A champion for mental health giving, JCF fund holder Stuart Bern talks about why launching #30Kfor30 was the best way to celebrate a new decade.
JCF recently had the pleasure of speaking with Stuart Bern, a JCF fund holder who launched a campaign (dubbed #30Kfor30) to celebrate his thirtieth birthday by raising money for charities focused on mental health. Read on as Stuart shares the experiences while growing up that led him on the path to philanthropic giving, his inspiration for the campaign, and the Jewish values that have shaped his giving philosophy.
Jewish Communal Fund: You recently launched the #30Kfor30 campaign, asking friends, relatives and strangers to donate to your fund at Jewish Communal Fund, which you will use to support mental health charitable causes. How did you hear about JCF?
Stuart Bern: I was looking for ways to give. There are numerous resources on the internet highlighting different charitable vehicles you can use. I came across donor advised funds and was intrigued by them. I saw how easy they are to use, and it seemed like a great place to start. I was very much involved with UJA-Federation of NY and I was excited to see that a portion of the fees associated with JCF would go towards a cause that I cared about. JCF is a small organization rather than a large bank; I liked the personal approach. I can pick up the phone and speak to someone; it feels like family. Even when I was working on my first philanthropic project, they helped guide me through the process, which was incredibly helpful for a first-time giver.
JCF: How do your Jewish values tie into your philanthropy?
SB: As Jewish people, we are taught the importance of giving, especially tzedakah. Most of us had tzedakah boxes in our home. I grew up in Sandy Springs in Atlanta, GA, where I came to recognize the importance of giving. Within the Jewish world, we are supposed to give 10 percent of everything we earn to charity. One Halloween, when I was much younger, instead of going around asking for candy, I brought a tzedakah box and asked individuals to contribute to Lauren’s Run to cure childhood cancer. The positive feedback highlighted people’s willingness to give. Doing good left me with more of a lasting memory and a better feeling than the sugar high you get from candy.
JCF: Who are your role models when it comes to philanthropy?
SB: I spent over eight years working at Bloomberg LP in New York City. One of my mentors is Dan Doctoroff, who was the CEO and President of Bloomberg. His wife [Alisa Doctoroff] is president of UJA. He is someone I look up to both personally and professionally. Another role model of mine is Mike Bloomberg. His goal is to leave a lasting legacy by giving away the billions he’s making in order to impact the world and make it a better place – using his entrepreneurial drive and business attitude to make change.
JCF: Tell us about how you first got involved in charitable giving.
SB: I went into organizations like UJA and heard stories about how these major philanthropic institutions got started from their humble beginnings. I recently moved from New York to Atlanta, where I am the Director of a real estate company in Buckhead. I’m still heavily connected to the world of finance, and plan on taking on leadership positions within the giving community in Atlanta as well. I think a lot of people want to find a cause they can get behind and truly find meaning. They want to dedicate themselves to something rather than making small donations to a bunch of different organizations that may not be as meaningful to them. The time investment is important; not just the monetary investment. I’ve been very fortunate. A lot of people will find causes that came about through family and close friends – usually resulting from a difficult situation. Looking back on all the giving I had done, I think back to one story that took place when I was in high school and served as President of the National Honor Society. There were 200 people in the organization, and that was my first leadership opportunity. That summer, two friends of mine took their own lives. I wanted to do something about it. I was in a band, so I got together with my bandmates and we wrote a song dedicated to these individuals. We invited the Link Center in Atlanta, which deals with suicide prevention, aftercare and awareness, to come to our high school and talk about the important work that they do. Students and their parents came and we sold a CD to raise money and awareness for the Link Center. It was the first big philanthropic project I was ever involved in. One of my peers told a teacher after the event, “I was actually thinking of taking my life. Now I feel that I have an outlet. Tonight saved my life.” You can take your passions and still have fun while doing it, and give back in such a way that truly makes a difference.
JCF: How did you come to discover that mental health was the charitable cause you wanted to focus on?
SB: A friend of mine took her life while we were living in NYC a few years ago. This was someone who, from the outside, you would have thought had it all. One in four adults suffers from mental illness, such as anxiety and depression; many of us struggle. I realized this is something where I can find a way to give strength to others, within the mental health space. It’s scary. 15 million American children suffer from psychiatric disorders, which is more than diabetes and leukemia combined. Mental health is still taboo to speak about, but if we can talk about it and give people strength and an outlet to do so, we can continue to save lives. Meditation and mindfulness are another passion of mine. There are connections between mental health issues and meditation, so there might be a way to link the two and find ways to holistically help individuals gain inner strength and better their lives.
JCF: What inspired you to launch the #30Kfor30 campaign?
SB: Every few years, I take a two-week backpacking trip to have time to reflect, to open my eyes to different cultures and parts of the world. I get inspired and find clarity. I went to Europe for a few weeks for my 30th birthday this past summer. I didn’t want gifts. I didn’t want it to be about me. I wanted to leverage my birthday into an opportunity to do something that makes the world a better place, to hopefully inspire others to do the same and look at their life through a different lens. And so, on my birthday, I sent out an email to my contacts asking them to contribute to my fund at JCF to support mental health causes. The joy that I got from the responses was amazing. It was more beautiful than anything I saw or experienced during those two weeks in Europe.
JCF: Do you have any books to recommend for those seeking to get more involved in philanthropy?
SB: I read a lot about philanthropic giving through my travels. One book I read after my trip was The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun. His experience was similar in that he also went on a backpacking trip. He took a small idea of giving a pencil to someone in a third-world country and realized how important schooling and education was. His idea grew into a massive organization that builds so many schools a year. It’s not just the Bill Gates’, Warren Buffets, and the Michael Bloombergs of the world who make a difference. I was also inspired by Julia Levy’s website, whywegive.com, which profiles individual donors. I always wanted to be a small giver, and learned by surrounding myself with people who have already had success in the philanthropic world. I listened to their stories, and learned from their mistakes. I am grateful to several individuals from the Bloomberg Foundation and UJA who have really guided me through this process. Most importantly, the values and teachings that my family instilled in me and my brother since a young age had a large impact on who I am today.
JCF: Do you have a giving philosophy you would like to share?
SB: We always want to fill the void within us by buying something new or having experiences that tend to be very temporary in nature. Start going down a philanthropic path, not just by donations, but by meeting with people you are making an impact on and inspiring others to do the same. That’s the kind of experience that will give you the chills and truly make you happy inside. The purpose of life is tov—to do good. I wish I had realized it earlier. I hope this is the start of a journey. Start small. Try things out. See what works. You don’t necessarily have to have money. You just need time, and you can inspire others to get behind the cause. Your cause has to be something personal: something that even when people are saying it’s not the best idea, you’ll keep going with it.
JCF: What are your future philanthropic plans?
SB: My goal is to eventually come full circle, back to the Link Center. Hopefully I can raise enough money to build a new program that uses mindfulness-based therapy as another method of suicide prevention and aftercare. This would be a different way of getting to people in need and would be a good first step in the right direction