Israel Excellence Week 2023-2025

In May 2022, immediately after Israel’s Independence Day, and following intensive preparations, the foundation launched the first Israel Excellence Week. The idea was to collaborate with a variety of organizations and to jointly recognize and celebrate Israeli excellence in a series of professional and public events. When we started the initiative, we did not know how it would be received so we organized 160 individual meetings with potential partners. In these meetings we presented the concept and asked them to join us by initiating a public event which would demonstrate the value of excellence in their organization.

We were surprised by the level of enthusiasm we encountered. A total of 130 organizations, such as Intel, Amdocs, the Israel Olympics Committee, Rimon School of Music, Bnei Akiva youth movement, Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education and the Israel Children’s Museum, arranged a total of 250 events, taking place from the north of the country through Eilat in the south. The organizations opened their doors to the public, free of charge, offering workshops, lectures, tours, panel discussions and shows. We uploaded all the events on a designated virtual map, inviting the public to register and come. Many thousands participated in these events, including families, children and the elderly.

In order to publicize and create buzz around the approaching week, we collaborated with TV Channel 12 which created special adverts announcing Israel Excellence Week and pointing to the map of events. Channel 12 also invited models of excellence to share their stories with the public in special interviews. They included former Olympic gymnast Neta Rivkin and Naomi Stuchiner, winner of the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement and founder of Beit Issie Shapiro. In addition, a challenging riddle was developed by Dan Chamizer focusing on values of excellence that attracted hundreds of participants.

To support these activities, we cooperated with Mako, a digital platform through which four million Israelis were exposed to content about the Excellence Week. We also posted information about the events on social media, receiving 3,500,000 views. Following the week, 94% of the participating organizations indicated they would like to participate once again if Excellence Week were held the next year.

We feel proud and satisfied with the results and we are therefore proposing that the foundation assists the continuation of this initiative. We are suggesting that we do not take sole responsibility for funding and execution, hence we will seek partners who would gradually take the lead on this initiative. In the coming months, we are planning to conduct meetings with potential partners and together to prepare the program for next year, as well as an operational and financial plan for the next three years. Once the partnership and the operational plans are prepared, we will update the BOD with the details.

* The text presented above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation Board / Grant 498