Important Update About REALITY and the Schusterman Fellowship

As we plan for the years ahead at Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, we have made the difficult decision to end our two operating programs that directly engage leaders in the United States: REALITY, which brings global leaders on journeys to Israel, and the Schusterman Fellowship, which supports leaders working in Jewish nonprofits and Israeli civil society. Moving forward, we will fully devote our resources in the U.S. toward our grantmaking. We believe we can make the most impact and add the most value as a grantmaker by investing in the expertise in the fields we support.

We have operated REALITY and the Schusterman Fellowship for the past 15 years. Over this time, the fields of Israel travel and leadership development in the Jewish community grew to include many impactful programs and organizations. These organizations—many of which are current Schusterman grantees—are well-positioned to carry this work forward. We will continue to invest significantly in Israel travel and leadership development through our U.S. Jewish grantmaking portfolio. 

“We are incredibly proud of what our REALITY and Schusterman Fellowship programs accomplished and the teams we built to support them,” said Stacy Schusterman, Chair, Schusterman Family Philanthropies. “Both programs made significant contributions to and positively influenced the fields of Israel travel and leadership development. We know their impact on the people and communities they touched will continue to resonate and reverberate for years to come.”

Schusterman Family Philanthropies remains steadfastly committed to our mission to invest in building more just and inclusive societies in the U.S. and Israel. In the U.S., we work to advance racial, gender and economic equity as well as to foster a more joyful and diverse Jewish community deeply connected to Jewish values and to Israel. In Israel, we invest in strengthening Israel as a secure homeland for the Jewish people, a thriving democracy and an inclusive society that cares for its most vulnerable.

In the U.S., ending REALITY and the Schusterman Fellowship marks our transition away from running programs that directly engage individual leaders to fully focusing on our grantmaking investments in organizations across six core issue areas. We will also continue to provide capacity-building and convening support for our grantees. In Israel, we will continue to focus on our grantmaking, as well as operate ROI Community, our Israel-based program that engages young Jewish and Israeli changemakers. ROI will narrow its focus to our Israel-based grantmaking priorities, including post-October 7 relief and recovery efforts.

“Foundations have a responsibility to listen to, learn from and evolve alongside the organizations and fields we support,” said Lisa Eisen, Co-President, who oversees Schusterman Family Philanthropies’ U.S. Jewish grantmaking portfolio. “While our core priorities remain the same, the fields of Israel travel and leadership development have grown in a way that enables us to adapt our approach. Both Israel travel and leadership development in the Jewish community will take on even greater importance in the post-October 7 landscape, and we will continue to devote significant resources to supporting and strengthening them through our grantmaking.”

We launched REALITY in 2009 to expand opportunities for leaders from diverse communities, backgrounds and sectors to learn about Israel and the complex region of the world in which it exists, as well as to build leadership skills they can apply to the work they are leading. Since then, REALITY has brought more than 3,000 leaders on immersive journeys, including award-winning journalists and storytellers, renowned artists and creators, civic and nonprofit professionals at the forefront of social justice initiatives, business leaders, tech trailblazers, and executives and performers in the music industry. We are grateful they trusted us to help build their understanding of Israel and the surrounding region while deepening their ability to lead on complex issues and connecting with peers from across the globe. 
 
We began the Schusterman Fellowship in 2015 to help shift how the Jewish sector viewed the importance of investing in leaders who could lead our community forward through generation-defining challenges. Our custom-built 18-month program took an “inside-out” approach to leadership development, helping leaders build the resilience, self-awareness and skills they would need to transform organizations, communities and systems. Through the intensive work of the Schusterman Fellowship, we shaped the leadership of nearly 200 senior professionals working across such diverse fields as Jewish engagement, service and volunteerism, Israeli civil society, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and more. We truly believe these leaders will be among those building and sustaining Jewish communal life and Israeli civil society well into the future.  
  
We are grateful for our team members who built these programs into field-leading experiences and particularly for the leadership of Alicia Smith (Senior Director, REALITY) and Colleen Cruikshank (Director, Schusterman Fellowship). Alicia, Colleen and their teams led this work with perseverance, strength, thoughtfulness and care. Together, they have impacted the lives of thousands of leaders who are bringing the knowledge, skills and partnerships they gained through our programs to strengthen the organizations and communities they support.
 
Both REALITY and the Schusterman Fellowship will end their programming by June 30. There will be some ongoing wind-down work throughout the remainder of the year, and operations will fully cease by the end of 2024.    

Learn more about the transformative impact of REALITY and the Schusterman Fellowship. Learn more about our U.S. grantmaking in Criminal Justice, Democracy and Voting Rights, Education, Gender and Reproductive Equity, our hometown of Tulsa and the Jewish community. Learn more about our Israel grantmaking aimed at strengthening Israel as a secure homeland for the Jewish people, a thriving democracy and an inclusive civil society that cares for its most vulnerable.