TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – MARCH 20: An Israeli Fire Department crew man drives a fire truck before spraying disinfctants to sanitize the entrance to Tel Aviv’s Hospital Emergency Department on March 20, 2020 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Number of coronavirus in Israel continues to jump, after over 200 new cases have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images) JERUSALEM (JTA) — An emergency fund has been launched to help Israeli nonprofit organizations slammed by the coronavirus crisis stay afloat.
The Emergency Fund for Nonprofits is a joint project of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the nonprofit lender Ogen, formerly known as the Israel Free Loan Association. The project will provide consulting services and low-interest loans with no requirement for guarantors.
The initiative aims to operate throughout the coronavirus crisis, offering loans of up to about $110,000 for a period of up to 60 months, with a six-month grace period and without guarantors.
The money for the fund includes about $1 million each from philanthropic sources of the Jewish Agency and donors to Ogen. Ogen has allocated about $10 million in capital for the loans.
There are about 16,000 nonprofit organizations in Israel with hundreds of thousands of employees. They account for 16 percent of Israel’s labor force, according to the Jewish Agency.
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