When we think about organizations that move millions of dollars in charitable donations, we typically imagine vast corporate offices, armies of staff members, and sophisticated technological systems. The Ne’eman Foundation challenges every one of these assumptions, demonstrating how a five-person team operating from a modest office can achieve remarkable philanthropic impact through the power of personal relationships and focused expertise.
Over the past decade, this small West Bank-based nonprofit has quietly facilitated the transfer of more than $100 million in charitable donations from North American donors to Israeli organizations, as documented in comprehensive reporting by Judith Sudilovsky for eJewishPhilanthropy. This achievement offers profound lessons about how organizational effectiveness often depends more on approach and philosophy than on size and resources.
Understanding What Makes Small Teams Powerful in Philanthropy
To appreciate why the Ne’eman Foundation’s model works so effectively, we need to understand the unique challenges of international charitable giving. Think of it like building a bridge between two countries that have different legal systems, tax codes, and administrative requirements. Large organizations often solve this problem by creating separate departments for each function, hiring specialists for every step, and developing complex systems to manage the process.
The Ne’eman Foundation takes a fundamentally different approach. Founded by Chaim Katz in 2001, the organization operates on what we might call the “artisan model” of philanthropy. Just as a skilled craftsperson understands every aspect of their work intimately, Katz and his team maintain personal knowledge of donors, recipient organizations, and the complex legal requirements that govern international charitable transfers.
“We have a reputation that says we will help get money to where it wants to go. People trust us,” Katz explained to eJewishPhilanthropy. “If they didn’t trust us, they wouldn’t entrust us with their donations.” This statement reveals something crucial about how small teams can compete with large institutions: they can offer something that bureaucratic systems cannot replicate—genuine personal accountability.
The Strategic Advantage of Accessibility and Personal Connection
Consider how most people experience large charitable organizations today. You might fill out forms on websites, receive automated thank-you emails, and wonder whether your donation actually reached its intended destination. The Ne’eman Foundation operates according to a radically different philosophy, one that Katz describes with disarming simplicity: “We’re small. People have our mobile phone numbers. They can call us.”
This accessibility creates what business theorists call “competitive differentiation through intimacy.” While larger organizations compete on efficiency and scale, the Ne’eman Foundation competes on relationship quality and personal service. According to Sudilovsky’s detailed reporting, this approach has allowed them to build relationships with approximately 1,400 registered charities that regularly use their services.
The foundation’s donor base reflects the power of this personal approach. As Katz described to eJewishPhilanthropy, their typical donors are “American Jews with ties to Israel, some of whom divide their time between the two countries.” These donors value the foundation’s ability to help them “donate quickly and efficiently, but also know that their money reaches the right place in accordance with the law, and that large percentages won’t be deducted from their donation amount for overhead costs.”
How Small Teams Navigate Complex Regulatory Environments
One of the most impressive aspects of the Ne’eman Foundation’s success lies in how they handle the intricate legal and regulatory requirements of international charitable giving. This provides an excellent case study in how small teams can master complex systems through focused expertise rather than large bureaucratic structures.
The foundation operates as a registered 501(c)(3) organization, which means they must comply with American tax law while also ensuring that recipient organizations in Israel meet specific charitable criteria. Think of this as requiring fluency in two different legal languages simultaneously. Large organizations typically handle this by hiring separate legal teams for each jurisdiction and creating elaborate compliance departments.
The Ne’eman Foundation demonstrates an alternative approach: developing deep, integrated expertise that allows the same small team to understand all aspects of the process. Before approving any donation, they conduct comprehensive due diligence that includes initial phone calls, reviews of documentation including media coverage and legal records, and when necessary, field visits to recipient organizations, as detailed in eJewishPhilanthropy’s reporting.
This thorough approach sometimes requires difficult conversations with donors. Katz explained to Sudilovsky that they occasionally determine they cannot support a specific organization and must suggest alternatives to donors. In rare cases, they must return donations because intended recipients fall outside their permitted scope. This conservative approach, while sometimes disappointing, maintains both legal compliance and organizational integrity.
Learning from Crisis Response: Agility as a Small Team Advantage
The COVID-19 pandemic provided a natural experiment in organizational resilience, and the Ne’eman Foundation’s response reveals crucial insights about small team advantages during crisis periods. While many larger philanthropic organizations struggled with bureaucratic decision-making processes and rigid operational systems, the foundation demonstrated remarkable agility and foresight.
According to eJewishPhilanthropy, rather than simply reacting to the crisis, Ne’eman proactively moved significant funds from North America to Israel before banking and postal shutdowns occurred. They created a triage system to assess urgent needs among their partner organizations and continued disbursing funds even as larger institutions halted operations entirely.
This response illustrates what organizational theorists call “structural flexibility.” Small teams can pivot quickly because they don’t need to navigate multiple layers of approval or coordinate between numerous departments. Everyone on the team understands the full scope of operations, which enables rapid decision-making during crisis situations.
The foundation’s continued effectiveness during the October 7, 2023 crisis further demonstrated this advantage. As donations increased significantly during this traumatic period, the foundation maintained operations and processed contributions efficiently, providing donors with reliable channels for supporting Israeli causes when they most needed them.
The Philosophy Behind Sustainable Small Team Operations
Perhaps the most instructive aspect of the Ne’eman Foundation’s approach lies in their philosophy toward donor relationships and operational sustainability. This philosophy challenges conventional assumptions about how charitable organizations should scale and grow.
Consider their approach to donation acknowledgment, as reported by eJewishPhilanthropy. The foundation accepts contributions ranging from five dollars to five hundred thousand dollars, as well as donated stocks and securities. Remarkably, every donor receives the same thank-you letter, regardless of contribution size.
This practice reflects a sophisticated understanding of sustainable relationship building. Rather than creating hierarchical donor categories that might encourage larger gifts in the short term, they demonstrate consistent respect for every contributor. This approach builds long-term loyalty and trust, which proves more valuable than short-term revenue maximization.
“I think this model is very important,” Katz reflected in his interview with Sudilovsky. “The downside of our modern technological era is the impersonal side of everything. And we pride ourselves on the personal attention. We’re small, we’re hands-on. We know the people, we know the organizations, we know a lot of the donors. And that personal touch is what makes a difference.”
Navigating Challenges While Maintaining Organizational Integrity
The foundation’s experience with political and regulatory challenges provides valuable lessons about how small organizations can maintain their mission while navigating complex external pressures. In August 2024, the Canada Revenue Agency revoked the Ne’eman Foundation of Canada’s charitable status following concerns about donations to Israeli military-related matters and settlement activities, as documented in Sudilovsky’s comprehensive reporting.
Rather than engaging in defensive rhetoric or political positioning, Katz demonstrates how small organizations can maintain focus on their core mission. “It’s something far bigger than I am. It’s a political situation that I don’t care to delve into,” he told eJewishPhilanthropy. This response illustrates an important principle: small organizations often succeed by maintaining clear boundaries around their expertise and mission rather than trying to engage every challenge on every front.
His approach reflects strategic clarity about organizational capabilities and limitations. “Our 501(c)3 states that we support charities throughout Israel, including Judea and Samaria. That was approved by the Internal Revenue Service,” he explained to Sudilovsky. “We support charities north, south, east and west — whatever is legal. We probably turn away as many donations as those that we receive.”
Extracting Broader Lessons for Philanthropic Effectiveness
The Ne’eman Foundation’s success offers several transferable insights about organizational effectiveness that extend far beyond their specific context. These lessons challenge prevailing assumptions about how charitable organizations should structure themselves and compete in crowded philanthropic landscapes.
First, their experience demonstrates that specialization can be more powerful than diversification for small organizations. Rather than trying to serve every possible need or donor interest, they focus intensively on facilitating donations between North American donors and smaller Israeli nonprofits that lack resources for independent U.S. fundraising. This focused expertise allows them to provide exceptional service within their niche.
Second, they prove that transparency and accessibility can create sustainable competitive advantages. In an era where donors often feel disconnected from charitable impacts, offering direct personal access to leadership creates profound value. As eJewishPhilanthropy’s reporting makes clear, donors appreciate knowing they can reach Katz directly on his mobile phone.
Third, their approach illustrates how personal relationships can scale more effectively than automated systems in certain contexts. While technology can process transactions more efficiently, building trust and understanding donor motivations requires human insight and judgment. The foundation’s ability to conduct thorough due diligence while maintaining personal service demonstrates how small teams can excel at complex tasks that require both technical expertise and relational skills.
Understanding the Broader Implications for Philanthropic Innovation
The Ne’eman Foundation’s achievement of moving $100 million in donations with just five staff members operating from a modest office in Shiloh represents more than an impressive organizational feat. It demonstrates alternative pathways for philanthropic effectiveness that challenge conventional wisdom about organizational scaling and operational efficiency.
Their success suggests that the future of effective philanthropy might involve more specialized, relationship-focused organizations rather than fewer, larger, more bureaucratic institutions. In a world where donors increasingly seek transparency, accountability, and personal connection to their charitable impact, the foundation’s model offers a compelling alternative to anonymous, automated giving platforms.
As Katz observed in his conversation with eJewishPhilanthropy, their success stems from understanding that “the personal touch is what makes a difference.” This insight has profound implications for how we think about charitable effectiveness in an increasingly digital world.
The foundation’s story ultimately proves that organizational size and philanthropic impact don’t necessarily correlate. Sometimes the most effective approach involves staying small, staying focused, and staying deeply connected to the people and causes you serve. In an age of mega-foundations and automated giving platforms, the Ne’eman Foundation demonstrates that there remains tremendous value in the artisanal approach to philanthropy—where every relationship matters, every decision receives personal attention, and success is measured not just in dollars moved, but in trust earned and maintained over decades of consistent service.
This analysis draws extensively from Judith Sudilovsky’s comprehensive reporting published at eJewishPhilanthropy.com, which provides detailed documentation of the Ne’eman Foundation’s operations, philosophy, and distinctive approach to international charitable giving.
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