Yivo Institute For Jewish Research, Inc.

To elevate Jewish historical consciousness and build community identity by documenting, preserving and perpetuating the legacy of East European and Russian Jewish culture globally by: Ensuring the survival and accessibility of the historical records of Jewish civilization in Eastern Europe for future generations; Providing unique and invaluable resources for general, Jewish, and Holocaust education; Digitizing millions of documents from 1,000 years of Jewish history; Maintaining its team of outstanding teachers and scholars; Funding scholarships for students around the globe to study at YIVO; Providing research fellowships for scholars and experts in the field of Jewish studies; and Developing innovative new course materials, online resources, exhibitions and programs.

Archival and library preservation and public access projects; public outreach and community building; education; public programs; publishing; promoting research and scholarship; exhibitions and online courses and other resources; partnerships and scholarly exchange with other institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

YIVO has an annual operating budget of $3.5 million and a full-time staff of 38 professionals. Founded in Vilna, Poland, in 1925, YIVO amassed the largest collection of materials on East European and Russian Jewish life in the world. Today, as the largest surviving repository of European Jewish material culture in the world, YIVO is regarded as the epicenter of East European and Russian Jewish scholarship and education. YIVO has redesigned and upgraded its website, created an online archive and library, and has developed an online educational program to reach a global constituency. Funding for such programs has grown significantly over the past 5 years and today YIVO devotes over 70% of annual revenues to programs.

Over the past 5 years, YIVO has balanced its budget and significantly increased funding for programs (see above); in 2015, YIVO initiated the largest digitization project in its history—the 7-year, $7.0 million project to preserve and digitize YIVO's prewar archives and library, known as the Vilna Collection; In the last four years, YIVO has raised $6.0 of the $7.0 million dollars ahead of schedule; YIVO is now a partner with institutions in Israel, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Bard College, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and numerous other institutions in the U.S.; YIVO has expanded and renewed its board of trustees and continues to search for resources to expand operations globally and at the same time to reach its full potential in the U.S.