Mazon head to broaden focus as new director of Koret

After 14 years leading Mazon: A Jewish Response for Hunger, founding director Irv Cramer is leaving the organization to take the helm of the S.F.-based Koret Foundation.

The new position will require Cramer to leave his longtime home, Los Angeles, where Mazon is based. Besides the new job, the Bay Area holds another draw for the 63-year-old Cramer. His children and grandson live here.

"If the Koret Foundation was in Omaha, they would have gotten a quick 'no,'" Cramer joked.

Mazon serves as a vehicle through which American Jews can combat hunger in the United States and abroad. Under Cramer's leadership, the organization went from distributing $20,000 in grants its first year to giving out an estimated $2.5 million in 1999.

While Mazon raises funds and give grants, Koret -- which with assets over $250 million is one of the largest Jewish-sponsored charitable trusts in the United States -- only does the latter.

Still, Cramer believes the two organizations share a common approach to giving. "The most important thing Mazon does is make very good grants," Cramer said. "They're well researched, well followed up on."

Koret does the same, said the organization's newly appointed executive director, who will start the job Aug. 1. "It's not just a matter of money, it's a matter of innovation, creativity.

"There's nothing lazy about the Koret Foundation. They could just say, 'Let's write a half-dozen checks,' but they have experienced program officers and a board of directors who care deeply about the direction of the grants."

While Mazon has a narrow focus, Koret has a much broader purview.

"Koret has a different idea -- an equally good one," Cramer said, "that nurturing a community is not always about poor and hungry people. It is important to care for the poor and hungry, but it's also about a modern museum. It's job training, but it's also a park."

Since 1979, Koret has awarded more than $150 million in grants to support educational institutions and projects in the Jewish and secular communities.

Among his goals for the organization, Cramer hopes to see Koret working in tandem with other private foundations across the country. Tad Taube, Koret's president, notes that Cramer brings to the job a strong background in forming national partnerships.

A second-generation resident of Los Angeles, Cramer attended UCLA and served in the U.S. Army stationed in Germany.

Prior to his career in the nonprofit sector, he worked as a partner in his family insurance business and co-founded a business group that aided the Los Angeles community of Watts following the devastating riots of 1965.

Founding Mazon, he took his concern for social action to a new level. The organization has twice received national service awards.

"It's grown enormously," Cramer said. This year, he estimated, 50,000 people will make contributions. "I've been fond of saying I'm more interested in the number of checks than the number on the checks. I want community participation."

Cramer will stay in close touch with the organization through his wife, Susan Cramer. She will continue in her current position as Mazon's executive director, working from the Bay Area. The couple has purchased a home in the Berkeley Hills.

Cramer will replace Michael Papo, who now works for Israel Experience-Birthright, a New York-based organization dedicated to increasing the number of North American youth traveling to Israel.

Accepting Papo's position was one of the biggest decisions Cramer has ever had to make, he said.

"I'm going from something with regret to something with a sense of excitement and challenge. Joining the Koret Foundation means becoming part of the history of Jewish philanthropy in America."