By Csaba and Adrienn Kürti, ROI Micro Grant recipients

We came upon the call for NextGen Charity conference in ROI newsletter, which sounded great, especially because ROI members were offered special discount and also because Micro Grant could be used for this purpose. After exchanging some emails with No’a we booked the entries for the conference and the flight tickets. Fortunately, Hungary is also a visa free country, thus we did not have to bother with it.

NextGen Charity was a two-day event so we added a week to establish new connections for our Foundation and also to start our fundraising activity.

We first went to Bikkurim, which is in the building of the Jewish Federations of North America. We could not have found a better place for a start. We could get acquainted with representatives of a number of great Jewish organizations. We received a large number of advice and good idea.




Csaba Kürti, Nina Bruder (Executive Director of Bikkurim), Adrienn Kürti

The next time we visited the Foundation Center. After several hours of data search we realized it was getting dark outside. It is a great place which we can only recommend to everyone in need of data of Jewish and non-Jewish organizations. A pendrive comes in handy. And this is how three Hungarian ROIers meet in New York. We also met Patricia Eszter Margit and put our heads together how we could create a joint international programme.




Then it was the opening of NextGen. Steve Jobs would have shed tears at the sight of so many apples illuminating everywhere. But what else could have been expected in the Big Apple? A high-standard place with professional organization. Our ROI-er friends, Ari Teman and Jonah Halper did their best to make these two days unforgettable. We did not have time to eat in the intervals because we could meet so many interesting people, so we exchanged a large number of business cards and spread our brochures.


Evonne Marzouk and Adrienn Kürti


Jonah Halper (co-founder of NextGen:Charity), Ari Teman (co-founder of NextGen:Charity), Csaba Kürti and Adrienn Kürti

A few hours before the start of Sabbath NextGen was finished. Thus we had nothing else to do than get quickly prepared for it. Thanks to a friend of ours in New York we could have the noon meals at two extraordinary rabbis on Friday and Saturday in the Upper West Side. On Friday evening we went to the famous Carlebach synagogue whilst on Saturday we visited the first synagogue founded by Hungarians in the OZ: http://ozny.org.

Sunday was our last day which we spent on building connections. We had a very interesting meeting of several hours with Mr. David Moskovits, the head of the Hungarian Jewish World Organizations. Going there we experienced how big New York is.  We easily promised to pop over from Bronx to Flatbush. And all this on a Sunday, when the tubes are being maintained. We managed to get to our destination in three hours. And the way back was not shorter either. It is a big city indeed!

We got acquainted with a large number of interesting and precious people. We hope that this much work shall yield its fruit soon and our 9 year old organization shall find generous sponsors as well. We learnt a lot during this week about the structurre and the activities of American Jewish organizations, cultural differences and the huge role of the 3rd sector in America.

Thanks for ROI for the opportunity we have had.


Adrienn and Csaba Kürti