Jewish Philanthropy Podcast · Dovid M Cohen

Topic: Fundraising Strategy Guest: Elizabeth Abel

·46 min·3 clips

Four months postpartum on October 7, Elizabeth Abel was home alone reading the news and thinking about murdered children.

1. Jewish Philanthropy Podcast focuses on fundraising strategy through a conversation with Elizabeth Abel. 2. David M. Cohen hosts the episode, and Elizabeth Abel appears as a senior vice president at CCS Fundraising. 3. The episode asks how Jewish values, major gifts, and campaign strategy shape practical philanthropy. 4. Abel says she did not grow up wanting to become a fundraiser and first understood the field through a University of Pennsylvania philanthropy course. 5. She names Eileen Heisman of the National Philanthropic Trust as the professor who changed her view of "dialing for dollars." 6. Abel says her family’s Holocaust history and Jewish identity influenced her interest in nonprofit work. 7. She studied Holocaust and genocide education and international relations as an undergraduate at Tufts University. 8. She later earned a master’s degree in nonprofit leadership at Penn and now teaches a fundraising course there. 9. Abel describes a childhood shaped by strong Jewish women, Hanukkah and Passover gatherings, and Friday-morning challah with her mother and daughters. 10. She says her sister’s Relay for Life bat mitzvah project grew into a Westchester County effort that has raised more than $1 million for the American Cancer Society. 11. Abel says philanthropy feels like matchmaking because she helps nonprofits align with major funders around a shared vision. 12. She says the work requires emotional intelligence, strategic planning, and project management. 13. She gives a Q4 solicitation example that requires work backward planning on materials, leadership, board members, and the campaign story. 14. Abel says the hardest part of fundraising is time, because nonprofit leaders face ambitious annual goals and competing priorities. 15. She describes October 7th as the hardest period of her life because she was about four months postpartum and alone with her second daughter. 16. She says that experience pushed her toward nonprofits working on anti-Semitism, healthcare in Israel, and preserving Jewish life and culture. 17. Abel says there is no single right answer for philanthropy, and she uses the example of giving $18 to five organizations or $18,000 to one. 18. She says her own family prioritizes Jewish institutions, Jewish advocacy organizations, and academic institutions, and she uses a color-coded calendar to protect family time. 19. The tone is reflective, practical, and interview-driven, with long answers and follow-up questions from David M. Cohen. 20. People interested in Jewish philanthropy, major gifts, and nonprofit leadership will get the most from it; listeners wanting a quick news-style episode may skip it.

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