Donor Power Offers a Voice Without a Ballot

With Israeli elections two weeks away, JGive founder and CEO Ori Ben-Shlomo said Diaspora Jews who feel connected to Israel’s future but can’t vote there can influence the country through giving. He called it “the best way” for them to have a say, arguing that giving shapes Israel more than politics. His claim places philanthropy where political participation usually sits: donors may help direct resources, while the ballot remains beyond their reach.

A fast-growing apparatus

JGive expects to finish the year with more than four times its pre-war giving volume. More than 250,000 Israeli and Diaspora donors are expected to give about NIS 500 million through the platform, Ben-Shlomo said. Giving has risen since the surge that followed October 7, as charities became, in his words, a “must-have” rather than a nice extra.

Calls came in from New York, Los Angeles and London on October 7. JGive helped thousands of charities raise emergency funds. The platform also established a national emergency fund, led in part by a former Israel Air Force commander and a former Supreme Court justice. At first, the fund covered food, clothing and medication for evacuees from the kibbutzim, including Holocaust survivors. It later expanded into education and rehabilitation.

Ben-Shlomo founded JGive after serving in Gaza as a reservist during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. He said he saw how poor coordination caused donated goodwill to be lost. The platform’s growth and emergency fund offer one response: organize donations through a centralized platform and a fund with prominent leadership.

Giving as political voice

Ben-Shlomo said younger donors increasingly want to give “without the middleman” to causes they’ve researched, and alongside Israelis rather than simply to them. The older generation, he said, tended to write checks to large institutions. Major charities had previously told him they couldn’t reach younger donors, though young people are now among JGive’s top donors.

“Politics divides people, and giving connects people,” Ben-Shlomo said. That language presents giving as a bridge across political division, but it also makes the donor’s role explicit: people who can’t vote are invited to shape the country by choosing where money goes. The account doesn’t describe giving as a substitute for a ballot; Ben-Shlomo nevertheless said it does more to shape the country than politics.

He also described Jewish communities abroad facing rising antisemitism and pressure to fund their own security while continuing to support Israel. Donors, he said, have shifted the balance toward their own communities without ending support for Israel. He argued that Israel’s government and donors should now help Diaspora communities in return.

Reform, tax benefits and who gives

Ben-Shlomo said he worked with Israel’s Tax Authority to introduce donor-advised funds, familiar in the United States, and permit donations of stocks and other assets. He called the changes “a game changer.” He also called for ceilings on tax benefits for major donors, putting the influence of large contributions and the rules around them on the table.

His broader goal is to build what he called Israel’s “fourth power,” after defense, the economy and technology: a society “that makes sure no one is left behind,” built from the ground up like the start-up nation. Asked about the next generation, he pointed to a reserve officer badly wounded in Lebanon who organized a campaign for another patient while still in rehabilitation. The example is individual initiative. The larger question remains who gets a say when political participation and philanthropic influence aren’t the same thing.