Yael Eckstein inherited the largest Christian-to-Jewish philanthropic operation in history. What it is, how it works, and what happens next.
Quick answer: The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ, EIN 36-3256096) reported $318.2 million in revenue for fiscal year 2024, about three times its FY2011 level and 2.7 times its FY2019 level, according to its Form 990. Net assets reached $208.2 million, up from $32.1 million in FY2019. Executive compensation was $2.3 million, or 0.9% of expenses. Yael Eckstein has led IFCJ since 2019.
Original Olam research and analysis. The multi-year series, growth multiples and ratios in this article are Olam's own calculations from IFCJ's IRS Form 990 filings for fiscal years 2011 to 2024. Dollar figures are as reported to the IRS. Items labeled "Olam analysis" were calculated by Olam and do not appear in the filings. Descriptions of IFCJ's donor base and programs that are not in the filings are attributed or flagged as not independently verified.
Yael Eckstein inherited the largest Christian-to-Jewish philanthropic operation in history. What it is, how it works, and what the filings show about what happens next.
How big is IFCJ?
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews raises more money from American Christians for Israel and the Jewish people than any organization in history. Its Form 990 shows revenue of $318.2 million for fiscal year 2024, up from $271.5 million in FY2023 and $227.6 million in FY2022. After October 7, 2023, that number went up again. The organization has been led since 2019 by Yael Eckstein, who inherited the job from her father.
Yael Eckstein took over IFCJ in 2019 after the sudden death of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein. The transition was not standard nonprofit succession. It was the handoff of a single-founder operation built over thirty-six years to a daughter who had been working inside it for most of her adult life.
IFCJ at a Glance: FY2024 Form 990
| Metric | FY2024 |
|---|---|
| Total Revenue | $318,221,645 |
| Total Expenses | $271,969,491 |
| Net Income | $46,252,154 |
| Total Assets | $232,978,617 |
| Total Liabilities | $24,741,393 |
| Net Assets | $208,237,224 |
| Contributions | $307,494,912 (96.6% of revenue) |
| Executive Compensation | $2,338,021 (0.9% of expenses) |
| Professional Fundraising Fees | $7,378,866 (2.7% of expenses) |
| EIN | 36-3256096 |
Source: International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Form 990 for fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, filed November 4, 2025. Read the full filing history on ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer.
Olam Analysis: What do 14 years of IFCJ's Form 990s show?
Original Olam research. The table shows figures as reported on each Form 990, FY2011 to FY2024.
| Fiscal year | Revenue | Expenses | Net income | Net assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2011 | $106,697,118 | $106,024,789 | $672,329 | $12,325,019 |
| FY2012 | $113,514,939 | $111,025,093 | $2,489,846 | $14,749,907 |
| FY2013 | $110,420,710 | $110,320,544 | $100,166 | $15,366,606 |
| FY2014 | $129,365,212 | $106,830,558 | $22,534,654 | $31,982,829 |
| FY2015 | $132,849,397 | $125,276,144 | $7,573,253 | $38,288,026 |
| FY2016 | $131,121,389 | $132,119,979 | -$998,590 | $34,831,533 |
| FY2017 | $121,344,142 | $134,425,717 | -$13,081,575 | $24,368,009 |
| FY2018 | $119,972,709 | $116,658,401 | $3,314,308 | $24,623,100 |
| FY2019 | $118,135,872 | $114,888,541 | $3,247,331 | $32,101,440 |
| FY2020 | $157,576,361 | $131,647,635 | $25,928,726 | $60,935,265 |
| FY2021 | $219,904,132 | $176,771,575 | $43,132,557 | $106,125,253 |
| FY2022 | $227,606,421 | $229,072,709 | -$1,466,288 | $95,857,853 |
| FY2023 | $271,477,446 | $227,725,768 | $43,751,678 | $146,998,699 |
| FY2024 | $318,221,645 | $271,969,491 | $46,252,154 | $208,237,224 |
Source: IFCJ Form 990 filings, FY2011 to FY2024. Table layout by Olam.
Olam analysis: ten findings from the filings
- A flat decade, then a step change: Revenue stayed between $106.7 million and $132.8 million from FY2011 through FY2019. It then rose 169% in five years, from $118.1 million in FY2019 to $318.2 million in FY2024.
- Three times its 2011 size: FY2024 revenue is 3.0 times FY2011 and 2.4 times the pre-2020 peak of $132.8 million (FY2015).
- The pandemic and Ukraine years: Revenue jumped 33% in FY2020 and another 40% in FY2021, reaching $219.9 million, before the October 7 period.
- The October 7 surge continued: Revenue rose 19% in FY2023 and 17% in FY2024, and FY2022 to FY2024 revenue is up 40%.
- Reserves grew sixfold: Net assets rose from $32.1 million in FY2019 to $208.2 million in FY2024, about 6.5 times, and 2.2 times in the two years since FY2022.
- Five years of surpluses: Net income from FY2020 through FY2024 totals about $157.6 million, with one small loss in FY2022 ($1.5 million).
- Nine months of cushion: FY2024 net assets equal about 9.2 months of FY2024 expenses.
- Spending more than doubled: FY2024 expenses of $272.0 million are 2.4 times FY2019's $114.9 million.
- Leverage fell: Liabilities were 40% of assets in FY2019 and 11% in FY2024.
- Disclosure flags: The filings flag Schedule L conflict-of-interest transactions in 10 of the 12 years from FY2013 through FY2024, and first-class or charter travel in FY2022, FY2023 and FY2024. A flag means a disclosure exists, not that anything improper occurred.
Who founded IFCJ?
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein founded IFCJ in 1983 in Chicago. He was an Orthodox rabbi by training and saw something none of his contemporaries in either community took seriously at the time: American Christian evangelicals, millions of them, had developed strong theological and personal commitments to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people, and there was no formal channel translating that commitment into operational support.
He built one.
The breakthrough product was direct-mail fundraising into evangelical households. Eckstein partnered with Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, then with hundreds of churches and Christian radio outlets. The proposition was simple: send money, and we will deliver it to Holocaust survivors, to elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union, to new immigrants arriving in Israel.
It worked. Then it scaled. The filings show revenue above $106 million as early as FY2011 and above $130 million by FY2015 (Olam analysis). IFCJ has described its donor base as large numbers of small individual gifts from American evangelical Christians. The Form 990 does not break donors down by religion or gift size, so Olam has not independently verified that description.
Rabbi Eckstein died in February 2019 at the age of sixty-seven.
How did the succession go?
Yael Eckstein had been with IFCJ in various capacities since her early twenties. The filings trace the ladder: Senior Vice President in FY2014 to FY2017, Executive Vice President in FY2018, then President and CEO. Her father had visibly groomed her.
The skepticism was real and predictable. Daughter-of-founder transitions in nonprofits frequently fail. The donor base was emotionally attached to the founder. The Christian partner ecosystem was personally attached to the founder. The Israeli recipient organizations were institutionally attached to the founder.
The filings show the opposite of contraction. Revenue was $118.1 million in FY2019, the year of the transition, and $318.2 million five years later. The Christian partner network has held, according to the organization. Yael Eckstein has become a public figure in her own right, with an Israeli media presence, a US evangelical media presence, and a regular role on the Christian Zionist platforms her father pioneered.
What does IFCJ's leadership earn?
| Executive | FY2024 Compensation | Other |
|---|---|---|
| Yael Eckstein-Farkas, President and CEO | $792,254 | $138,844 |
| Robin Van Etten, Global Chief Operating Officer | $368,149 | $110,023 |
| Laurel Simkovich, VP of Finance | $285,383 | $76,277 |
| Lucas Puzan, Chief Information Officer | $257,831 | $70,151 |
| Tewahedo Seyoum, Senior Director of Information Services | $187,978 | $41,326 |
| Kristin Henning, Senior Director of Finance | $176,106 | $53,467 |
Board Chair Bishop Paul Lanier, Secretary and Treasurer Jr Dupell and the other listed directors, including Michele Bachmann, David Clark, Steven Hefter, Johnnie Moore, Suzanne Peyser and Jacob Schimmel, received no compensation, per the FY2024 Form 990.
Olam analysis: CEO pay against revenue
| Fiscal year | CEO compensation plus other | Revenue | CEO pay as a share of revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2020 | $696,072 | $157,576,361 | 0.44% |
| FY2021 | $776,301 | $219,904,132 | 0.35% |
| FY2022 | $797,547 | $227,606,421 | 0.35% |
| FY2023 | $769,244 | $271,477,446 | 0.28% |
| FY2024 | $931,098 | $318,221,645 | 0.29% |
Yael Eckstein's pay rose 34% from FY2020 to FY2024 while revenue rose 102%. The executive compensation pool as a whole rose 76% over the same period, from $1,332,034 to $2,338,021, and held at 0.9% to 1.0% of expenses. Professional fundraising fees fell from 4.2% of expenses in FY2020 to 2.7% in FY2024 (Olam analysis). The FY2019 filing, which covers the year of the founder's death, reports compensation of $3,571,922 for Rabbi Eckstein. The extracted data does not itemize that figure, and Schedule J of the filing is where such payments are disclosed.
How does IFCJ compare with other Olam 990 profiles?
Original Olam research. The table benchmarks IFCJ against the other Israel-focused charities Olam has analyzed from Form 990 data.
| Organization | Latest revenue analyzed | Executive compensation as a share of expenses |
|---|---|---|
| IFCJ | $318.2 million (FY2024) | 0.9% |
| Birthright Israel Foundation | $74.3 million (FY2024) | 5.3% |
| American Friends of Leket Israel | $22.8 million (FY2024) | 1.4% |
| ORT America | $16.9 million (FY2025) | 2.6% (5.4% in FY2024) |
| Nefesh B'Nefesh USA | $11.4 million (FY2024) | 2.4% |
| One Family Fund | $5.5 million (FY2024) | 2.7% |
IFCJ's revenue is more than four times Birthright's and its executive pay share is the lowest of the group. A larger budget spreads the same senior salaries over more spending, so the ratio reflects scale as well as pay.
What are IFCJ's programs?
The Jerusalem operation handles program delivery. According to IFCJ, Operation Promised Land charters flights for Aliyah, working in formal partnership with the Jewish Agency. The food program runs through Israeli food banks. The Holocaust survivor support program operates through case workers and direct payments. The post-October 7 emergency programs put cash, equipment, and aid into the field within weeks of the attack.
Yael Eckstein has expanded program scope without diluting the core: Ukraine response after February 2022, emergency response after October 7, 2023, and expansion of food security operations as Israeli food insecurity has worsened. The Form 990 summary data does not itemize program spending by recipient, and the full schedules are linked from ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer.
What happened to giving after October 7?
October 7 changed the fundraising chart. IFCJ's revenue was $227.6 million in FY2022, $271.5 million in FY2023 and $318.2 million in FY2024, a combined increase of $90.6 million over two years (Olam analysis). The organization says it recorded the largest emergency response in its history and record single-day giving days, and that Christian donor activation was immediate and at scale.
The surge was not a one-quarter event. Elevated giving continued through the war and into FY2024, the latest year published. The operational response moved fast: emergency aid into southern Israel within days, equipment for displaced families, support for reservist families, and continued food security operations as supply chains were disrupted.
What is the governance question?
For an organization this large, IFCJ is unusually founder-shaped. The board exists and governance is disclosed. By the technical metrics of nonprofit transparency, the organization is in good standing: full 990 disclosures, public annual reports, and high marks from Charity Navigator.
The institution remains personally identified with the Eckstein family in a way that is structurally important and rarely discussed publicly. The Christian donor base gives in part because of the relationship with the Eckstein brand, and the Israeli recipient organizations work with IFCJ in part because of the relationship with the Eckstein family. The transition from Rabbi Eckstein to Yael Eckstein worked partly because she carried the name.
The institutional question that follows: what does the organization look like after the founder-family generation? Planning around an eventual transition to non-family leadership is not publicly visible. For an organization moving more than $300 million a year, with operational dependencies for major Israeli institutions, the long-run governance design is a serious question. This is not a critique of current leadership. It is a structural observation: founder-shaped nonprofits at this scale generally have two phases, the founder phase and what comes after, and IFCJ is still in phase one.
What is the ten-year question?
IFCJ's most reliable donors are described as older white evangelical Christians, and public polling indicates that younger evangelicals are less attached to Israel than the cohort they would have to replace. The Form 990 does not report donor age, so Olam treats this as context from outside the filings, not a finding of this analysis.
IFCJ has invested in younger Christian audience development, including partnerships with younger evangelical media and digital acquisition aimed at audiences who do not respond to direct mail. Whether any of it generates a donor cohort at the scale required to replace an aging base is the open question of the next ten years. The filings do show the cushion the organization has built: $208.2 million in net assets, about nine months of spending.
If replacement does not happen at sufficient scale, the revenue line will move, and the Israeli institutions that depend on it will feel the change. Aliyah operations, food banks, Holocaust survivor support and emergency response capacity are all partly underwritten by the IFCJ pipeline, according to the recipient organizations' own annual reports.
What does this mean for the Jewish economy?
For Olam readers thinking about the Jewish economy structurally, three observations matter.
- IFCJ is the single most important institution in the Christian-to-Jewish funding architecture. At $318.2 million in FY2024 revenue, it is more than four times the size of Birthright Israel Foundation. Any map of the Israel funding economy that does not put IFCJ in the top tier of philanthropic vehicles is incomplete.
- The operational dependencies are real. Israeli food security, immigrant absorption and emergency response capacity carry meaningful IFCJ inputs, documented in recipient organizations' own annual reports.
- The institution is at peak influence and faces a generational design question at the same time. Yael Eckstein has handled the founder transition. The harder transition, from family brand to institutional brand, has not yet been tested at scale.
IFCJ is, in the most direct sense, the institutional bridge between two communities whose theological and political interests have aligned for two generations. The next decade decides whether it carries the same weight forward.
Frequently Asked Questions About IFCJ
How much revenue does IFCJ report?
IFCJ reported $318,221,645 in revenue for fiscal year 2024 on its Form 990, up from $271,477,446 in FY2023 and $227,606,421 in FY2022. That is about three times its FY2011 revenue of $106.7 million (Olam analysis).
How much does the IFCJ CEO earn?
Yael Eckstein-Farkas, President and CEO, received $792,254 in reportable compensation and $138,844 in other compensation in fiscal year 2024, a total of $931,098, which is 0.29% of revenue (Olam analysis).
How large are IFCJ's net assets?
Net assets were $208,237,224 at the end of FY2024, up from $32.1 million in FY2019, about 6.5 times (Olam analysis of Form 990 data).
Did IFCJ disclose conflicts of interest or first-class travel?
The filings flag Schedule L conflict-of-interest transactions in 10 of the 12 years from FY2013 through FY2024, and first-class or charter travel for key employees or officers in FY2022, FY2023 and FY2024. A flag means a disclosure exists, and the details are in the full schedules.
Is this analysis original research?
Yes. Figures are as reported on IFCJ's Form 990 filings. The growth multiples, percentage changes, ratios and peer comparison labeled "Olam analysis" are Olam's own calculations from those figures.
Where can I read IFCJ's tax filings?
Form 990 filings for IFCJ (EIN 36-3256096) are public on ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer.
Sources
Financial figures come from IFCJ's IRS Form 990 filings for fiscal years 2011 through 2024 via ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, verified on October 22, 2026. All growth multiples, percentage changes and ratios labeled "Olam analysis" are Olam's own calculations. Program descriptions and donor-base characterizations come from IFCJ's public statements and annual reports and the Jewish Agency for Israel's annual reports, and are not independently verified by Olam. Context on evangelical attitudes toward Israel draws on Pew Research, Barna Group and Lifeway Research polling.
How we report: Olam stories draw on public filings, company disclosures and named sources, checked by our editors. Read our methodology · Corrections
