By Dan Brotman

In his 2012 State of the Nation address, President Jacob Zuma appealed to all South Africans to work with the government to solve the country’s three biggest challenges – unemployment, poverty and inequality. Little did the President know that the following day, an American philanthropist named Lynn Schusterman would come to Johannesburg to launch a first-ever gathering of the country’s top 50 young Jewish innovators who have dedicated their lives to improving South Africa.

In partnership with Sasfin Bank and the local non-profit Jewish Interactive, the aim of the gathering was to recognise the entrepreneurial spirit of South Africa’s young Jewish adults, and to create a space for them to meet one another and to collaborate on future projects.

Although South Africa’s Jewish community has halved in the past 30 years due to emigration, the event highlighted the important work being done by its creative and accomplished younger members. “Lynn is investing in the most important asset in the South African Jewish community”, said Seth Cohen of the Schusterman Foundation, “its young adults and their innovative minds and talent.” Last year, Johannesburg-based Guy Lieberman attended Lynn Schusterman’s annual ROI (Return on Investment) Summit in Jerusalem, which brings together 150 of the brightest and most dynamic young Jewish minds from around the world to share ideas and develop projects.

When Lieberman noticed that he was the only South African participant at the ROI Summit still living in South Africa, he decided to establish a similar gathering back home because “much of the vision and ethos behind ROI was missing in the South African community. I initiated the Young Jewish Innovators Gathering in order to start this conversation.”

For over 25 years, Lynn and her late husband Charles have funded a network of foundations that support young Jews throughout the world and initiatives that directly benefit their hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The 73-year old grandmother of six began to invest in Jewish causes the mid-1980s, after a close family member abandoned Judaism to become a Buddhist. “I have felt that if I do not get involved in trying to create the joy of Jewish living, giving and learning, then it is not going to happen.” Schusterman is also one of the founders of Taglit-Birthright Israel, the enormously successful programme which has brought over 250 000 Jews between the ages of 18-26 on a free ten-day trip to Israel to reconnect with their roots. She is passionate about inclusivity within the Jewish community, particularly of gay and lesbians and families where one parent is not Jewish.

Although Schusterman has allocated a substantial portion of her philanthropic largesse to Jewish causes, she has established programmes throughout Tulsa which encourage financial management, skills-training and education. Globally-focused and in-tune with the enormous challenges facing young people today, she is very concerned about youth unemployment, whether it be in Tulsa or Johannesburg. “You have to have an education in order to have job creation. Education is the key to everything”, she emphatically stated.

Schusterman puts her money where her mouth is, and has established a programme in Tulsa which teaches low-income residents how to file an earned income tax return, and then how to use it to make a down payment on a small home or to complete one’s secondary education. She also funds an eight-week course for pupils in Grades 3-5 that equips them with the skills they will eventually need in order to obtain a tertiary education. The programme’s greatest obstacle is parents who feel threatened by their child’s determination to be the first in their family to attend university.

The two keynote speakers at the gathering, one white and one black, recalled why and how they leveraged their relative privilege in order to empower marginalised communities. Shaka Sisulu is the 31 year-old grandson of struggle icon Walter Sisulu, and is the founder of Cheesekids. He recalled how privileged black children during the apartheid-era were called “cheese kids” by their peers because they could afford to bring cheese sandwiches to school. When Sisulu and his well-connected peers grew up and became wealthy through Black Economic Empowerment, he began to feel that he was not contributing enough to uplifting those whose standard of living did not improve in the post-1994 era.

In 2007, he started meeting regularly with other young black professionals to improve communities in the townships. He eventually left the business world to fully dedicate himself to running Cheesekids, which has grown to become an 8 500 member-strong volunteer organisation. Sisulu believes that discriminatory legislation that previously barred Jews from entering certain profession made them even more determined to succeed, which he dubs the “quantum leap”. Using Jewish people as a model, he hopes that previously disadvantaged South Africans will use their past as determination to succeed, rather than as an excuse to be demotivated.

“I do what I do because I am a Jew, and this is what Jews do”, said Ikamva Labantu founder Helen Lieberman, who was arrested by the police on numerous occasions during apartheid for working to improve the lives of township residents. Like Schusterman, she believes in supporting those who have a vision, without needing to take any personal credit for the work. Her motto is: “If you have a solution, and can teach it to me, I will help you make it happen.”

Lieberman once assisted a community to build a school for over 6 000 destitute children living in a sand dune. This school eventually became the Mavumba School in Crossroads, which was the first place Nelson Mandela visited after his release from prison. She measures standards by the metric: “If it is not good enough for me or my grandchild, then it is not good enough for anyone else.”
Lynn Schusterman has set the bar high for South African philanthropists and social entrepreneurs of all races to create initiatives which benefit the poor, incentivise further education, and bring young social entrepreneurs and innovators together to tackle the country’s greatest challenges. Her foundation’s model and ethos must be replicated here.

You can find out more about the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation at www.schusterman.org or on Twitter at @SchustermanFoun

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American philanthropist Lynn Schusterman and SA social entrepreneur Shaka Sisulu - Photo, Jason Crouse.jpg