Founded in 1985, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger is a national nonprofit organization that allocates donations from the Jewish community to prevent and alleviate hunger among people of all faiths and backgrounds.
Each year, MAZON grants over $4 million to more than 300 carefully screened hunger-relief agencies, including emergency food providers, food banks, multi-service organizations and advocacy groups that seek long-term solutions to the hunger problem.
MAZON (“food” in Hebrew) believes its dual purpose is to provide for those who are hungry today and to address the systemic causes of hunger and poverty, both domestically and globally. Although grants are provided to many organizations serving the Jewish poor, in keeping with the best of Jewish tradition MAZON believes it is important to respond to all who are in need.
MAZON is supported by over 100,000 donors who incorporate social justice and hunger relief as crucial components of their everyday lives.
Download our 2008 Annual Report.
Our Mission
- To educate and raise the consciousness of the Jewish community regarding its obligation to alleviate hunger and its causes;
- To make donating a portion of the cost of life cycle events (historically at least 3%) to MAZON a permanent tradition in Jewish life; and
- To provide for people who are hungry while at the same time advocating for other ways to end hunger and its causes.
Support from the Jewish Community & Partner Synagogues
With the support of 2,000+ synagogue and community partners across America, MAZON, the only national Jewish social justice organization devoted to ending domestic hunger, builds a bridge between the abundance with which many American Jews are blessed and the deprivation suffered by millions of others, both Jews and non-Jews. Read more about synagogue and community partners »
What We Fund
MAZON brings nearly 25 years of effective, strategic grantmaking to the fight to prevent and alleviate hunger in the US and abroad. We award grants totaling over $4 million to more than 300 organizations each year. Grants are awarded principally in the United States, though we also support vital hunger-relief efforts in Israel and impoverished countries around the world. Read more about how we distribute our funding ».
View MAZON’s Humanitarian Hunger Relief Project History »
Funding Information for Grantees »
Who We Are
Board of Directors »
Staff »
Financial Information
As a fiscally responsible, fully transparent, IRS-approved not-for-profit agency, MAZON takes great pride in its financial stewardship. Tax ID #22-2624532.
- 2008 Statement of Financial Position
- 2008 Statement of Activities
- IRS Form 990
- 501(c)(3) determination letter
2008 Program & Support Services Expense Chart
Our History
Founded on the heels of the Ethiopian famine of 1985, MAZON was conceived as a bridge between the abundance in the Jewish community and the desperate need felt by millions of hungry people around the world.
MAZON Founder Leonard Fein recognized the injustice of this disparity – the Jewish community’s annual expenditures on catered celebrations on the one hand, and the devastating Ethiopian famine on the other – and formed MAZON as a response.Historically, rabbis did not allow celebrations to begin until the community’s poor and hungry people were seated and fed. MAZON offers Jews a symbolic way to observe this tradition by donating 3% of the cost of life-cycle celebrations, such as bar/bat mitzvahs, weddings, anniversaries and other joyous occasions, to help feed those who are less fortunate.
MAZON’s history is built on the dedication of past and present employees who sacrifice much for the greater good of others. Grants Director Mia Hubbard and Director of Donor Services Bria Silbert, for example, have served with distinguished professionalism for over 15 years. Irving Cramer, MAZON’s first Executive Director, held that position from 1986, when MAZON distributed $20,000 in cash grants to four hunger-relief organizations, through 1999, when $2.8 million was distributed to hundreds of such organizations. Since then, an annual “Irving Cramer Award” has been given by MAZON to a person selected for outstanding anti-hunger work. MAZON has also been greatly benefited by our second Executive Director, Susan Cramer, who has brought her expertise in grantmaking to enhance the organization. And our noted Vice President and General Counsel, Barbara Bergen, served for over eight years before recently stepping down. In all, the strength and compassion of any charitable organization is a testimony to its staff, board and cadre of devoted grantees.
In the first year of MAZON’s grant making, MAZON distributed $20,000 in cash grants to four hunger-relief organizations. To date, MAZON has made thousands of grants, totaling more than $50 million, to the most effective hunger-relief organizations in the United States, in Israel and in developing countries around the world.
