PEF Israel Endowment Fund - excerpt from Lee O'Brien, American Jewish Organizations and Israel, 1986

This page is an extract, reproduced with permission, from Lee O'Brien, American Jewish Organizations and Israel, Washington DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1986. 
This page is reproduced by permission of the Institute of Palestine Studies, granted on 25 February 2014. The Institute retains copyright of all material.
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*Year established: 1922 
*President: Sidney Luria 
*Chairman: Sidney Musher 
*Address: 342 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10173 
==General Background and Structure== 
In 1922, Justice Louis Brandeis and a small group of American Zionists formed the Palestine Endowment Fund (PEF) as a charitable organization to channel funds to the Yishuv in Palestine. After the creation of Israel, the PEF changed its name to PEF Israel Endowment Fund. 
The PEF is a tax-exempt ‘public charity’ corporation registered in the state of New York; it also has tax-exempt status in Israel. The organization is governed by a national board of trustees, with 34 members who reside in Israel and the United States. None of its nine officers and trustees receives compensation. The PEF employs only one full-time and two part-time staff members. In Israel, a group of five volunteers supervises its activities. As a result, it has minimal overhead expenses; in 1981, these were only 1.5 percent of total receipts.
==Flow of Funding== 
PEF's goal is to service Israeli institutions by helping American contributors obtain tax exemptions. Prospective donors may contribute to the PEF with a recommendation that their contributions go to a specific institution or purpose. Before consenting to forward the grant, the PEF investigates each institution through consultations with its volunteers in Israel. It accepts small (a minimum of twenty-five dollars) or large gifts and bequests. It maintains extensive files on a wide variety of nonprofit organizations in Israel. Potential recipient institutions in Israel may approach the PEF for advice on funding, and they may recommend that a contribution go through the PEF. 
Since its inception, the PEF has forwarded over $45 million to Israel. In 1982, PEF's total receipts were over $6 million, of which over $5 million was distributed to 300 educational, research, religious, health, and other institutions in Israel. There is generally no deduction from the contributions for administration; the small administrative cost is absorbed by the 
PEF. According to its 1982 annual report, about 77 percent of the total receipts of over $6 million came from ‘contributions and bequests’; the rest came from ‘interest and dividends’ and ‘gain from investments.’ PEF's net worth by November 1982 was over $13 million. 
Some of the institutions the PEF supported in 1982 were: the Hebrew University in Jerusalem ($345,664), the secondary school scholarship program ($252,684), the Association for the Welfare of Soldiers ($283,357), and the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel ($47,450); $89,428 was distributed to 146 other institutions, each of which received less than $2,000. 
The PEF has established special funds of $100,000 and over, from which the interest and/or the principal is disbursed to specific institutions. In 1982, PEF had 25 such funds, nine of which paid out interest and/or principal to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Information in this section from PEF, 60th Annual Report, 1982. 
==Notes==
Category:American Jewish Organizations and Israel-extract