Two promising high-tech start-ups have donated shares to Tmura, a fund set up by the venture capital community in Israel to support education and youth-related charitable initiatives. The donations by KiloLambda and Site Code are the first to be received by Tmura since it was founded in February of this year.

The concept of Tmura - the Israel Public Service Venture Fund - is based on the American Entrepreneurs Foundation. Young start-up companies donate equity from their companies to the organization.

The advantage of the system is that a donation is easy to give because, in the initial stages of the company's development, there is no real cost for the donor. However, if the company goes public or is bought out, the potential value of the shares is tremendous.

"We are talking about something that pertains to the future," said Doron Nevo, CEO of KiloLambda. "If the company succeeds, [the donation] could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But at the moment it is not a significant dilution of equity for company members."

Nevo feels that, apart from the contribution to society, the donation will also benefit the company internally. "The employees feel good knowing they are working for a company that cares, a human company," he said.

"It is a good goal," said Professor Dov Dori, the CEO of Sight Code and a professor at the Haifa Technion. "We want to contribute to the development of education, especially for disadvantaged youth," he said.

Tmura's executive director, Baruch Lipner, said the fund has also come to an agreement with four other high-tech companies that are awaiting board approval to donate equity.

The downside of the system is that the future recipients of the charity may not see any real money for a number of years. "We would hope that within a year or two we would be able to start with the implementation," said Lipner.

"But I am about as good as the next guy at predicting the market. Some of the companies we are talking to at the moment are further along the road and may be looking at an exit in the near future," he said.

The current slump in the high-tech sector doesn't bother Lipner, in fact he says it can be viewed positively. "Sure, there may be fewer companies around, but we would like to believe that the ones that are still here have more chance of success," he said.

The slump in the industry can also be beneficial in that equity acquired by the fund now, when prices are low, has the potential of really growing if the market picks up.

"This is also a period that shows people in the industry there is more to life than working 37 hours a day to maximize their stock prices," said Lipner. "It is a time for them to do something good for the community."

Tmura's system has a good chance of success at times like these because it does not ask companies to dig into scarce cash resources, but it still allows them the abilitly to contribute. "This is a good idea because it doesn't hurt," said Nevo. "It is not something one should have to think twice about doing."