1. Women and Girls: Emphasizing programs and services that enrich, enhance, and inspire Jewish women and girls. Programs could be in any number of realms, including but not limited to Jewish continuity/identity, health, social justice, or basic needs. 

2. Jewish Continuity: Emphasizing programs and initiatives that seek to help strengthen Jewish identity through engagement, education, arts, culture, and beyond. 

 3. Justice: Emphasizing educational programs and initiatives that seek to promote tolerance, inclusion, and understanding with a focus on combating anti-Semitism, prejudice, racism and all forms of social injustice and inequity. 

*Women and girls refer to all cisgender women and girls, transgender women and girls, and non-binary people who are comfortable in female-centered spaces. 

2024 Grant Allocations  

$144,765 Total Dollars Allocated Since 2017 

$32,000 Total Grant Allocations in 2024 

New program support. The program seeks funding for a biweekly women's book club and periodic Jewish women's circle events. We aim to bring the many retired women, new moms, and women of all stages together for engaging conversations, fostering friendships, and providing a sense of camaraderie. By addressing the need for meaningful social interaction, the program seeks to enhance their well-being and sense of belonging. $2,000. 

2. Dignity Grows

New program support. The mission of Dignity Grows™ is to empower our neighbors in need with the monthly menstrual and hygiene supplies that support their health and allow them to participate in everyday life with dignity. Dignity Grows is part of the movement to end period poverty – a public health crisis impacting over one-third of American women and girls. Volunteers pack supplies during intergenerational, all gender packs four-times per year in discreet Dignity Totes. Totes are distributed through direct product support in partnership with partners SEI, Transitions Projects, Our Just Future, A Safe Place, Divine Threads, and Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center. $3,630. 

3. Beit Am - Mid-Willamette Valley Jewish Community 

Ongoing program support. Through a monthly Rosh Chodesh program, women* from post Bat Mitzvah age through elderhood, will expand their Jewish identity, build trusting relationships and meaningful community. Through art, movement, meditation, and the opportunity to share deeply with each other about what is going on in their lives, Jewish women will have an opportunity to access a monthly feeling of retreat-like peace and fulfillment that feeds their vitality. For working women, mothers, retired women, young adults no longer in college/grad school, and elders, it can be hard to find close friends and build trusting community where one can have meaningful, authentic, vulnerable, supportive conversations. It can be hard to make time for art and creativity, mindfulness, and soulful Jewish practice. There are very few options for Jewish life within an hour of the mid-Willamette Valley. $3,600. 

*Women refer to cisgender women, transgender women, and non-binary people who are comfortable in female-centered spaces." 

4. Jewish Family & Child Services 

New program support. The goal of “Walking Beside You: A Special Subgroup for Widows and Widowers” is to provide clients with a combination of in-person and virtual options to a key demographic requesting mental-health support: widows and widowers (a group that statistically skews toward women). Modeled after JFCS’ established "Walking Beside You" group, it, too, would focus on psychotherapeutic, psychoeducation and peer-driven support. $2,600. 

5. Chabad of Oregon

New program support. Initiated last January (2024), our Morah Rochel's Shabbat Hug delivers homemade challah, gefilte fish, matzah ball soup and other Shabbat foods to those in need of a Shabbos meal or need of a pick-me-up, fostering community connections. Beyond nourishment, it helps alleviate isolation, loneliness and other struggles amplified post-pandemic. For many, these food deliveries are their only interaction with the Jewish community. What began as food delivery to ensure everyone in our community could enjoy a Shabbat dinner has become so much more. Volunteers forge connections and unite the community through the universal language of food. $5,000. 
 

6. PDX Hillel

New program support. Initiative to bring women-centered and queer-centered Rosh Hodesh programming to our various campuses. This project seeks to bring Jewish joy back to campus after an especially difficult year for Jewish students on campus, and to provide monthly safe and empowering spaces to expand our educational opportunities. Our goal is to create this program grounded in Jewish femininity and Jewish joy, while also uplifting queer voices and queer joy that is the center of a lot of our student’s identities. $3,000. 

7. TischPDX 

Ongoing program support. Funding for the Alumni Support Program (ASP) which a 2022 grant from the Women’s Giving Circle helped launch. This program is growing with the number of alumni increasing and this year will serve 27 young organizers and community builders from marginalized populations in Portland, OR. The ASP is organized to allow alumni to access the resources they need to successfully continue their organizing and programming efforts in the community and amongst their peers of younger adult Jews, especially those who are queer, and or/trans, Jews of Color or Jews not raised in Jewish community. $3,600. 

8. Congregation Shir Tikvah 

Ongoing support. Funding to allow Congregation Shir Tikvah to recruit new volunteers and community partners. Congregation Shir Tikvah currently leads Torah studies and Friday morning and evening Shabbat observance with women serving time in both Medium and Minimum Security at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. Both groups have steady attendance of 8-14 women, depending on the day. Volunteers are permitted to share ritual blessings and foods, challah, and grape juice. Volunteers donate time, gas, and food for inmates, as well as offer some additional training for new volunteers in how to lead this study. Ultimately, through growth and increased awareness the hope is to continue to serve the inmate population at the same level and expand capacity. $1,970. 

9. Chabad of Hillsboro 

On going support. Through the help of the Women's Giving Circle, the Jewish Women's Group, and intergenerational activities continues to grow and flourish. Weekly Wednesday Torah Study, Rosh Chodesh Society classes and dinner, deliveries to elderly, intergenerational events, and baking/cooking events, have taken place on a larger scale. Getting together, at the intergenerational events, has helped us recognize that no matter the age, we can connect to, learn, and gain from, one another. It also showed the need for partnership between the ages, and the need for volunteers to visit, bake for, and help those that need, with a host of needs. $2,200.