On March 16, 2026, The Genesis Prize Foundation (GPF) and the Jewish Funders Network (JFN) issued a joint announcement that reframed what it means for a laureate to receive one of the world’s most prestigious Jewish honors. Gal Gadot, the 2026 Genesis Prize laureate, would not be keeping her $1 million award. She never intended to. Instead, GPF and the actress conceived a matching gifts initiative designed to direct those funds, and at least $1 million more from outside donors, toward the organizations and professionals working to restore psychological and social stability to Israeli communities still bearing the wounds of October 7, 2023, and the wars that followed.

The announcement, made jointly with the Jewish Funders Network at its annual conference in San Diego, confirmed that The Genesis Prize Foundation had committed $1 million to anchor the effort, with JFN members and additional philanthropic partners expected to contribute at least another $1 million through the matching structure. The result will be a minimum of $2 million for a program that both organizations hope will attract considerably more.

Gadot’s Words at the Laureate Announcement

When Gadot was first announced as the 2026 laureate last November, she was unambiguous about where the prize was going. “I am humbled to receive the Genesis Prize and to stand alongside the amazing laureates who came before me,” she said. “I am a proud Jew and a proud Israeli. I love my country and dedicate this award to the organizations that will help Israel heal and to those incredible people who serve on the front lines of compassion. Israel has endured unimaginable pain. Now we must begin to heal; to rebuild hearts, families, and communities.”

Those words set the terms for everything that followed. Since October 7, thousands of families have been directly affected by violence, displacement, and loss. Regional conflict has compounded the toll. Mental health professionals, social workers, educators supporting displaced children, and community leaders holding fragile neighborhoods together are, by most assessments, operating well beyond their institutional capacity.

The Case for Investing in Caregivers

The announcement framed the program’s logic plainly: long-term national recovery does not hinge on emergency relief alone. It depends on the sustained strength of the professionals providing the healing. Therapists treating trauma, educators working with children whose schooling has been fractured by war, social workers supporting bereaved families, and community organizers sustaining the connective tissue of neighborhoods; these are the people the initiative targets, and they are chronically underfunded relative to the scale of need.

The program’s priorities reflect this orientation. Organizations receiving grants will be expected to focus on training and developing frontline professionals, supporting caregiver well-being and retention, expanding the human capital pipeline in mental health and community care, and deploying tools that can help professional services reach more people more efficiently. The emphasis throughout is on sustainability and long-term structural impact rather than one-time interventions that fade as funding cycles close.

Stan Polovets, co-founder and chairman of The Genesis Prize Foundation, stated the investment thesis plainly in the official announcement: “The Genesis Prize recognizes and honors Jewish achievement, and channels that recognition into meaningful impact. In this moment, and in honoring Gal Gadot, the most urgent investment we can make is in Israel’s human infrastructure: the therapists, educators, and caregivers who sustain national resilience, helping communities heal from the trauma of October 7 and the ongoing conflict with Hezbollah.”

He added that partnering with the Jewish Funders Network was central to achieving that goal, because the collaboration allows the initiative to “mobilize philanthropy in a thoughtful, collaborative, and lasting way.”

How the Matching Structure Works

The mechanics of the grant program are worth understanding because they explain why the $2 million figure is a floor rather than a ceiling. NGOs seeking funds cannot simply apply to The Genesis Prize Foundation directly. They must first secure financial commitments from individual donors or foundations. Once those commitments are in hand, organizations may apply to have them matched by The Genesis Prize Foundation. 

The initiative’s design creates an incentive for new philanthropic activity rather than simply redistributing existing donor allocations. Organizations that secure new commitments from funders who might not otherwise have engaged with Israeli trauma recovery are, in effect, expanding the total pool of resources available. The match then doubles the value of each new dollar raised. Andres Spokoiny, president and CEO of JFN, described matching gifts as “one of the most powerful tools in philanthropy” precisely because of this dynamic, noting that they “inspire new giving, strengthen partnerships, and multiply impact.”

The model is also consistent with how Stan Polovets has approached Genesis Prize philanthropy across more than a decade of leadership. Since the foundation’s 2013 launch, it has leveraged matching grant programs to significantly extend the reach of its annual $1 million award. Those programs, administered in prior years through partnerships with JFN and Matan/United Way in Israel, have helped transform, over the past 12 years, the $1 million annual prize into more than $50 million in grants distributed to over 230 nonprofit organizations across 31 countries. 

A Laureate Tradition With Consistent Philanthropic DNA

For readers unfamiliar with how the Genesis Prize operates, the structure of Gadot’s initiative may seem unusual. Most prizes simply transfer funds to a winner. The Genesis Prize works differently. Every laureate since the inaugural 2014 honoree, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has chosen to forgo the financial award and directed the funds toward causes aligned with their philanthropic priorities.

Bloomberg channeled his prize into a global social entrepreneurship competition for young adults. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla funded the construction of a Holocaust museum in his ancestral hometown of Thessaloniki, Greece. Steven Spielberg matched his award with a personal million-dollar contribution and directed the combined funds toward racial and economic justice organizations. Barbra Streisand, honored as the 10th anniversary laureate, supported women’s health, climate action, truth in public discourse, and Ukrainian aid.

As a foundation co-founder who has spent more than a decade building this philanthropic model, Stan Polovets has described the prize as something beyond recognition of professional and personal achievement. It is, in his framing, a platform for laureates to convert personal achievement into community and philanthropic impact, and Gadot’s initiative is a direct expression of that philosophy.

What the Initiative Excludes, and Why That Matters

The joint announcement was careful to define the scope of the initiative in humanitarian rather than political terms. The program is not a response to any single military event. It addresses the cumulative trauma of October 7 and the conflicts that followed, framing Israel’s mental health crisis as a public health and social stability issue that requires sustained investment in professional infrastructure.

The foundation has consistently maintained that Genesis Prize awards are humanitarian in nature, not political statements. Stan Polovets has articulated this directly in previous statements, noting that the foundation does not seek to influence government policy. The framing of the Gadot initiative follows the same principle: funds will go to organizations serving people in Israel who are coping with war-related trauma and disruption, without religious qualification.

This positioning matters for the initiative’s ability to attract the broadest possible coalition of philanthropic partners. The Jewish Funders Network, as a global community of philanthropic leaders committed to values-driven and collaborative giving, is well-suited to steward this kind of coalition-building. Its role is not merely administrative. JFN connects funders across generations and geographies, and its involvement signals to prospective donors that the program is grounded in rigorous, collaborative philanthropic practice.

The Larger Stakes

The October 7 Hamas attacks, the hostage crisis, the subsequent regional escalation, and more than two years of sustained national stress have stretched that infrastructure to a breaking point that experts warn could take years to fully address. The professionals on the front lines of this response- the therapists, social workers, and educators that the Gadot initiative is designed to support- are not interchangeable with emergency relief workers. Training takes time. Institutional capacity takes years to build.

That is precisely what makes the timing and focus of this initiative significant. New funding will strengthen the training pipeline, support caregiver retention, and expand access to mental health services and produce returns for Israeli communities long after the immediate crisis has receded. The Genesis Prize Foundation and the Jewish Funders Network are, with this initiative, making a bet that strategic, sustained philanthropic investment in human infrastructure matters more in the long run than the sum of the dollars in any single grant cycle.

Stan Polovets has spent more than a decade proving that a well-designed philanthropic model can make a $1 million annual award behave like $50 million over time. The Gadot initiative is the latest test of that proposition, and it may be the most consequential one yet.

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