For 20 years, the Natan Fund has engaged emerging philanthropists in unearthing and supporting some of the most innovative projects in Jewish communities around the world. We are proud to continue and grow this work, and ultimately to create a legacy of risk-tolerant, transparent, active philanthropy.

We are excited to announce the donation of Natan’s papers from our first two decades' worth of activity to the American Jewish Historical Society. This project, as well as the celebration itself, honors Felicia Herman, who shaped Natan into what it is today.

A note from Felicia: Archiving is just second nature to me. I've always loved learning about the past -- as a window into the present and as a guide for the future -- and for whatever reason, I realized that you couldn't understand the past unless you preserved the records of the present. Even as a little girl, I saved so many documents that were important to me: journals, letters, notes from friends, programs, school papers. (One person's pack-rat is another's archivist.) In graduate school, I loved going to archives - uncovering treasures from the past and trying to make meaning from them. Archives hold the building blocks of history. If we really want people to understand our moment in history, what it meant to us and how it was a chain in the evolution of Jewish life -- we need to preserve the papers of as many institutions and individuals as we can.

When I came to Natan it was immediately apparent to me that we were part of something of real historical importance. Natan brings together two groups of people willing to break the mold: entrepreneurial Jewish leaders creating new access points to Jewish life, and risk-tolerant funders who want to give Jewishly in creative, collaborative ways. Their partnership -- through grantmaking, but also in building relationships with one another over the years -- has catalyzed and sustained dozens of groundbreaking new ideas for transforming Jewish communal life.

To tell that story, and to understand what it means in the sweep of Jewish (and American) history, you need to preserve documents. I couldn't be more thrilled, as a foundation professional and an historian, that Natan's papers will now be preserved at the AJHS.