Innovators: Rachel Wasserman
Rachel Wasserman, executive director, Jewish Women’s Fund of Atlanta
Wasserman joined Jewish Women’s Fund of Atlanta as the part-time director in 2012, a few months after the organization launched. Now JWFA has more than 85 women as trustees, with the collective power to allocate the funds raised, and Wasserman has been named the full-time executive director, effective July 1.
JWFA is the only organization in Atlanta that focuses solely on social change for Jewish women and girls. The organization of and for women gave $100,000 to 15 programs in Atlanta and Israel in its grant cycle this spring.
To Wasserman, the difference between social service and social change is crucial. She understands social service as damage control — an attempt to diminish the effects of social problems. Social change entails solving those social problems.
“I think that the Federation and the Women’s Fund and other organizations are looking at the data and speaking to the necessary stakeholders,” Wasserman said, “so that we are serving what is actually there and not just our perceptions of what may or may not be happening.”
⇐Previous: Rebecca Stapel-Wax Next: Amy Sacks Zeide⇒
comments