Home › Blog › Why I Give: Shards of Light Foundation
“To make change you have to be present and in an ongoing relationship with one’s community and with the populations you are working with,” says Isabel “Liz” Dunst, founder of the Shards of Light Foundation and longtime activist in the Greater Washington Jewish community. Driven by a passion for social justice, activism, and music, Liz launched her foundation in 2022 to support innovation in racial equity and justice, the arts and progressive Jewish community work both in the United States and in Israel. Liz wanted to help incubate innovative social change projects and support community organizations and leaders, as funding for these causes began to dry up.
photos courtesy of Shards of Light Foundation
The Shards of Light Foundation has developed a uniquely transparent and collaborative approach to giving, beginning with a development grant or seed funding for new innovative projects, allowing time and space for trial and error. Liz doesn’t require a focus on numbers but rather on smart and implementable innovation. Her funding allows extraordinary leaders and organizations both the time and the dollars to conceive, develop and then launch new projects. Once these new projects are up and running, tested and successful, it is much easier for the organizations behind them to find funding from the more traditional funding world to keep them going.
Liz also supports talented and visionary community leaders who find themselves struggling to put together the capital needed to operate their organizations or who struggle to find funding when the interests of traditional philanthropy shift. Examples of this type of support include the work of Rabbi Kendell Pinkney at The Workshop, and Zakiya Sankara-Jabar at Racial Justice NOW.
The Shards of Light Foundation reflects Liz’s guiding philosophy that donors must work to build trust with grantee partners and use their resources to empower new voices. She is passionate about pushing forward with new ideas and doing what she can to serve as God’s partner in repairing the world.
“To pursue equity and justice we must go beyond helping others. We must work with and across lines of difference. We must work to change the society that both created and sustains such inequity.”
Beyond writing a check, Liz spends much of her time assisting the Reform Jewish community to act on their Jewish
values and think about their engagement with the broader world. “The Reform Jewish Community must play an increasing role in the pursuit of social action and social justice as a central prophetic focus of belief and practice,” says Liz, who sits on the National Advisory Board of the Union for Reform Judaism and is the former chair of the Commission on Social Action for Reform Judaism.
Liz has spent her life engaged in civil rights and women’s issues. Today, Liz is interested in supporting the needs of women, Jews of Color and community leaders from marginalized communities. “Sometimes it is difficult to hear the truths of the next generation and to take a place of support, encouragement and assistance as they do the work required by the new realities of the day. The Shards of Light Foundation is dedicated to providing this kind of support.”
Past grant recipients include projects like Kumi at Moving Traditions, the Teen Jews of Color Fellowship at the Union for Reform Judaism, and the Clergy of Color Seminary Project at JOIN for Justice, as well as organizations such as the National Partnership for Women and Families, the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and Jews United for Justice.