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As part of a new youth philanthropy team, Jewish teenagers in Middlesex County will make the types of budgetary decisions usually reserved for high-level officers at nonprofit organizations.

Starting in November, a select group of 8th through 10th graders will take part in The Jewish Youth Philanthropy Team, or J.Team, of the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County.

Each student contributes $125 to the J.Team fund, matched by the federation and double-matched by the Karma Foundation, for a total of $500. Once the money is pooled, the team will meet once a month during the school year to learn the ins and outs of nonprofit agencies, receive pitches from organizations at round-robin sessions, and reach a collective decision on where to allocate their funds.

J.Team already has 20 students on board and aims to reach 40 through an application process that includes an essay and a personal interview, said Neshama Marcus, J.Team’s facilitator and a graduate student in social work at Rutgers University.

“The goal is to empower the kids and to teach them that they are really the leaders of tomorrow, and that in order to make an impact, not only do you need the funds, you also need group cohesion,” Marcus said. “This program aims for both philanthropy and group cohesion.”

The students’ contributions to J.Team are not coming from their parents, Marcus said, but instead contributing funds from their bar or bat mitzvah projects, bar or bat mitzvah gifts, or any other methods of collection they choose.

In the federation’s 2008 demographic study, 35 percent of respondents under the age of 35 donated only to Jewish charities, 13 percent only to non-Jewish charities, and 28 percent to both. Regarding community service, 26 percent under age 35 volunteered for Jewish organizations and 36 percent for non-Jewish groups. Both areas indicate how the younger generation is contributing less to the community than their predecessors, Marcus said.

While teenagers take part in advocacy and social action projects for their bar or bat mitzvahs and can be passionate about a few different causes, they usually aren’t aware of how organizations run on a budget and need adequate funding in order to achieve their goals, Marcus explained. The goal of J.Team is for teenagers to understand the impact of philanthropy on their community, she said.

“I don’t think that we are going to be instilling passion in the kids, I think that they each have a passion for their own individual interests,” Marcus said.

Marcus said she originally planned an initiative like J.Team when she worked in Staten Island and had completed all the necessary grant work for it, so joining the federation as an intern gave her the chance to implement the project.

The first three J.Team sessions will focus on how nonprofits work (covering areas such as budgeting, missions statements, and boards of directors), determining what causes students are passionate about, and reviewing Maimonides’ Ladder of Tzedakah (which prioritizes the best forms of charity).

At subsequent round-robin sessions, students will hear pitches from local nonprofits, as well as national groups with local branches such as Dress for Success and the American Red Cross, Marcus said. In the final round of meetings, students will make their allocation decisions, and the program culminates in June with a check-signing banquet.

Marcus said she expects that students will spend the program’s first year “feeling responsible for each other’s passions” and therefore will give to all the causes, but that over the course of the next few years they will learn to understand the impact of their collective money, develop an understanding of what they are passionate about, and eventually allocate gifts to fewer and more concentrated nonprofit organizations. The federation’s goal is for students to take part in the program multiple times, she said. Tammy Zimmerman, a parent chairperson for J.Team, said that for students, the program “is their chance to feel important and to be held accountable for giving back.” Zimmerman’s daughters Amanda and Jessica are participating.

“I’ve always taught my kids to appreciate what they have,” Zimmerman said.

Amanda, a 10th-grader at South Brunswick High School, wrote in her J.Team application that, “I’m contributing to the J.Team fund because I’m giving back to society and I want to make the world a better place. I see myself making contributions to anything possible as long as I’m helping.”

Jessica, an 8th-grader at Crossroads South Middle School in Monmouth Junction, wrote that, “I’m contributing to the J.Team fund because I feel I can make this happen. I’m a person who feels whoever needs help, I will help.”

The first J.Team session is Nov. 15, so there is still time for students to apply. For information, contact Audrey Napchen, Teen Philanthropy program manager, at (732) 432-7711 or ANapchen@jf-gmc.org.