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Fundiller-Zweig to retire as head of Jewish Community Foundation

By Cindy Mindell

After nearly 20 years heading the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford, Doreen Fundiller-Zweig is retiring at the end of the year from her position as president and CEO.
Fundiller-Zweig was tapped for the directorship in 1993. At the time, she was a practicing attorney at Robinson and Cole, focusing on estate planning and business and tax law for non-profit organizations, and the president and chair of the board of trustees of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Hartford.
She was also on the legal and tax panel of what was then known as The Endowment Foundation of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, Inc.

Doreen Fundiller-Zweig

“When I would talk with people, the name was always truncated to ‘Endowment Foundation,’ which had no meaning to anybody and didn’t communicate our role as the charitable endowment of the Greater Hartford community,” Fundiller-Zweig recalls. The second thing the new director spearheaded was a name change. In 2004, the organization was redubbed The Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford, Inc.
Fundiller-Zweig’s first priority was to update the office technology, replacing the unreliable ‘80s-vintage computer system with new equipment, donated by businesses in the community.
Then the real work could begin. The organization, founded in 1972, began to shift from a mostly volunteer-led operation to a professionally run organization with new far-reaching strategies and policies. Under Fundiller-Zweig’s leadership, the Foundation’s assets have grown from $16 million to between $85 million and $90 million.
As Fundiller-Zweig prepares to step down, she is gratified to leave behind an organization that is increasingly seen as the central address for Jewish philanthropists in Greater Hartford.
A major pillar of the organization’s vision, retooled over Fundiller-Zweig’s tenure, is a donor-advised fund program, which matches donors’ philanthropic interests with the specific needs and priorities of organizations in the community.
According to Deborah Rothstein, vice president of philanthropy, the Foundation manages more than 1,000 individual funds, many of which support specific needs. For example, The Helping Fund addresses the needs of the community’s most vulnerable by providing basic necessities. The Children’s Fund supports child-related programs of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford.
The Foundation also created the Leave a Jewish Legacy program with 22 agency and synagogue partners in the community, working with donors to define and structure the philanthropic impact they want to make.
“We’re on a journey with our donors as they experience the whole philanthropic process,” Fundiller-Zweig says.
The Foundation has also become more strategic in its role as grant-maker, says Rothstein; a process co-led by past board chair Tom Divine.
“The review process compelled the Foundation to look at itself and determine what it wants to be as a funder in the community,” she says. “People may have ideas about how the Foundation would suspend its money during challenging economic times, but we’re positioned so that we’re there no matter what.”
Last year, the Foundation allocated nearly $3 million in grants to 136 organizations.
In 2000, the Foundation began working with Jewish agencies and organizations, educating them about building endowments, and training them how to do so. As a sort of hands-on progress check, in 2004, the Foundation created the Endowment Challenge for the Community, offering a dollar-for-dollar match up to $75,000 for any beneficiary organization of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford that raised permanent endowment funds over three years. Thirteen participants raised a total of more than $1.5 million.
The Foundation has been cultivating families as donors since 2003, encouraging discussions about values and philanthropic priorities, as well as the unique factors of multi-generational giving. The Foundation’s donor base currently includes 800 families, supported through the Family Philanthropy Institute. “It’s all personalized, not cookie-cutter,” Fundiller-Zweig says. “We don’t tell anybody what to do but rather give them things to think about and give them choice and flexibility. We’re looking for deeper work from donors, not just transferring money.”
During Fundiller-Zweig’s tenure, the Foundation has awarded more than $39.3 million in grants to local, national and international charities, within the Jewish world and beyond, says Rothstein. It is now among the largest unrestrained endowments of Jewish community Foundations across the country.
“Over the years, the Foundation has been looked to more and more as a major funder,” she says. “In addition to our donor-advised funds, our community grants program is designed to address a host of needs outside core operating needs: new initiatives, emergencies, seed funding, or transitional support when an organization is going through a major change. In this role, we have become a planned-giving resource for all the Jewish organizations in the community, a center of flexible Jewish giving.”
Perhaps it’s fitting that, after helping strengthen the roots of a major charitable organization for nearly two decades, Fundiller-Zweig plans to become a master gardener. She hopes to see the Foundation continue to build a lasting Jewish legacy in Greater Hartford that will make it a vibrant community for future generations.
“Doreen has made an extraordinary contribution to the fabric of Jewish life in Hartford,” says out-going board chair, Thomas Divine. “We are so very fortunate that she has extended her considerable talents to the benefit of our community.”
“I think the Foundation in a very strong place with wonderful staff for the next person to come in and fly it differently,” Fundiller-Zweig says. “I want to be remembered as one who had a vision of what the Foundation could be, and who moved the board to adopt strong governance and fiduciary practices, think broadly about its role in the community as a center for Jewish philanthropy, support a sophisticated gift-planning operation, become a strategic and high-impact grantmaker that is responsive to evolving community needs and, at the same time, prepared to support innovation, and become a leading philanthropic institution in Greater Hartford.”
The Board of Trustees of the Jewish Community Foundation will host a reception honoring Doreen Fundiller-Zweig on Sunday, Nov. 20, 5 – 7:30 p.m. at Beth El Temple, 2626 Albany Ave. in West Hartford.  For more information call (860) 523-7460.

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