For decades, Israeli philanthropy followed a fairly predictable pattern. Families that had built their fortunes in industry, real estate, and commerce donated to cultural institutions, hospitals, universities, or nonprofit organizations they knew well. Giving generally came at the end of the process: first, you accumulated wealth, and then you decided how much of it to give back to society.
In recent years, however, Israel has produced a new generation of wealthy individuals. They did not inherit factories or family empires. They built companies in software, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. They had exits at 35 or 40 - sometimes even earlier - and found themselves managing hundreds of millions of shekels almost overnight.
Along with the money, their approach has changed as well. For many of them, philanthropy is no longer a one-off act of writing a check at the end of the year. It has become an integral part of wealth management. They donate shares rather than cash, time their giving around liquidity events, assess social returns much as they would financial returns, and sometimes manage their philanthropic budgets using the same methods they once applied to running a start-up or an investment fund.
This shift is still taking place largely out of the public eye. There are no press conferences or lavish donation ceremonies. Yet it is gradually reshaping the relationship between private wealth and civil society in Israel. One-off donations are giving way to long-term mechanisms; intuitive decisions are being replaced by financial planning, strategy, and measurement.
At the heart of this transformation is Maya Natan Mozer, founder and CEO of Keshet, one of Israel’s largest donor-advised funds. “The motivation is values-driven,” she says. “But ultimately, this is money, and money has to be handled carefully and with a great deal of respect for the effort that went into earning it. We’re not just doing good. There is an entire economy here.”
That statement reflects a profound change in thinking. For years, philanthropy operated almost separately from the world of finance. Donations were seen as a moral act, while wealth management belonged to the business world. For Natan Mozer, that distinction is no longer relevant. “The nonprofit sector is enormous. It employs hundreds of thousands of people and involves tens, even hundreds, of billions of shekels. Over the years, I saw gaps in planning, financial understanding, and strategy. Questions such as how to give the money, when to give it, and even which assets make the most sense to donate were hardly being asked.”
Keeping money at work
That realization is precisely what led to the model Keshet operates today, based on donor-advised funds (DAFs) - a long-established and widely used mechanism in the United States that has only recently begun gaining momentum in Israel. Instead of waiting until after a company is sold or an asset has been fully liquidated, donors can contribute shares or other assets to the fund at an earlier stage. The fund liquidates the asset and manages the proceeds until they are distributed. If the donor chooses, the funds can also be reinvested, with any returns generated earmarked for philanthropic purposes as well.
“You make two decisions,” Natan Mozer explains. “The first is which nonprofits the money will go to and at what pace. The second is whether, while the money is still held by the fund, you want us to reinvest it. If you do, the returns go back into your philanthropy. In other words, time itself begins working for your donation.”
In other words, the money doesn’t simply sit in an account. It keeps working.
“Exactly. It is an approach that looks more like managing an investment portfolio than traditional charitable giving, and that is no coincidence. Planning itself makes giving much smarter: you maximize the tax benefits, the ability of the money to generate additional funds for philanthropy, and ultimately the impact of the donation.”
This is where one of the clearest distinctions emerges between Israel’s older generation of philanthropists and the one that grew out of the country’s high-tech sector. Technology entrepreneurs do not enter philanthropy as a blank slate. They bring with them habits developed in the business world: measurement, planning, oversight, data-driven decision-making, and long-term thinking. Even when giving money away, they ask many of the same questions they asked as entrepreneurs: What is the objective? How do we measure success? Can we create greater impact with the same budget? And how do we make sure the money reaches exactly where it was intended to go?
Keshet sees this change every day. Roughly half of its donors come from the high-tech industry - entrepreneurs, senior executives, and investors - and they bring with them an entirely different vocabulary. It is not necessarily the language of charity, but rather the language of resource allocation. “I think their awareness of donating shares is much higher,” Natan Mozer says. “They live in a world where equity isn’t just a financial instrument; it is part of their everyday language. When they reach an IPO, an exit, or a secondary sale, they understand much more quickly that shares can also be donated - and that sometimes this is the best way to engage in philanthropy.”
Philanthropy as entrepreneurship
The scale of Keshet’s activity illustrates just how significant this model has already become in Israeli philanthropy. Since its establishment, the fund has raised more than NIS 1.5 billion in donations and commitments, including approximately NIS 420 million in 2025 alone, a record year for the organization. To date, some NIS 900 million has been distributed through Keshet to more than 2,000 nonprofits and social organizations across Israel, while approximately half of the donors using the fund come from the high-tech sector.
These figures demonstrate that the shift from occasional giving to the strategic management of philanthropic capital is no longer a marginal phenomenon. It is a growing trend.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this quiet revolution is that the new philanthropy does not begin once the money has reached a bank account. It begins while the wealth still exists on paper - in shares, options, and holdings that have yet to be realized. That was also one of the less-discussed implications of reports surrounding the Wiz deal. While most of the public focused on the size of the exit and the billions involved, something else caught the attention of the philanthropic world: some of the shares had already been transferred to a philanthropic fund before the deal was completed. When their value soared, so did the resources available to fund social causes.
In that sense, philanthropy is not merely a consequence of becoming wealthy. It is part of planning for wealth itself. Yet despite the popular image of the “new millionaire,” Natan Mozer refuses to paint them all with the same brush. “They are very diverse,” she says. “I can’t say there is one thing that characterizes all of them. It depends on the home you grew up in, the education you received, and the values you brought with you.”
And yet, do you see any recurring patterns?
“There are those whose entrepreneurial spirit is just as strong in the nonprofit sector. They take what they loved doing in high-tech - building, creating, solving problems - and bring that same mindset into the social sector.”
Many entrepreneurs want to understand how a nonprofit operates, which metrics it tracks, how it measures success, and where it expects to be three or five years down the road. In some cases, they sit on steering committees, connect nonprofits with professionals, or open doors for them in the business world. Money is only one of the contributions they bring to the table.
“Some people genuinely want to remain anonymous,” Natan Mozer says. “They still don’t feel comfortable with the labels people attach to them. Coming into significant wealth is not just a financial transition; it’s a psychological one as well. Sometimes it takes five or six years to adjust to it without letting it change who you are.”
When the division of responsibility broke down
If one event accelerated the transformation of philanthropy in Israel, it was October 7. “The volume of donations increased on a scale I can hardly describe,” Natan Mozer says. “We had never seen anything like it here since the establishment of the state.” In the initial months, enormous sums flowed toward almost every need emerging on the ground: equipment, emergency solutions, civilian initiatives, and local projects.
But after the initial shock came a period of reassessment. “We need to think carefully about what philanthropy’s role should be during an emergency - and what it should not be,” she says. “I am absolutely in favor of helping, and I believe it is our role to help. But in a functioning country, there is a division of responsibility between the government, the private sector, and civil society. During the first months of the war, that division became somewhat distorted.”
Is mental health one of the areas that has undergone the most significant change?
“Mental health was barely a philanthropic field in Israel before. It was viewed as something the State of Israel was supposed to handle. After the war, that changed completely. Since then, treatment for survivors of the October 7 massacre, reservists, bereaved families, and people suffering from trauma has become one of the leading causes supported by Israel’s new philanthropists.”
At the same time, another trend has emerged: investing in the future of the very industry from which many of these donors came. “Many of them want to preserve the resilience of Israeli high-tech,” Natan Mozer says. “They invest in education, in bringing more women into the industry, in creating opportunities for new populations, and in expanding the talent pool.”
The fact that roughly half of Keshet’s donors come from high-tech is not merely an internal statistic. It reflects a broader shift in the Israeli economy: the center of wealth creation has moved. “That figure tells us that the pace of wealth creation in Israel is among the highest in the world,” Natan Mozer says. “It tells us that every year more new millionaires are being created, and it also tells us that economic inequality is growing. But it tells us something positive as well: among the newly wealthy, there is an awareness of the need to give back.”
How does Israel compare with the rest of the world?
“In the United States, donor-advised funds have long been an integral part of wealth management for affluent families. For many investment advisers, accountants, and lawyers, the question is not whether to establish a philanthropic vehicle, but how. In Israel, by contrast, that conversation is still in its infancy.”
Even when entrepreneurs want to give, however, they still encounter a regulatory system that has not caught up with the new reality. The first obstacle is Israel’s limit on tax credits for large charitable donations. “In almost no other Western country is there a cap like this, while here the limit is NIS 10 million,” Natan Mozer says. “From my perspective, that restriction significantly reduces people’s ability to make major philanthropic commitments. The state collects most of the tax in any case. The question is simply whether it allows a small portion of it to be directed through civil society.”
The second obstacle relates to something Israel does not have. “Many countries have an inheritance tax. I’m not taking a position on whether that is ideologically right or wrong, but it does create an incentive to plan the transfer of wealth - including its philanthropic component - in advance.” In Israel, such planning is less common. As a result, fewer wealthy individuals think of philanthropy as part of their family’s long-term wealth planning.
Natan Mozer argues that nonprofits themselves must also recognize that the world is changing. “In the past, they mainly asked for cash donations. Today, they need to know how to accept shares, options, and other assets as well. If a nonprofit has avoided asking for shares because it didn’t know how to handle them, we tell them: ‘Don’t give up on the donor. We’ll handle the procedure.’”
This will be one of the major challenges of the coming years. Nonprofits will have to learn to speak to entrepreneurs in a language they understand. It will no longer be enough simply to ask for a donation. Organizations will need to understand how an exit works, what a lock-up period means, how employee stock options function, and how to build a relationship with an entrepreneur who has not yet sold the company but already wants to begin planning future giving. In that sense, fundraising is beginning to look increasingly like raising investment capital.
“I always say there is very little difference between a start-up going on a roadshow and a nonprofit trying to raise money,” Natan Mozer concludes. “In both cases, you need to find the right people, present a vision, deal with a great many ‘no’s,’ - and keep going.”