Tzedek’s work is grounded in Jewish social justice values. These include justice (Tzedek), equitable giving (Tzedakah), repairing the world through social action (Tikkun Olam), and leadership (Hanhagah). These values call us to action. 

OUR VISION

We dream of a thriving Asheville, where everyone’s needs are abundantly met and where everyone is safe, respected, and celebrated. We believe that a community rooted in joy and love is possible.

OUR MISSION

The Tzedek Social Justice Fund redistributes money, resources, and power to support systems change and community healing in Asheville, North Carolina. Through adaptive, trust-based philanthropy, we resist oppressive systems and work to transform our collective home into a place where everyone flourishes.

OUR STRATEGIES

Tzedek’s new strategic plan outlines two strategies designed to facilitate systems change and community healing in Asheville, NC. A third strategy focuses on impact, transparency, and accountability, while a final strategy attends to Tzedek’s internal organizational practices and culture. Altogether, these strategies are grounded in a rigorous commitment to do philanthropy differently guided by our organizational values and practices— Wide-Reaching Community Engagement, Ongoing Learning, Humility, Bridge Building, Relationship Building, Systems Thinking and Out of the Box Strategy, Prioritizing Impacted Leadership and Grassroots Organizations

SYSTEMS CHANGE

Redistribute money to shift the conditions that hold racial, LGBTQ, and anti-Jewish injustice in place, redistribute power to shift oppressive dynamics and create a more equitable Asheville, and redistribute non-financial resources to support systems change efforts

What We’ll Keep Doing:

• Disburse funds to organizations, individuals, funder collaboratives, and collectives building power for collective liberation and engaging in systems change work by addressing root causes of injustice– institutional and social policies, laws, culture, the distribution of resources, and power dynamics 
• Practice an adaptive, trust-based approach to philanthropy that is transparent and responsive to grantees and shifting conditions
• Leverage funder power, build relationships with local and regional peer funders to mobilize money, impact social social change efforts, and promote equitable funding practices 

What We’ll Start Doing: 

• Shift decision making power to include community participation by leaders impacted by and working for racial justice, LGBTQ justice, and a world without antisemitism
• Identify long-term grantee partnerships and increase the amount and length of grants to allow for long-term investment
• Explore establishing a regenerative stream of resource distribution and asset building through community loan funds and other models 
• Establish and sustain a community-based Board of Trustees 

COMMUNITY HEALING

Resource organizations and individuals who create self-defined spaces and opportunities designed to heal the harms of trauma and injustice experienced by LGBTQ, Black, people of color, and Jewish communities, and support healing-informed practices and strategies in our organization

What We’ll Keep Doing:

• Distribute grants to organizations that do the work and to individuals who have done the work of helping communities heal from the harms of oppression
• Center relationships across our work, including with individual and organizational grantees, other funders, and the Board of Trustees 
• Resource Tzedek staff of color to receive additional mentoring and support to cultivate healing and wellbeing in recognition of Tzedek’s white dominant organizational history and culture

What We’ll Start Doing: 

• Fund grantees whose work includes self-defined healing-informed practices and strategies to support safety, wellbeing, and conflict resolution
• Explore opportunities for resourcing local efforts focused on transformative conflict resolution and the creation of a sabbatical program

EVALUATION, IMPACT, TRANSPARENCY, AND ACCOUNTABILITY 

Hold our organizational practices accountable to legal, policy, and financial compliance, evaluate the impact of our grantmaking and advocacy efforts, and document and share our organizational impact along with organizational feedback and response.

What We’ll Keep Doing:

• Document our grantmaking and advocacy efforts, the work of Tzedek grantees, and our organizational learning journey
• Ensure compliance with state and federal law and policies for private foundations

What We’ll Start Doing: 

• Convene our individual and organizational grantees to map out how their work shifts the conditions that hold racial, LGBTQ, and anti-Jewish oppression in place and facilitates community healing
• Create processes to annually collect direct and anonymous feedback that highlights where Tzedek excels and where the organization needs to grow, act on that feedback, and share our organizational learnings annually

INTERNAL PRACTICES, CULTURE, AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Pursue an organizational culture that embodies our values and practices, expand our organizational capacity to more deeply living into our mission and vision, and solidify the long-term existence and sustainability of the organization’s grantmaking and operations, while integrating a trauma-informed and healing justice lens into our organizational policies and practices.

What We’ll Keep Doing:

• Create internal policies and practices and build a culture that prioritize wellbeing, organizational sustainability, feedback, learning, and relationships
• Engage the communities we work alongside for advisement so that our work reflects the wisdom of wide-ranging experiences
• Create hiring processes that prioritize lived experience as an essential form of expertise and recruit candidates that expand the expertise of the organization

What We’ll Start Doing: 

• Adopt a five year grant making cycle for our long-term grantee partners
• Convene annual opportunities for staff and local grantees to learn together and explore values-aligned practice
• Explore developing an endowment for the Tzedek Social Justice Fund to sustain funding well into the future

This is a condensed version of the 2021-2025 Tzedek strategic plan, the full version is accessible here. Thanks to Ericka Hines of Every Level Leadership for guiding us in the strategic planning process. And most of all, thanks to the trusted advisors, grassroots organizers, nonprofit and philanthropic leaders, and cultural workers whose ideas shaped this work.