The Giving Tzedakah Project

A modern twist on a centuries-old tradition

Today, I’m excited to share an exciting new project I’m launching at Words over Swords. April 1, 2025, marks the start of an experiment in positive social action, altruism, and community building (both online and IRL).

It's called The Giving Tzedakah Project, and I think it has the potential to be transformative.

WHAT IS TZEDAKAH?

Tzedakah (hear the pronunciation, as spoken by Northeastern American Jews) is the Hebrew word for ‘righteousness,’ but is often used colloquially to refer to charity and justice.

In Judaism, being charitable and helping others is seen as an act of generosity and justice. “Giving tzedakah” is considered a good deed and an obligation (mitzvah) the Jewish people have to God to help bring fairness and justice to the world. You can learn more about the Jewish tradition of tzedakah at www.myjewishlearning.com.

Jewish people have been engaging in the mitzvah of tzedakah since at least the 16^th century C.E. (Common Era) (Posner, n.d.). When I was a kid in Sunday School, my parents would give me a quarter to put in the tzedakah box in the classroom every week. Passing the tzedakah box was still a regular ritual 25 years later when I became a youth advisor in a peer leadership program for Jewish teens.

Now, I want to bring the mitzvah of charitable giving here to Words over Swords.¹

Thanks for reading Words over Swords! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Donations to non-profit organizations in the form of paid subscriptions will be available on April 1. No fooling!

SOUNDS COOL, JEFF. SO, WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN MIND?

I’m glad you asked! If the new “subscribe” message above hasn’t already tipped you off, here’s how I envision building a Community of Giving here at Words over Swords.

On April 1 (no fooling!), I’m going to activate the paid subscription option for Words over Swords. After I’ve done that, here’s what will happen.

When people purchase a paid subscription to Words over Swords, I’m going to hold that money in a dedicated interest-bearing savings account.

At the end of the quarter, I will donate the money to a non-profit organization in the community of one of my subscribers. I’ll explain more about this in a bit.

“GIVING TZEDAKAH” AND SUBSCRIBING

If you’d like to give tzedakah, you’ll have a few ways to do so:

• Free Subscription

  Giving tzedakah is entirely voluntary. All my creative content will remain available outside the paywall. If you want to give tzedakah without making a financial contribution, you can help build this community by selecting a free subscription, as well as liking, sharing, and commenting on my posts.

• One-time Tzedakah Donation

  Use the “Give Tzedakah” button to make a one-time contribution to the Featured Non-Profit Organization of the Quarter in an amount of your choice, using the “Buy me a Coffee” platform. Note: Buy me a Coffee takes a fee of 5% from your contribution.

• Monthly Subscription

  Sign up for a Monthly Subscription to contribute $5 monthly to worthy non-profit organizations in our shared communities ($60/year). You can give half this amount in a once-annual contribution of $30 by selecting the Annual Subscription below. Note: Substack takes a fee of 10% of your contribution.

• Annual Subscription

  Sign up for an Annual Subscription to make a once-annual contribution of $30 to worthy non-profit organizations in our shared communities. Note: Substack takes a fee of 10% of your contribution.

• Founding Member Level AKA “Community Advocate”

  Become a Community Advocate! Sign up at the Founding Member Level to make a once-annual contribution of between $30 - $100 to worthy non-profit organizations in our shared communities. Note: Substack takes a fee of 10% of your contribution.

OK… WHAT IF I WANT TO STOP MAKING CONTRIBUTIONS?

You can cancel a paid subscription at any time to stop making contributions. When you cancel a paid subscription, you automatically revert to free subscriber status, so you’ll continue to receive all my content.

YOU’VE GOT MY ATTENTION! SO, HOW (AND WHEN) WILL YOU DISTRIBUTE THE FUNDS?

You are full of good questions! I love having inquisitive readers. Here’s what I’m thinking.

I’m prepared for this to start small, so I’m going to accept contributions until I reach $250 (cross fingers) or until the end of a set period, whichever happens last.

For now, that period will be three months (a quarter). So, the first quarter of this project will be the three-month period beginning April 1, 2025.

Each quarter, I will solicit recommendations from Words over Swords paid subscribers (the Giving Community) for the Featured Non-Profit Organization of the Quarter. All community members (free and paid) will have an opportunity to vote on which organization is selected as the recipient of our contributions for the upcoming quarter. There will be a link on my Substack page where you can learn more about the Featured Non-Profit (you must be on the Substack website to see this link; it doesn’t seem to show up on the app).

Once I’ve hit the set goal, I will withdraw the funds from the savings account and donate them to the agency of the quarter.

And the interest I mentioned before? (You didn’t forget the interest-bearing savings account, did you?) We’ll just let the interest build over time until it reaches $50. Then I’ll take that $50 and add it to the current quarterly donation. After that, the interest will start accumulating again from $0.

YOU ARE… BLOWING. MY. MIND! (AM I?) BUT, WAIT… THERE’S A GOOD POSSIBILITY I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU! DO YOU REALLY EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE YOU JUST BECAUSE YOU WRITE PRETTY WORDS ON THE INTERNET?

Yes?

I jest. That’s what got our world to this point.

First, “Hello!” to my readers who know me personally. You are my foundation. I see you. Thank you for joining me on this adventure. 🙏💛

And to those readers who don’t know me, “Hello! Nice to meet you, and, yes, I am legit,” (too legit to quit, even).

WOW, THAT WAS CRINGE-WORTHY.

Yes. After reading that line, my wife laughingly called me “a giant <word I won’t repeat here> dork.”

Anyway, here’s how I’m going to prove it to you. (You didn’t even have to ask).

To start, I’m going to put my money where my proverbial mouth is. Each quarter, I’m going to add $50 of my own money to our “tzedakah box” to get the contributions started.

Second, although I’m not a 501(c)3 organization (at least not yet. Let’s see how this project goes), we’re going to act like I’m one.

I will provide a Quarterly Financial Report—to include monthly subscription numbers, bank statements, and donation receipts—to my “Board of Directors” to ensure complete transparency and accountability.

The Quarterly Financial Report will be published no more than two months following the end of the reporting quarter. For example, financial statements for the quarter ending June 30, 2025, will be available no later than August 31, 2025.

If anyone on the Board has questions about the content of the financial reports, they can reach me via email.

WHO IS ON THIS BOARD OF DIRECTORS?

That’s up to you. I believe if you’re a financial contributor to this community we’re building, you deserve to know how it’s doing.

I will share the quarterly financial information with paid subscribers—the Community of Giving. The information will also be available behind the paywall for paid subscribers to view directly on Substack, at their discretion.

WOW! YOU REALLY HAVE THOUGHT THIS THROUGH

Yeah, my mind has been working overtime lately. Words over Swords is the passion project I never expected—but somehow knew I always needed.

I’m not playing around, but I am having more fun than I’ve had in ages. I am loving every moment of this journey—the successes and the failures.

So, let’s see how this part of the experiment goes. The worst that can happen is I fail.

So… are you with me?

ALMOST… WASN’T THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THE COMMUNITIES WE’LL BE SUPPORTING?

Yeah, I did promise I’d get to that.

The money we raise through Words over Swords is going to be donated to non-profit organizations in the communities of my paid subscribers—YOUR communities, wherever they may be across the U.S.

To get things started, in the first quarter of this project, beginning April 1, 2025, I will collect contributions to be distributed to a non-profit in my own community, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey (CFBNJ). I believe this is a worthy cause to support and one many people will be able to get behind.

Beginning with the Featured Non-Profit Organization for 3Q2025, the recipient of the contribution will be selected from the non-profit organizations YOU—my subscribers and future contributors to this Community of Giving—recommend.

I imagine it will work something like this:

In a few weeks, I’ll ask readers to submit recommendations for worthwhile non-profit organizations to support from YOUR communities. I’d prefer to limit these recommendations to local and regional non-profits, those organizations that rely on small donor support far more heavily than national non-profits. I believe it’s important for the success of this project that these contributions remain close to the communities in which we live.

There will be a short list of basic information required when someone submits a non-profit organization for consideration. Things like the organization’s name, location, website, mission, and why you’ve proposed our online community support this organization.

When it’s time to choose the next Featured Non-Profit Organization, I’ll create a poll allowing people to vote on which organization they would like our contributions to support. Majority vote wins. If the organization you proposed is not selected as the recipient for a particular quarter, it will be included in the options again the next quarter.

This does a few things to help maintain the ethics and transparency of this project:

1. It removes me from the direct selection process of the organizations we will consider supporting (I hopefully won’t have to suggest organizations beyond the initial one if this idea catches on);

2. It limits my ability to influence the selection process for where the contributions will be donated (I will only have one vote); and,

3. It creates transparency in how organizations that receive contributions are selected.

Moreover, it creates a communal, reciprocal, egalitarian Community of Giving. We will be working collaboratively to build capacity in YOUR local communities through the power of our online community. It allows you to advocate for and impact the organizations YOU care about most.

I’m excited. This project feels just. It feels righteous.

It feels like tzedakah.

So…let’s build a Community of Giving together. Are you with me?

References:

Dorff, E.N. (n.d.) What is tzedakah? [image]. ExploringJudaism.org. Retrieved March 23, 2025 from www.exploringjudaism.org/every-day/tzedakah/what-is-tzedakah/

Janowski, M. (n.d.). Why is charity considered the greatest mitzvah? Chabad.org. Retrieved March 23, 2025 from https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/580598/jewish/Why-is-Charity-the-Greatest-Mitzvah.htm

My Jewish Learning. (n.d.). Mitzvah: A commandment. ExploringJudaism.org. Retrieved March 23, 2025 from https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mitzvot-a-mitzvah-is-a-commandment/

My Jewish Learning. (n.d.) Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World. MyJewishLearning.com. Retrieved March 22, 2025 from https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tikkun-olam-repairing-the-world/

My Jewish Learning. (n.d.). Tzedakah 101. MyJewishLearning.com. Retrieved March 22, 2025 from https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tzedakah-101/

Posner, M. (n.d.). What is tzedakah? 15 facts about charity every Jew should know. Chabad.org. Retrieved March 23, 2025 from https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4203668/jewish/What-Is-Tzedakah.htm

Photo credit: www.exploringjudaism.org

1. Hang on, Jeff, I thought you weren’t religious.

Yeah, I’m really not. I’ve tried cultivating a more spiritual side, but it never quite sticks. Maybe, I’m trying again. And, while I’m not religious, I identify as Jewish, and I deeply cherish my Jewish upbringing, Jewish culture, and the teachings of the religion. In addition to tzedakah, I’m particularly drawn to the Judaic concept of tikkun olam, or “repairing the world,” which encompasses social action and the pursuit of social justice. I’ll probably write an essay on that at some point down the line.

For now, let me leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the Jewish tradition:

"He who saves a single life saves the world entire." - Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a)