifts sitting atop a broad base of modest ones. Across the fuller 95-grant, two-year dataset reviewed, total giving reached $1,862,258 at an average of $19,603 per grant.

Concentration at the top is extreme: Mesivta Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin received $739,364 across just 2 grants — roughly 40% of all tracked giving — making it by far the trust's flagship relationship. The next tier drops off sharply: Congregation Agudath Israel Of Boro Park ($215,322), Cong Atv ($84,100), and Yeshiva Bais Mordechai Of Teaneck ($75,314). Below the top ten or so grantees, awards fall quickly into the $10,000–$30,000 range, and the long tail of 30-plus organizations receives between $1,000 and $10,000 — consistent with the reported $5,000 median.

Geographically, giving is heavily concentrated: 59 grants to New York recipients, 32 to New Jersey, and just 2 each to Illinois and Maryland — 96% of grants stay in the NY/NJ Orthodox Jewish corridor. By purpose, the coded categories split roughly evenly between education/tuition-related grants ('TUITION FOR NEEDY BOYS,' 'TUITION FOR NEEDY CHILDREN,' 'EDUCATIONAL FACILITY,' 'EDUCATIONAL SERVICES') and religious/spiritual-support grants ('SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT,' 'RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES,' 'RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION'), with a smaller share going to direct poverty relief (food, clothing assistance) and occasional one-off needs like wedding assistance for new couples.

Overall giving has trended upward over time: total giving grew from $446,482 (2019) to $1,292,633 (2023) — nearly a 3x increase in four years — while total assets grew from $7.08M (2019) to $10.6M (2024), a period that included a single-year giving spike of 89% between 2022 ($681,968) and 2023 ($1,292,633). External data (Instrumentl) puts 2024 giving at $871,724 across 55 grants with a $50–$689,364 range, suggesting giving eased somewhat off the 2023 peak but remains well above 2019–2021 levels.

All six foundations sit in a narrow $10.6M–$10.61M asset band, which likely reflects a shared search/classification threshold in the source data rather than genuine programmatic similarity — none of the five peers lists a public website, mission detail, or grantee history in the data reviewed, so no direct funding-pattern comparison is possible beyond asset size. Nitzavim Trust stands out within this peer set as the only one with a fully transparent 990 grant-payment trail, making its actual behavior far more knowable than any peer's. Emil Muller Foundation Inc., also based in NY, is the closest geographic peer and may be worth a secondary look for potential overlap in NY Jewish-communal donor networks, though no confirming data was found in this research pass.

No news coverage, press releases, or public announcements specific to Nitzavim Trust (EIN 26-3819354) were found for 2025 or 2026 in this research pass. Search results instead surfaced an unrelated organization sharing the 'Nitzavim' name and domain (nitzavim.org) — the Nitzavim Fellowship, a Jewish gap-year leadership program in Israel with active 2025/'26 programming (a 'Midyear Showcase '25/'26' and 'Launch '25/'26' were listed on its events page) — which should not be confused with the grantmaking trust profiled here.

The most recent verifiable activity for the trust itself comes from its IRS Form 990-PF filings. The FY2024 filing (the newest in the dataset, filed against $10,608,842 in assets and $2,035,268 in revenue) had not yet reported a finalized grants-paid figure at data collection time, though a third-party 990 aggregator (Instrumentl) independently reports $871,724 distributed across 55 grants in 2024. The prior year, FY2023, recorded the largest giving total in the twelve years of filings reviewed: $1,292,633, an 89% jump from FY2022's $681,968 — the single largest year-over-year increase on record for this trust. No leadership changes were identified; Hershel Parness is listed as the sole Foundation Manager across every year of personnel data reviewed, uncompensated throughout. Given the closed, low-visibility nature of this funder, grantseekers should not expect to find public announcements of new grants or program changes and should instead track annual 990 filings for signal.

Nitzavim Trust does not operate a public grant portal, published deadline, or formal LOI process — do not attempt to apply through nitzavim.org, which is registered to an unrelated organization (the Nitzavim Fellowship, an Israel gap-year program) and has no connection to this funder's grantmaking. Third-party directories (Instrumentl, Cause IQ) independently report that the trust contributes only to preselected organizations and does not solicit unsolicited proposals; treat any 'apply here' listing on sites like Zeffy or Grantmakers.io as an auto-generated directory page, not a real submission channel.

Given the closed structure, the realistic entry point is a warm introduction rather than a cold outreach. Every one of the 95 grants reviewed went to an Orthodox/Haredi Jewish yeshiva, kollel, congregation, or affiliated tuition fund already embedded in the tightly networked Lakewood/Brooklyn/NY Orthodox philanthropic circuit — a referral through a rabbi, a board member of an existing grantee (e.g., Beth Medrash Govoha, Congregation Agudath Israel Of Boro Park), or another shared communal contact is far more likely to succeed than a written proposal sent cold.

The only verified contact channel from the IRS filing is the trust's mailing address and phone: Nitzavim Trust, % Hershel Parness, PO Box 703, Edison, NJ 08818-0703, (732) 287-3000. A short, personal letter describing tuition or spiritual-development need, mirroring the funder's own language, fits the observed pattern far better than a formal multi-page grant application packet.

Size requests to observed norms: the median grant is $5,000, and the bulk of awards fall between $1,000 and $30,000; a small number of flagship, multi-year relationships (led by Mesivta Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin at $739,364 across two grants) receive six-figure support, but new relationships should expect a modest opening gift. Use the trust's own purpose vocabulary — 'TUITION FOR NEEDY BOYS/CHILDREN,' 'SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT,' 'EDUCATIONAL FACILITY,' 'RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES' — rather than generic nonprofit-sector language, since these are the exact categories the trust already uses to classify its own giving.

The most common mistake would be treating this like a competitive, open-RFP funder: submitting a templated LOI or applying outside Orthodox Jewish education, tuition relief, or religious institutions in the NY/NJ corridor is very unlikely to succeed, since zero non-Jewish or non-NY/NJ-adjacent organizations appear anywhere in the grant history reviewed. Expect renewal, not acquisition — most top grantees recur year over year, so first contact should be framed as opening a sustained relationship.