February 2023
February 18, 2023
Greetings to all our donors and friends. The SJS Board members are committed to doing our part in making 2023 a productive year for our political work and struggles for justice. We will issue two scheduled reports per year to you, as well as any special updates that may be important or timely.
GRANTS UPDATE
At our January 20, 2023, Board meeting, we awarded two grants: $45,000 to Labor Notes and $5000 to TRF. These were at the request of a donor who gifted us an additional $50,000 on top of an annual contribution; these grants will not replace or affect our expected grants to Labor Notes and TRF. Our grant to Rideshare Drivers United is pending.
Both TRF and Labor Notes have used our earlier grants as part of their respective efforts to expand their staffing and outreach and to raise salaries to more sustainable levels and provide cost-of-living raises.
Our 2022 grant to the UAWD Mutual Aid Fund of $25,000 provided valuable seed money to this fledgling movement. This Mutual Aid Fund is the sister organization to Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), which is presently in the midst of the run-off election in the United Auto Workers. The ballots will be counted starting on March 1. (The Mutual Aid Fund is not involved in any election campaign efforts.) They may be on the cusp of a major victory in this important industrial union. Board members and associates of our SJS Fund also serve as informal advisors to UAWD. We anticipate considering another grant to the Mutual Aid Fund in the coming months.
We also discussed other potential grants under consideration. We will review grants at our next meeting -- slated for March 30 -- and likely will approve more. Your ideas and questions are welcome; in addition to our Board members, you are our eyes and ears.
FUNDRAISING & OUTREACH UPDATE
In our Update of December 9, 2022, we reported that we had $683,000 in our brokerage account. We can now report that we have over $1.2 million, so this has been a very productive two-month period.
This influx includes the final installment of funds that SJS co-founder Mike Parker left to Johanna Parker. We also received an increased contribution from one from our very important supporters, and also an annual IRA distribution from a good supporter, and a gift from a new donor. Another donor has informed us that their will now includes a sizable gift to SJS.
The big news here is that we await a $200,000 grant from the Jewish Communal Fund. The JCF provides a means for individual donors to establish donor-advised-funds; this donation is from an anonymous individual supporter. Best of all, we expect it to be annual support, which will help ensure our growth and allow us to make additional grants.
Fundraising to expand our capacity is a priority for our board. We will be reaching out to many of you and to other potential donors who may join the SJS Fund family. We hope that you will consider sharing info about SJS and our mission with your contacts. We will soon have a website that you can share with your contacts for further information.
ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATE
Our administrative approach is in line with our founding principles, including maintaining extremely minimal admin costs, to commit some 99% of our money to grants. Our board and supporters perform the bookkeeping, keep up communications, maintain records, and research projects for grants. We also value professional service and advice. Our counsel is the NEO law group in San Francisco; we anticipate very minimal legal costs, if any, in the coming year. We have on retainer the Crosby & Kaneda accounting firm, for occasional advice and for preparing and filing our annual reports to the IRS and the State of California. Our counsel and accountant both specialize in 501(c)(3) clients.
In January, our board President Johanna Parker and Treasurer Ken Paff met with an experienced investment advisor, Michael Stein, a respected and experienced investment professional. He is a good friend of the Fund and is donating his on-going counsel to us.
Our investments are housed in the Vanguard Group, which has a very minimal fee structure. The board policy is to sell any donated shares upon receipt, with the proceeds swept into an interest-bearing money market account. The bulk of our assets are invested in broad-based mutual funds, with 60% in stock funds and 40% in bond and money market funds.
After a bad period for investments, in the last month of 2022 and early 2023 our assets grew. If you would care to get more information or a copy of our IRS 990 form, please get in touch with us. As noted in our Mission and Purpose Statement, we invest our funds conservatively, but still in a manner to generate growth income to enhance our grant-making ability.