2025 Organizational Restructure: All the details.
At a glance
For many years, Jewish Voice for Peace has operated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Five years ago, a sister organization was formed, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, a 501(c)(4).
501(c)(3) organizations and 501(c)(4) organizations are both not-for-profit organizations. The chief differences are twofold:
- A donation to a 501(c)(3) organization is tax-deductible, and a donation to a 501(c)(4) is not.
- And a 501(c)(4) organization has an expanded menu of strategies and tactics that they can engage in, including in the formal political arena. This includes elections (engaging in support and opposition of candidates), and an unrestricted amount of legislative work (supporting or defeating bills).
For many years, Jewish Voice for Peace has operated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Five years ago, a sister organization was formed, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, a 501(c)(4), also a nonprofit.
Recently, the JVP Action board moved to make its 501(c)(4) organization a membership-based organization, with an identical set of rights currently available to JVP 501(c)(3) members. This includes electing future board members. The vote included changing the public name to “Jewish Voice for Peace.” From a legal/tax perspective, it will be Jewish Voice for Peace Action doing business as “Jewish Voice for Peace.”
All members are urged to transfer their membership to Jewish Voice for Peace, the 501(c)(4). This will not change anything substantive about our political priorities of the percent of time the organization spends on these respective priorities — but it will loosen longstanding constraints on our ability to most effectively accomplish these priorities. A 501(c)(4) organization can do everything a 501(c)(3) can — and more. This would make us much more effective and cohesive, with the trade-off being that membership dues and other donations in JVP as a 501(c)(4) will not be tax-deductible. Tax-deductible donations can still be made to the 501(c)(3).
Members have overwhelmingly voted in support of changes to the current Jewish Voice for Peace, the 501(c)(3). Those changes will move forward and are enumerated below.
Vision for a restructured 501(c)(3)
The current 501(c)(3) organization will evolve into a supporter based organization, operating as the “JVP Leadership & Culture Lab (JVP LCL).”
In the service of growing anti-Zionist Judaism in solidarity with Palestine, the JVP LCL will provide: arts, culture, and ritual resources and programming alongside a robust leadership development and training program to grow the political education, strategic capacities and personal practice of anti-Zionist Jewish organizers.
Some projects the “JVP Leadership & Culture Lab” could pursue:
- Anti-Zionist Jewish ritual, art and cultural organizing projects that enliven and enrich organizing toward Palestinian liberation.
- Mini grants and capacity building training for groups seeding anti-zionist, diasporist cultural and ritual life (both outside orgs and inside JVP chapters and havurot, etc)
- Hold 3-4 major community events on Jewish holidays each year. Events to be culturally relevant for Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, build relationships, and reach and welcome new people into anti-Zionism. (eg: Mimouna, Egalitarian Sephardic services for High Holidays, Virtual Seders, etc)
- Convene leaders to help create, crowdsource, share, and collaborate on Jewish anti-Zionist ritual and cultural work
- Amplify synagogues, havurot, projects, organizations and opportunities within the wide eco-system of anti-Zionist Jewish life.
- Organize pastoral care offerings for grassroots organizers
- Rabbinic Council
- Havurah Network
- Develop a core curriculum of political education and organizing training to develop the leadership of a mutli-racial, cross-class, intergenerational base of anti-Zionist Jews that weaves in the concrete knowledge, analysis, and skills needed to organize for justice from the U.S. to Palestine. This includes:
- Political education
- Organizing skills
- Strategic capacities
- Personal practice, including growing resilience in the face of repression
- Support and grow collaborations with other political education and training organizations
- International training and convening for Jewish anti-Zionist organizers around the world
Moving your membership helps JVP evolve.
The political value of moving membership to a 501(c)(4) base-building organization
From the past twenty months, we have endless evidence of two things:
- There is unprecedented, mass support for Palestinians. Our movement has already grown larger, and more quickly, than many of us thought possible. But it’s clear we have not begun to tap our full potential.
- The U.S. government has not budged from its commitment to sponsor Israel’s genocide. Public polling and public displays of opposition alone will not shift US policy. Our movement must contend for real power.
Much of JVP’s work involves targeted boycott campaigns, exposing and isolating the funders of Israeli genocide and apartheid. But operating these campaigns as a 501(c)(3), we cannot explicitly make the connections between pro-Israel cultural and financial funders and the Democratic and Republican politicians that take their money, align with their goals, and advocate for their genocidal, pro-apartheid interests within the U.S. government. As a 501(c)(4), all these become possible.
The barriers between the work of JVP and JVP Action organizations will be removed. This has long been a challenge, creating silos and firewalls in our respective work that keep us from drawing clear connections between the political, electoral, cultural, and financial forces that uphold the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
The technical difference between a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4)
A 501(c)(4) organization can do everything a 501(c)(3) can. However, a 501(c)(3), such as JVP, cannot do everything that a 501(c)(4), such as JVP Action, can.
The chief difference is that 501(c)(4) organizations have an expanded menu of strategies and tactics that they can engage in, including in the formal political arena. This includes elections (engaging in support and opposition of candidates), and an unrestricted amount of legislative work (supporting or defeating bills).
Because 501(c)(4)s have a more expansive menu of options, JVP and JVP Action have been required to operate separately, despite sharing a goal of Palestinian freedom.
What a 501(c)(4) means for JVP members
The newly restructured 501(c)(4) organization will be a grassroots membership organization with all the rights and privileges of membership in our current 501(c)(3). JVP members are urged to confirm that they want to transfer their membership into the newly restructured 501(c)(4), and those who do so will have virtually nothing about their day-to-day experience in JVP change.
What will be changing:
1) JVP will have an expanded menu of strategies and tactics available.
2) Donations to JVP will no longer be tax exempt, and those looking for a tax-exempt donation should make one to the JVP Leadership & Culture Lab.
What a 501(c)(4) means for JVP chapters & pods
Overall, very little will change in the day-to-day of JVP local organizing. Chapters and pods will go through a process to join the new 501(c)(4) organization in the coming months. Once that happens, they will also be able to pursue a wider and more interconnected set of strategies and tactics, as is true for the entire organization.
There will be guidelines and processes around the new tactics opened up as a 501(c)(4) organization, including potential electoral endorsements, crafted in relation to local contexts and the expertise chapter leaders bring.
What a 501(c)(4) means for the JVP board
Under the proposed restructure, the 501(c)(4) will maintain an elected board as a membership organization, while the 501(c)(3) will operate with an appointed board as a supporter-based organization—mirroring our current setup, but with roles reversed. This ensures each organization has governance aligned with its function, while preserving your day-to-day member experience and your rights to provide input on our membership-based organization.
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