Forward Thinking at the Mandel Foundation

Joel Fox became Executive Vice-President of the Mandel Foundation several months ago, following a long and prestigious career at the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland. As he settles in and works to know the Foundation from the inside, we get to know him a little better…

Fox’s career at the Cleveland Federation spanned over 29 years, culminating in his position as Executive Vice-President. To Fox, involvement in the Jewish community has always been second nature:

“I grew up in a house where Jewish professional life and Jewish volunteering was normal and expected. So when I graduated from college I went to work for the UJA on college campuses in the Mid-West, traveling between schools to promote the students’ annual campaign. In Cleveland I met a number of Federation professionals who encouraged me to apply for a fellowship that allowed me to go to graduate school specifically to become a Federation executive. The rest is history.”

Federation meets Mandel Foundation

“Through my work in the Federation over the years, I developed a growing appreciation of the work of the Mandel family and of the foundation. My exposure to Mort Mandel came early in my career at the Federation, and a number of assignments allowed me to work directly with him and others in the Mandel Family. For example, in the early 1980’s when our Planning Department created the Cleveland Commission on Jewish Continuity, Mort was its key leader.  I paid attention to his language when he talked about ‘declaring war against the disappearance of Jews.’ That is the language I used over the next 20 years to describe the essence of our work.”

Combining a national perspective with a local focus

The Mandel Foundation operates not only on a national and international level, but also focuses on the local Cleveland community. Fox describes this as significant:

“Through my work at the Federation, I feel that I am familiar with many of the issues that the Mandel Foundation deals with on the national and international level. Locally, the Mandel Foundation’s work in neighborhood renewal is newer to me, since the Federation is mostly focused on Jewish life and community relations in Cleveland.  So, to some extent, I know more of the Foundation’s work and colleagues nationally and internationally than I know locally.  This work is also a logical extension of my passion for the city and my desire to re-imagine Cleveland as a strong place economically.

Mr. Mandel often speaks about how important the town is to him; it gave the Mandel brothers the opportunity to build their business and establish themselves. Their relationships here are very deep, broad and strong. Cleveland is a fantastic place, where people are interested in the welfare of their neighbors. We’re proud that this city is a national leader in terms of non-profit involvement, fundraising prowess and leadership for non-profits.”

Capturing the present to ensure the future

After five months in the role of Executive Vice-President, Fox identifies his core work at the Mandel Foundation as developing further the foundation’s infrastructure to ensure that the founders’ vision, mission and methods of operation are followed permanently.  “I choose the word ‘permanently’ very carefully,” explains Fox. “To me there is enormous power in the focus of the foundation in its chosen fields of Jewish Education, Leadership, Non-Profit Management and Neighborhood Renewal. We see that we have a deep impact, and we can actually change the world using the resources we have. By retaining that focus, we are able to deeply affect our fields. We have to provide a solid structure for the foundation, to ‘write our book’ about what the Foundation is for and how we go about impacting those fields of activity."

Fox sees his role as an organizer of the strategic thinking which is taking place. “We are writing policy.  We are creating well-articulated, easy-to-understand philosophy.  We are creating rules that will help our trustees understand why we have chosen these few narrow fields, what our objectives are, and how we want to go about approaching the work in order to maximize our effectiveness.”

Fox reflects on Mr. Mandel’s tremendous impact in the field and the need to capture this quality in order to train the next generations of trustees of the Foundation:  “The future trustees need to understand the Mandel brothers’ thought process, so we can internalize their goals and preserve them in a way that people can understand.  We need to generate the same passion within the future trustees that Jack, Joe and Mort Mandel and the current trustees have brought to the table, passion which has generated extraordinary work all around the world.

The work of managing the Foundation day-to-day and capturing the passion to ensure the Foundation’s future is what brought me to this position and motivates me to really dig in.”

A unique foundation

When asked what distinguishes the Mandel Foundation from other foundations of its kind, Fox defines three clear factors:  the Foundation’s willingness to stay focused on a narrow set of issues, its willingness to make long-term commitments, and its local-global perspective.

 “Most foundations have a short-term view. The willingness of the Mandel Foundation to stay with projects for decades is unusual, and for me is much more logical in terms of generating a serious impact. The other unique quality is the way the Mandel brothers have been able to develop projects on a local level in our various locales, and then share that learning globally.”

What lies ahead

Although Fox feels it is early for him to discuss the challenges the Foundation faces, he does identify one: “Our chosen fields are all difficult and complicated, and none of them lends itself to easy answers. All of them require years of concentrated work. The core challenge is finding sufficient people who have the capacity for excellent leadership, which is the trademark of this foundation.”

Fox looks forward to connecting the dots between the leadership programs which are taking place within the Mandel Foundation in different parts of the world. He describes a conversation he had last month with Pierre Kletz [Director of the Graduates Unit, Mandel Leadership Institute in Jerusalem]. “Pierre and I compared notes about what the Mandel Center for Non-Profit Organizations, the Mandel Center for Jewish Education at the JCC Association and our other programs teach in terms of management and fundraising for new non-profit executives. It is material that is also very interesting and helpful to the participants and graduates of the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows. We are proving that we have a global scope and global opportunities to apply that learning.  That’s unusual in the Foundation world.”