Addressing the Educator Shortage: ElevatEd Draws on the For-Profit Sector to Advance the Field

When the groundbreaking, collaborative ElevatEd initiative launched in the summer of 2023, it immediately began to develop a far-reaching strategy to attract, train, and support more early childhood Jewish educators (ECJE) in the field. Over the last year, the initiative, led by JCC Association of North America, Jewish Federations of North America, and the Union for Reform Judaism, has collaborated with funders, practitioners, educators, and community leaders to address the critical educator shortage and work to expand the field of early childhood Jewish education in North America.

The three-year ElevatEd pilot focuses on 11-12 pioneer communities, with a goal of recruiting, training, and credentialing up to 30 educators in each community, amounting to more than 300 emerging early childhood educators in total. The five initial communities—Boston, Denver-Boulder, East Bay (California), Houston, and Long Island—will be joined by a second cohort beginning this school year, including Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, Pittsburgh, Seattle, St. Louis. Educators from these communities work in JCCs, synagogues across all denominations, and a diverse collection of other Jewish educational settings that reflect the unique demographic makeup of their area.

ElevatEd’s multi-pronged approach to recruitment and retention is designed to address the field-wide educator crisis in a strategic, scalable way. By drawing on best practices, techniques, and new technologies from the for-profit world, ElevatEd supports these directors through numerous resources and offerings, in an area in which most of them have little if any training.

The realization that we are always learning and the connection between director and staff is one of the most important components of a healthy working environment. Supporting staff at all stages of their journey is a crucial part of keeping teachers motivated and committed to the field. – Debbie Neuschatz, Director, Long Island

Launched last year, ElevatEd’s Director’s Year-Long Course in Recruitment offers curriculum in talent acquisition and a stipend for participants. The course covers topics such as using AI/ChatGPT, creating personas for targeted recruitment, constructing engaging job descriptions, creating and using a SWOT analysis to understand one’s local job market, and creating an employment value proposition to attract top talent.

This past spring, to provide immediate support to directors, ElevatEd contracted with a recruitment process outsourcer (RPO). A recruiter from the RPO drives traffic to open positions in ElevatEd communities, supporting the “top of the hiring funnel” through ads on Indeed and posts on social media and job boards. The aim is to have more people looking at ElevatEd job ads than would otherwise occur. In some cases, the recruiter connects with schools that have several open positions, then handles all the sourcing and screening of candidates before the director conducts a final interview and hire. It is streamlining the interviewing and hiring process, saving time and energy for local center directors.

ElevatEd has given a voice and brought attention to the fact that my role as a Director of ECE includes many hats. In particular, even though I had no desire to be in recruiting
whether we like it or not, we are doing recruiting work. They said, ‘so here are some ways to be more effective’ since almost no one in a role like this has training in this area. They noticed an area of the job that we were trying and failing to do and gave tangible steps and training to help us improve. – Courtney Ludlow, Director, East Bay

Another key offering is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which increases the efficiency of the talent search process. A single post links to 12 free job boards, including LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Glassdoor, Talent.com, and more. Each school can customize their workflow and create personalized automated emails to streamline the hiring process. Schools can also create “knock-out” questions to ensure they only spend time screening candidates who understand the job post and are eager and excited about the job prospect.  

Along with these offerings, ElevatEd offers “Recruitment Labs,” which are drop-in coaching hours, an employee referral program, a digital marketing campaign toolkit launching this fall, and a dedicated careers website that is designed to act as a centralized location for early childhood positions across the country.

The educator pipeline crisis is significant, so our response to it must reflect that. By drawing on best practices from outside of the Jewish world, leveraging technologies, and building professional competencies among directors in this critical area, we can help ECJE communities attract new talent in new ways, in a manner that’s sustainable for the long-term. Throughout the recruitment season, we are assessing which strategies are most effective and cost-efficient. We seek to share these learnings with ECJE centers across the country and with the field of Jewish communal service at large. – Orna Siegel, Executive Director, and Sasha Kopp Hass, Senior Director of Education, ElevatEd

ElevatEd is a pilot initiative funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, and the Samuels Family Foundation, as well as from local Federations, foundations, and local philanthropists in each pioneer community. Visit elevatedtogether.org for more information.

 

Supporting Spiritual Leaders Who Will Shape the Jewish Future: Atra: Center for Rabbinic Innovation

The Jewish leaders of today are facing an unprecedented Jewish tomorrow. Atra is deeply invested in training, equipping, and empowering us as rabbis to rise to the occasion and serve the Jewish future.
– Rabbi Sivan Rotholz, Atra’s Fellowship for Rabbinic Entrepreneurs 2022-’23

Being an effective rabbi today demands a more diverse set of skills and knowledge than ever. People, especially young adults, want spiritual guidance from rabbis with whom they have personal relationships and can help them address needs and challenges in their lives. On top of this, since October 7th, rabbis are working tirelessly to support communities, engage people in spiritual leadership, and create moments filled with meaning and inspiration. Through rigorous research, vibrant communities of practice, innovative fellowships supporting rabbinic entrepreneurs, and ongoing professional training and support, Atra helps rabbis lead with vision and meet the ever-evolving needs of the Jewish people. 

We need to prepare rabbis to serve our people in every place they are, in every way that they need spiritual leaders. Over the last few years, we’ve seen the demand rise for rabbis who combine a deep knowledge of Torah with the ability to build Jewish communities centered on personal relationships. We work with a large cadre of rabbis to ensure they can harness this skillset to meet the many needs of Jewish communities.
– Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein, Executive Director of Atra

Atra helps rabbis learn how to engage people in new ways—both inside and outside of congregational walls—and strengthens connections among fellow clergy. More than 1,000 rabbis have engaged in Atra training, resources, support, fellowships, Master Classes, coaching, networks, and workshops. Of these, 71 spiritual innovators have participated in Atra’s national rabbinic fellowship program, experiencing pluralistic, cohort-based training and individualized support. Atra is now piloting this national model in other communities to build stronger local networks among rabbis so they can learn and grow together. Another platform, Atra’s Communities of Action and Practice, is designed for rabbis and other Jewish clergy to have space for sharing, learning, and growing together in both personal and professional realms. Atra’s research shows that strong collegial and mentor relationships, and knowing how to leverage those relationships, are key to managing crises.

Responding to urgent community needs in the wake of October 7th, Atra’s new 3-part virtual workshop on Facilitating Difficult Conversation provides spiritual leaders with a framework of understanding and a set of crucial skills around group dialogue, mediation, and conflict resolution. Other ongoing Atra programs help rabbis identify new approaches to supporting communities, gain new technology skills, onboard into new jobs, and much more.

In addition to programming, Atra is a thought leader for the field, committed to sharing best practices. Its research helps to understand communities’ needs and clearly define what excellent rabbinic leadership looks like. Key findings from Atra’s 2023 study showed that young American Jews want more experiences with rabbis because those interactions help them feel more spiritually connected and more connected to a Jewish community. Atra shared insights from the research about what factors make for positive interactions between young adults and rabbis, how these interactions help young adults feel more comfortable and confident being Jewish, and where rabbis can look to engage even more young people.

Young people want leaders in their lives who relate to them, accept them, and who signal to them that it’s ok to be vulnerable, to be unsure of things in life. With the right training and support, rabbis are those leaders! Now we need to figure out how to match as many rabbis as possible with as many young adults as possible to develop these meaningful relationships.
– Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, Executive Director of NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life and Co-director of the NYU dual MA in Jewish nonprofit management

For centuries being a rabbi meant presiding over a town or a synagogue. Today, rabbis are also working on campuses and in prisons, online and in person, in hospitals and in recovery programs, in homes and in cafes, in Yeshivot and on street corners–everywhere that communities are found and built.

American Jews need rabbis, and Atra uniquely provides the ongoing professional learning that rabbis need—training and supporting rabbinic leaders from all backgrounds to adapt their practice for the real world and to drive their visionary leadership so that they can help people and communities thrive. Moving forward, Atra is poised to expand its programs and reach, to provide even more rabbis of all denominations and roles with ongoing professional support and training over the entire arc of their careers, and to strengthen the field of spiritual leadership. 

Visit atrarabbis.org for more information. The Jim Joseph Foundation is a supporter of Atra.

 

13 Leaders with 13 Lessons over 13 Years

For well over a decade, I have been privileged to be a part of the evolutionary story of the Jim Joseph Foundation, which works to inspire connection, meaning, and purpose in Jewish youth and young adults. The Foundation is a learning organization that is both highly invested in research and evaluation regarding grantee-partners and the broader field, and entirely comfortable turning the lens on itself through internal assessments and grantee perception reports.

There are many values I cherish from my years in service and from my interactions with hundreds of thoughtful grantee-partners, colleagues, and friends. After 13 wonderful, productive years, I am moving on from the Foundation—but my covenant to the Jewish community and its people remains steadfast. This is an opportune moment to highlight 13 individuals, and specific lessons they offer, who have guided my path of learning, either knowingly or inadvertently. I hope they inform and inspire your work as they have my own.

Stand Up
Especially When it is Uncomfortable
A disciple of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, Dr. Mijal Bitton speaks up because she is compelled to do so. She is a Latin immigrant, a descendant of Jews expelled from Arab lands, and a proud Jewish American changemaker. Mijal’s research has expanded the definitions and inclusionary practices toward the Sephardi and Mizrahi communities. It is a far easier practice to allow appeasement to supersede conviction, but the results of forsaking one’s ideals can be catastrophic. Mijal was one of the first to raise her voice on college campuses after antisemitism became rampant in 2023 – she then spoke at countless campuses and rallies including the March for Israel in Washington DC with 290,000 people in attendance.

Be Proximate
Early in my tenure at the Jim Joseph Foundation, I attended a conference in which Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, delivered the keynote about his experiences with witnessing and advocating for the victims of mass incarceration and racial injustice firsthand. He described this type of advocacy as being proximate and differentiated it from building a case for an issue from a distance.

In philanthropy, we are already multiple steps removed from the beneficiary voices of the individuals we purport to serve.  If we want to truly understand the experiences of young people, as an example, we need to visit their camps, schools, youth groups, universities, and immersive experiences.  If we truly value their opinions, we need to invite them to speak, participate, and drive change.

Find the Gaps and Fill Them
In the four decades since the founding of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation (now Schusterman Family Philanthropies), one of the most identifiable characteristics of their philanthropy remains the ability to identify and respond to gaps. Lisa Eisen, Co-President of Schusterman Family Philanthropies, has served as an anchor in this arena for the past 20 years, responding to gaps in service learning, Israel education, leadership, and gender equity by being founding funders of Repair the World, The iCenter, Leading Edge, and the Safety Respect Equity Network, respectively. She stewarded each of these and others as either a board member or its chair, leading by example and refining aspirational goals with intention. Different than beneficiaries of funding, philanthropy has the advantage of both time and a bird’s eye view of the broader field, and it is incumbent on us to utilize those.

Learning – Learning – Learning: That is the Secret of Jewish Survival
The quote above is attributed to Ahad Ha’am, the pen name of Asher Hirsch Ginsberg, the early 20th century leader of Cultural Zionism. This teaching was part of the fabric that Dr. Chip Edelsberg invoked in forming the theory of change of the Jim Joseph Foundation. There is no stage in Jewish history or history itself that is completely the same as what came before it, so we cannot accept that doing the same things over again will yield a different result.  Learning and acting upon those learnings are essential if subsequent generations are to survive and thrive.  Among his many feats, Chip brought teachings from The Performance Imperative to the Jim Joseph Foundation as well as leadership and grantmaking tools from the secular world into the Jewish nonprofit community. By continuously learning, he led each of us to strive to be greater and more informed.

You Cannot Just Communicate with the CEO
In Episode 1 of Michael Lewis’ Against the Rules podcast, he tells the story of a woman named Sue Henderson who had solutions for the medical billing industry 
 but she was six levels down in her organization in a windowless basement of a hospital.  Sue developed nuanced expertise particularly around the Medicare and health insurance system that enabled a level of efficiency that singularly made the hospital successful. But few in the building appreciated the excellence that she brought or even knew of her existence.

When we speak only to the C-Suite of an organization, we can miss the most critical elements of day-to-day interaction that may not be otherwise articulated. In real terms, we miss the individuals that define the organization’s achievements if they are not part of the senior leadership. It is incumbent on us to dig deeper to find the source.

Mentorship Matters
For more than 30 years, I have been privileged to be mentored by Professor Joel Fleishman, Director of the Heyman Center for Ethics at Duke University and author of the foremost compendium on foundations and philanthropy. I am sure there are tens if not hundreds of others who feel similarly about the role that Joel has played in their lives.  In his eyes, mentorship is not about a single avenue to success or about being in total alignment with your mentee.  Rather, it is about being available, a consummate listener, and forthright about what is possible and right for the person in the moment.

His example led me to take on mentees over the past decade and provide pathways for success to others in similar fields. We cannot develop or maintain a pipeline of stellar nonprofit and philanthropic professionals without role models and mentors who support professionals on their journey.

Acknowledge Those Who Came Before Us
There is a phrase called Columbusing that is used to describe the appropriation of an idea or practice that has been in existence previously. This idea is often employed with the best of intentions but overlooks the pioneering efforts that took place long before the ideas reached the mainstream. One of my earlier Foundation memories was participating in a workshop facilitated by Yavilah McCoy, an innovator of the Jewish diversity and equity movement who has dedicated much of her professional career to amplifying the Jews of Color community.  Yavilah reminded me and others that new research can always be complemented with historical documentation and that it is important to be inclusive of those texts and individuals.

Speak to Your Audience
Prior to my tenure at the Jim Joseph Foundation, I benefitted from the tutelage of Dr. Kristy Towry, chaired professor of accounting at Emory’s Goizueta Business School. I learned that in the normally dry and lifeless budgeting process, managerial accounting allows one to incorporate psychology and other social sciences to speak to your audience. Activity-Based Costing, connecting the salaries and ancillary costs of performing a function with that budgeted component, is one highly informative method of illustrating this process. Being an effective steward of relational grantmaking is not about evoking fear of punitive actions.  It is instead encouraging partners to showcase accurate strengths and challenges without fear of reprisal.  Kristy’s teaching helped me tell the story of relational grantmaking on behalf of the Foundation through a series of spreadsheets and videos in ways that would not have otherwise been possible.

Live Your Values
There are few leaders I have encountered who are both soft-spoken and strong-hearted. Rabbi Yossi Prager epitomizes these characteristics and more. More than anything else, Yossi teaches me and the rest of the world how to be a mensch in grantmaking. He led the largest Jewish education foundation in the country on a magnanimous spenddown, which effectively put him out of a job while exponentially enhancing the field. He ensured that each member of his team was cared for with amity, support, and consideration. And he put the grantee partners with whom he worked on a pedestal, reversing the traditional polarity of the funder/grantee relationship.  He is truly a values-driven leader.

Be Aware of the Dreams of Others
Few experiences in my life have been as impactful as the Dreams of Others Seminar facilitated by the Jewish Agency’s Makom in January 2023 in partnership with Mohammad Darawshe, Hartman Fellow and Senior Strategy Director at Givat Haviva. Mohammad was a co-creator on this pilot seminar that included education directors and leaders from many of the most impactful organizations in the Jewish world.  We traversed Jewish communities and the adjacent Arab villages, West Bank settlements and Palestinian towns, border communities and large metropolitan communities.  And we were able to see each through different lenses.  This was not about changing minds but about having the ability to accept a different perspective.

Since October 7th, our WhatsApp group from that trip continued.  We lost one of the leaders in civil society from Ofakim who met with our entire group in his home. Mohammad lost one of his nephews who was a first responder at the Nova Festival. One member of the group is still waiting for a loved one who is abducted in Gaza. We continue to weep together.

Prepare Yourself to be Unprepared
There are few who have faced storm upon storm of upheaval and uncertainty as Eric Fingerhut, President of Jewish Federations of North America.  He confronted boycotts directed at Israel in Congress, on campus, and in the broader community. He addressed systemic security concerns following the most antisemitic events in US history. He responded to poverty and some of the most horrific natural disasters and their effects on our Jewish community. And he dealt directly with the loss and destruction after October 7th. In each of these instances and in others, he led with thoughtfulness and inclusivity.  There has not been an initiative, whether it is a bill in the legislature or a new initiative in the Federation system, that Eric has undertaken without significant reliance on partnership.

From him, I’ve learned that the best response to unpredictability is cooperation. Alliances do not have to be built beforehand, but trust does.

It is Not Just About Your Work – It is about the Ecosystem
When I first met Jay Kaiman nearly 25 years ago, he shared how when he first moved to town in Atlanta to run a Jewish agency, he made a point to meet with other Jewish professional leaders in the community to understand their work and to convey his own organizational charge.  Now on the funding side, his teachings have even greater meaning as our roles are not only dedicated to philanthropic stewardship but also to serve as connectors, interpreters, facilitators, and thought partners. He sees the community as his own and is personally vested in the success of the whole.

 

Give the Benefit of the Doubt
I have learned countless lessons from my colleague and friend, Barry Finestone, but the one that stands out most is his approach to culture.  He insists that without precondition, we should give our colleagues, our grantee partners, and others in the field the benefit of the doubt when approaching our work, assuming the best of intentions of others in our orbit. This embodies an ethos of trust-based philanthropy that creates an overall culture of respect and mitigates the power dynamic that is often at play between the donor and recipient. And the only way to exact this value set is to invest in an outsized way in cultivating and sustaining exceptional leaders and educators.  The philanthropic world could be much more about collective and collaborative success if more employed this philosophy.

________________

Know Before Whom You Stand – Ś“Śą ŚœŚ€Ś Ś™ ŚžŚ™ ŚŚȘŚ” ŚąŚ•ŚžŚ“
The phrase, “know before whom you stand,” generally sits outside a synagogue or in a sanctuary referring to the majesty of G-d in the house of worship that we should revere with dignity.  I see the phrase as even more ubiquitous. When you enter the Jim Joseph Foundation, there is a single framed photograph overlooking the boardroom table of an unassuming man who established a great fortune, virtually all of which was dedicated to Jewish education.

When Jim Joseph z”l passed on December 19, 2003, there was no extensive obituary in the New York Times. There was little fanfare across the secular and Jewish worlds
 in part because few knew this accomplished real estate titan and philanthropist who operated in relative obscurity.  I unfortunately was never blessed to meet the Foundation’s benefactor, but I have learned considerably from the thoughtfulness, intentionality, and humility of his daughter, Dvora, and son, Josh. Even in his absence, he has taught me how to acknowledge and employ these attributes, and for that I am forever grateful.

—

I am thankful to these individuals for their insights and the values they both taught and modeled. They will inspire my work for years to come.

Steven Green most recently served as a Senior Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation. He can be reached at [email protected]  

 

Emergency Grants
following October 7th, 2023

Following the October 7th attacks on Israel, the Jim Joseph Foundation awarded emergency grants over a few months period to help sustain Jewish life in North America and provide meaningful Jewish experiences for youth and young adults. These were unique new initiatives and partnerships that aligned with the Foundation’s mission and strategic priorities while meeting the needs of the moment.

We share information about these grants below, to inform the field about our approach to philanthropy during this unprecedented time.

‱ Foundation for Jewish Camp: A $500,000 grant toward FJC’s $8.5 million Israel Emergency Response Plan, designed to provide resources and support to its network of over 300 day and overnight camps. This includes support for staff recruitment, mental health and wellness services, Israel education resources, and security capital, training, and personnel.

‱ Hillel International: A $1 million grant toward Hillel’s $15 million campaign that supports additional staff at local Hillels to meet the demand for Jewish and Israel educational programs; extra skill-building, educational programming, care, and support for current staff; development and dissemination of new curricula about antisemitism and the situation in Israel; new immersive student service-learning experiences in Israel and preparation for professionals who lead trips; bridge building programs across different student groups; and security and crisis responses.

‱ MÂČ:The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education: A $150,000 grant toward the Israel Crisis Initiatives Project, which includes a new curriculum to understand the redemption of hostages as a Jewish value, support for educators to reframe Yom Ha’Zikaron and Yom Ha’Atzmaut in 2024, and a professional development program for Jewish educators in Israel and North America to move from grief to growth.

‱ The Jewish Education Project: A $750,000 grant to fund Mishlachot Areyvut, a partnership between The Jewish Education Project and The iCenter to send cohorts of select educators and senior educational staff to Israel from now until June. These trips will prepare Jewish educators in various settings to reconnect with Israel and Israelis in order to design and teach with new educational frameworks to meet this moment.

‱ Adamah: A $100,0000 grant to support special programming, including an Israeli Families Weekend at Pearlstone, Respite Retreats for Israelis, college students, and rabbis, and the addition of Israeli young adults to every cohort of Teva educators and Adamah fellows.

‱ Imagination Productions for OpenDor Media: Two grants totaling $200,000 to support the creation of new educational content about Israel for Unpacked and the Unpacked for Educators Elementary School Pilot Project. This includes the creation of a new Youtube Channel, a new podcast, and three modules of newly designed curriculum and multimedia for grades 3-5 that includes parent engagement.

BBYO $50,000 To enable enhanced Israel educational offerings at BBYO’s International Convention, including bringing a larger cohort of Israelis than originally planned. With a larger presence of Israeli teens and adults, BBYO can provide an expanded Israel education program for American teens.

Hadar $50,000 To support programming implemented in response to the war in Israel, including a young adult volunteer and learning trip to Israel, musical gatherings across the country, programming for gap year students who returned to the United States, and a learning series for rabbis.

Birthright Israel Foundation $500,000 To operate two distinct immersive Israel travel experiences: a seven-day Israel Trip Staff Intensive to train cohorts of 22- 40-year-old trip leaders and a two-week Volunteer in Israel program for 18–40-year-old young adults.

EarlyJ, a project of Hopewell Fund $75,000 To help strengthen security measures at Bay Area Jewish Preschools. EarlyJ is working directly with Bay Area preschools (there are 47) and awarding grants toward this end.
JCPA for Resetting the Table $50,000 To support Resetting the Table in the hire of an additional professional to serve increased needs on campus in this moment.
JPro Network $30,000 To support the launch of four new affinity groups, one Community of Practice, and more “Zoom In with JPro programs” and Spotlight Master Classes, with a focus on immediate needs in the field.

The Jewish Peoplehood Alliance $50,000 Supporting the One2One Initiative (which connects U.S. and Israeli teens) with technology adaptation, enhanced marketing, training and professional development for educators and professionals, and updating protocols to meet the needs of those less engaged.

CASJE (Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education) at George Washington University $50,000 CASJE will provide rapid research digest e-newsletters with summaries of research from others in the field on how American Jews are responding post-October 7th. This project will go through January 2024. *See below for more information.

Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies North America $40,000 Equipment, extra classes, staff hours, meals, and related resources to support continued Jewish learning at Pardes’ Jerusalem campus during a time of war.
Moishe House $35,000 Security cameras and other urgent requests from Moishe House residents and hosts needing support in response to the war.
Oshman Family Jewish Community Center $50,000 Timely support for Z3 conference offering diaspora-Israeli dialogue about the future of Jewish identity and world affairs.
Boundless Israel $50,000 Training for Jewish and Israel educators on how to offer spaces for education, processing, and allyship during this time.
Imagination Productions $50,000 New online digital content produced by OpenDor Media about Israel’s war with Hamas for educators and learners.
Board of Jewish Education, Inc. (The Jewish Education Project) $50,000 Mishlachat Areivut to Israel for senior level Israel education leaders to learn together and strategize about how to adapt their educational content and programming.
The Jewish Federations of North America $100,000 Design and execution of Shabbat of Love—a large scale, transcontinental shabbat celebration to center Jewish light, love, and positivity during a challenging time.
Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools $40,000 Partnership with BerlinRosen to develop and run a media campaign promoting Jewish day school as an attractive option for families at this time.
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life $1,000,000 Supporting Hillel’s $15 million campaign to protect Jewish students and support proud Jewish campus communities.

 

Rethinking the ‘Yoms’ in a New Time: The MÂČ Yamim Project

In a couple of weeks, Jewish communities around the world will mark Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut—Israel’s Day of Remembrance for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror, and Israel’s Independence Day, respectively. This will be the first time marking these holidays, which are so central to the contemporary Jewish narrative, since October 7th. Much of the responsibility to lead meaningful ceremonies and learning experiences about the Days will fall to Jewish educators. To help them do this at such an unprecedented moment, MÂČ launched the Yamim Project, a professional development initiative providing new educational frameworks and support in designing and planning high-quality, meaningful, and engaging Yamim programs for students and communities.

The Yamim Project built on MÂČ’s past success supporting Jewish educators, while also leveraging the organization’s strong partnerships with local agencies in six cities in North America. In total, more than 500 educators and education leaders participated in the Yamim Project’s in-person, day-long workshop (at no cost) and two online workshops for the Prizmah Heads of School gathering and for alumni of the Wexner Fellowship.

“I found this to be the most helpful professional development I have been to in years. The varied methods, the opportunity to take time from our busy schedules to really think about this moment and how we want to program the Yamim, and the thoughtful bank of resources were spot on. – Yamim Project Participant

In these sessions, youth group advisors, rabbis, shlichim, teachers, Hillel professionals and others learned from, and with, MÂČ leaders and other experts in Israel and Jewish education. The participants explored some of the most complex educational questions the Jewish community is facing today, including:

  • What does it mean to celebrate Israel this year, during an ongoing war, in the midst of enormous trauma and pain?
  • What is developmentally appropriate and relevant for learners of all types and ages?
  • Is it possible to build a commemoration that does not erase the suffering happening in Gaza, and/or includes those with multiple political views?

In each Yamim training, MÂČ crafted a deliberate and curated experience, from the design of the space – which was set up like an art gallery – to the balance between theoretical knowledge and hands-on work. Participants were introduced to the core idea of the training: using values to guide them through crafting the messages they want to convey in their commemorative ceremonies. The afternoon was dedicated to a lab session where participants crafted Yamim lesson plans, working collaboratively to brainstorm and test their ideas with each other.  The centerpiece of the training was the Yamim Journal – a beautifully designed booklet curating about 100 different resources from both MÂČ and other organizations, featuring lesson plans, art, media, music, conversation prompts and even step-by-step instructions for planning Yamim ceremonies. Participants said they appreciated its focus on art and poetry as points of entry for authentic discussions on difficult topics.

“I love the idea of how stories help us make sense of our experience, and the stories we tell center on values we can choose to focus on for our programs. Using this lens immediately helped me feel more comfortable in envisioning a meaningful and educational program.” – Yamim Project Participant

Around North America, Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut ceremonies will have a different look and feel this year. Hundreds of educators now have new knowledge, skills, and resources to craft these ceremonies with meaning and learning, speaking to this unique and challenging moment.

Learn more at ieje.org/events/the-yamim-project/. The Jim Joseph Foundation is a supporter of MÂČ and the Yamim Project. Photos courtesy of MÂČ and Jewish Teen Initiative at CJP.

 

 

Birthright Israel Onward: Creating Meaningful Volunteer Opportunities

While I never lost my connection to the Jewish homeland and have always felt a strong personal connection to Judaism, being back after five years rejuvenated my love for the country itself and the local people. I had felt the urge to go and help; meeting the people I was directly and indirectly helping made it that much more special.”
– Mollie Falk, Birthright Israel Onward volunteer 

Following the October 7th attacks on Israel, many young Jewish adults expressed a deep desire to help Israelis in their recovery efforts. To meet this demand, Birthright Israel Onward launched “Taking Action: Volunteer in Israel,” for 18 to 40 year-olds to volunteer in Israel, with a focus on filling major labor gaps in agriculture and food rescue operations. This is critical work given that much of Israel’s southern agricultural region was evacuated on October 7th. Without these volunteers, fields and crops would largely go untended.

This was the first Onward program to be fully integrated since Onward merged with Birthright Israel in 2022. The rapid response to create the program, and its demand, exemplifies the success of the merger: More than 2,800 volunteers are expected by Passover and another 2,000 volunteers this summer. Serving as a purposeful “return to Israel” opportunity, 77 percent of volunteers are Birthright Israel alumni. Some volunteers join a cohort on their own, while others travel as a community through partnerships organized by Federations, the MIT Israel Alliance, Hillels, Hadar, Ramah, and Young Judaea. In many cases, strong, existing partnerships were utilized to build these programs.

I’ve found myself forever changed for the better due to this experience. I tapped into a part of myself that I didn’t know was dormant, waiting patiently to be activated: that philanthropic drive—the pursuit of living a life larger than myself—and my passionate belief in Zionism.
– Andrea Rice, Birthright Israel Onward volunteer

Over eight-day or two-week assignments, in addition to work on the ground, volunteers have a meaningful and full experience guided by Birthright Israel educational components. This includes an orientation to prepare volunteers for their placements; Kiddush and Shabbat experiences; sessions where they can discuss and process their experiences, thoughts, and feelings; enrichment activities that provide respite, a sense of community, and mental release for the participants (including a workshop, a city tour, a meal at a restaurant, and other activities that support local businesses and the Israeli economy); a geopolitical lecture led by an expert with an overview and Q&A period; an activity with Israeli Mifgash (encounter) participants and personal conversations with a madrich/a; and a closing session to reflect collectively and individually on their experiences.

Alison Swanbeck, an alumna of Birthright Israel Classic and Onward, and now of the volunteer program, says, “I was looking for a way to help. In the Diaspora, Jews felt helpless watching everything unfold, and when I saw the volunteer opportunity, I felt it was a tangible way to be there and do something helpful.” 

Her story, like many others, demonstrated the power of the interactions between American volunteers and Israelis in Israel today, and the deep sense of mutual responsibility that is embodied by the volunteer program. Alison returned to Israel as a volunteer after developing a deep sense of belonging to Israel and her Jewish identity on the classic 10-day trip and an Onward internship. At her Volunteer placement, Alison spoke with a family member at the farm where she learned about the impact of the war, and how the volunteers’ presence moves Israelis. While volunteering, Alison developed friendships and bonds with her peers, often discussing the responsibility of the IDF to protect Jews in Israel and around the world, and the sense of mutual responsibility to be there for each other. She was joined by Israeli peers on several farms, and for Shabbat meals, allowing them to hear impactful first-hand accounts.

Hear first-hand from Birthright Israel Onward Volunteers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stju5u4Je4w&amp

 

Visit birthrightisrael.com/volunteer-in-israel for more information. The Jim Joseph Foundation is a supporter of Birthright Israel Onward.

Using Data to Inform Grantmaking Decisions

This piece ran originally in Kaleidoscope: The Prizmah Monthly

The Jim Joseph Foundation is committed to strategic learning and informed decision-making. We have a diverse array of research and evaluation studies that currently shape our approach to investments. This work transcends the conventional role of a mere accountability tool. Instead, we see our learning agenda as a dynamic process that contributes to the strategic growth and effectiveness of our grantmaking. With this perspective, we foster a culture of curiosity and continuous improvement and field-building.

Implementation

Studies in our learning agenda generally fall into one of four categories:

  1. Individual grantee evaluations that build the capacity for our grantees to be learning organizations.
  2. Cross-portfolio evaluations that examine shared outcomes and synergies across various sets of grantees to identify overarching trends and opportunities.
  3. Funder-commissioned research that partners with external experts to delve deeper into specific areas of interest that align with our mission.
  4. Grantee-commissioned research that empowers grantees to conduct research, enhances their own understanding, and contributes to a broader knowledge base.

Beyond individual studies, we also invest in the development of talent to ensure a robust, skilled, and diverse research and evaluation pipeline. This is meant to help grow the capability of communal organizations to apply learnings.

Professional Team Learning

For the foundation internally, we look to integrate insights and learnings into our own day-to-day operations, thus modeling being a learning organization. We lean into our First Principles, which include staying curious, centering youth, and being in relationships. We listen for themes and trends and actively question our assumptions. As we pride ourselves on being a relational grantmaker, we regularly preview early research findings with relevant grantee-partners before public dissemination. Program officers prioritize learning in conversations with grantees and with other funders, often asking what program providers are hearing from target audiences, or what adjustments are being made as a result of learning. We also read other research (that we are not funding) and share what we are reading, either with grantees directly or publicly. If necessary for improvement, we are unafraid to pivot to model being a learning organization.

The program team meets regularly to discuss important evaluation findings and shares reports on an internal platform. We continue to support individual evaluation work both with funding and non-grantmaking support.

Interactions with the Board

We keep our board informed of our research by maintaining an internal website of the most widely used and relied on evaluation and research the foundation has commissioned, in addition to individual memos to the board detailing new research findings when warranted. All grant recommendations presented to the board for approval are grounded in data. Based on learnings from past research, in 2023 the board approved new initiatives that focus on early childhood educators, early-and mid-career Jewish professionals, immersive travel to Israel, new modes of rabbinic training, and a convening of communal professionals to discuss the talent pipeline issues facing the field. In other words, research leads to actions.

Our Portfolio of Research and Evaluation, and Impact

INDIVIDUAL GRANTEE EVALUATIONS

For the first category of investments—individual grantee evaluations—we have many evaluations in progress at any given time. The fact that dozens of grantee organizations collect and use evaluation data internally is a positive sign that the field values the use of data and the capacity to collect it. Our signature grantees are sophisticated consumers of evaluation data and have proven time and again to be thoughtful partners. Many times, these individual evaluations provide insight into the grantee’s work and illuminate themes related to audiences, interventions, and settings that others share and are of interest to the foundation. For example, a recent RootOne evaluation provides learnings for The Jewish Education Project as well as others interested in teens and their parents, and in immersive Israel travel in general.

CROSS-PORTFOLIO EVALUATIONS

The foundation’s cross-portfolio evaluations are increasing and are generally major endeavors that can yield a plethora of data and insights relevant to many in the field. For example, stemming from the success of our teen initiative’s cross-community evaluation and the development of shared outcomes and measures, we have applied learnings to think about shared outcomes and measures in other grantmaking areas as well.

In one project, Rosov Consulting and five signature grantees that directly serve young people convened to discuss the pilot phase and plan a second phase of their shared data collection initiative, which will incorporate a series of focus groups with participants who have been deeply engaged across multiple programs. These five organizations are not siloed; high proportions of their alumni also participate, over time, in the other organizations’ offerings. The more programs can collaborate in their data gathering, the wiser they will be about the extent to which they are meeting their participants’ needs, especially those from under-represented populations. Collaboration of this kind should also help programs gain a better understanding of both their own value proposition and their ability to contribute to a broader cross-communal effort.

RESEARCH STUDIES

Of the multiple studies the foundation commissioned last year, the Study of Online Jewish Learning by Benenson Strategy Group embodies much of our approach to research. This study aimed to gain a more thorough understanding of the diversity of the online Jewish learning experiences for young adults who identify as Jewish, the motivators for engagement, and the benefits of online Jewish learning and virtual experiences. The methodology consisted of a series of focus groups, a survey of 300 active online learners sourced from 14 providers of Jewish online learning, and a survey administered to a national sample of 800 Jewish young adults.

We learned that online platforms and sources play a significant role in how young Jewish adults go about learning about and connecting with their Judaism. While differences exist in how, why, where, and how often, many young Jewish adults are engaging and interacting with online and virtual sources in some way. Further, there is evidence that learning and engaging with and through online platforms help establish and foster an individual’s sense of connection to Judaism, meaning, and purpose.

Importantly though, online platforms are complementary to other non-digital sources. There is a role online plays, and benefits that are unique, but it is not the only source young Jewish adults are relying on for information, connection, or meaning in their lives. This study, along with several new grantee evaluations, will inform our grantmaking decisions in this arena and our stewardship of grants that utilize online Jewish learning.

In all areas of our work, we look forward to bringing more evaluation and research to fruition in 2024 to benefit our grantees, our internal team, and the field at large.

Stacie Cherner is Director of Learning and Evaluation at the Jim Joseph Foundation

Beyond A Jewish Library: Findings From A 2023 Survey of Users in North America

Launched in 2013, Sefaria is a free, living library of Jewish texts and their interconnections, in Hebrew and in translation and a global leader in enabling Jewish learning and teaching in an open and participatory way. In 2022, Sefaria reached a total of five million users, with a monthly average of 598,000 users. Half (51%) of these users are in the United States (48%) and Canada (3%), and this report focuses on this North American subset of Sefaria’s users.

In 2022, Sefaria completed a five-year strategic plan which set forth ambitious goals of further expanding its reach, including “develop[ing] a universally accessible digital library experience [and] power[ing] new pathways to digital Torah beyond the library.” As it sets forth toward these goals, Sefaria has partnered with Rosov Consulting to conduct a survey of its users in order to better understand:

1. Who are Sefaria’s users in 2023? Where do they live? How do they identify? How proficient are Sefaria’s users in Jewish text study, and how many of them are relative newcomers to Jewish text study?

In addition to the evident benefit of easier access to Jewish texts online, what other benefits do users derive from engaging with the Sefaria content, especially when it comes to their comfort and confidence participating in Jewish life more broadly?

2. What attributes (of the users and of their experience with Sefaria) may contribute to or correlate with
these outcomes?

This report relays the findings from a 2023 survey of Sefaria users and offers some suggestions as to how these findings could inform ways in which Sefaria could proceed toward its ambitious strategic plan.

The report begins with a broad overview of all Sefaria’s users in North America (United States and Canada) and their demographic profile; it then narrows down on a large subset of the users and describes Sefaria’s impact on a user subset of particular interest: young North American users (ages 18-44) excluding Jewish educators.

Beyond A Jewish Library: Findings From A 2023 Survey of Users in North America, August 2023, Rosov Consulting

 

One2One: Online Encounters Between Jewish Teens Around the World

Started in 2021, in the midst of the global pandemic, ENTER: The Jewish Peoplehood Alliance (ENTER) launched One2One, an online mifgash (educational encounter) between Jewish high school aged teens who live in Israel and North America. To date 7,200 teens have participated in an online mifgash, which involves two teens, meeting once a week, over five weeks for at least 30 minutes each meeting.

This report focuses on One2One’s development of “the online mifgash” since its inception in 2021, the contribution to the field of Israel education, to One2One’s strategic partners and the participating teens.

The Virtual Mifgash
“The Mifgash” is an educational methodology developed in the 1980s by travel programs bringing Diaspora Jewish teens to Israel. The Mifgash has since taken root as a basic component in many of the educational venues involving Diaspora Jews traveling to Israel, and Israelis traveling abroad, including programs aimed at adults.

One2One’s innovation is the development of an online mifgash. The in-person mifgash requires travel, which is costly and involves high levels of organizational and communal investment. The goal of the online mifgash is to enable the beneficial outcomes associated with in-person mifgashim, without requiring international travel. Until One2One there was no systematic development of the online mifgash in a manner that can reach large numbers of participants.

The report shows how One2One utilizes three elements to enable online mifgashim, 1) technology to enable the online meetings; 2) organizational partnerships which are essential for recruiting the participating teens and enabling the online mifgashim to contribute to broader educational processes; and 3) appropriate educational design.

One2One: Online Encounters Between Jewish Teens Around the World, Ezra Kopelowitz Ph.D., Research Success Technologies, Ltd., July 23, 2023

Learn more about the program’s impact and its contribution to the broader fields of Israel and Jewish education in this essay in the Peoplehood Papers by Yael Rosen, One2One Program Director, and Dr. Scott Lasensky, One2One Senior Advisor

 

Haggadot.com becomes Recustom, letting you control all of life’s rituals

New, merged organization looks to bring a DIY approach to not just holidays but every lifecycle event

In the beginning, there was the Maxwell House Haggadah, a cultural touchstone for generations of Jewish families throughout much of the last century. Though iconic, that guide to the Passover Seder – primarily meant to teach American Jews that coffee beans were kosher for Passover – was also barebones and rigid, lacking in individuality. In came Haggadot.com, allowing for infinite customization and personalization. “The Minimalist Haggadah” and the “Schitt’s Creek Haggadah” and, of course, “The Chat GPT Haggadah Supplement” were born.

Now, the outfit that brought us those alternative iterations of the retelling of the Passover story is merging with its sister websites to become Recustom. The new brand, in a bid to expand the notion of ritual, is looking to bring do-it-yourself content to the modern plagues of climate change and political polarization, as well as rituals tied to gender, identity and even retirement.

“We’re in a time of deep uncertainty, we need rituals to connect us, but we’re not just going to do rituals that don’t feel authentic,” Eileen Levinson, founder and executive director of Recustom, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “We all need to connect, and we believe that Judaism has a toolkit for connection and meaning making. People just need help using it.”

The tagline for Recustom is, “Where intention meets play,” Levinson said, because “we embrace playfulness. Even the most serious moments can let us find something that’s a little bit different, and we can balance joy with seriousness.”

Whereas Levinson’s original sites – first launched with Haggadot.com and later including High Holidays at Home and Custom & Craft – offered a DIY approach to Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Shabbat, the new site, which is aimed at both Jews and those who are curious about Jews and Judaism, will feature rituals across the lifecycle.

“We’re thinking about all the places where people have been unseen,” Levinson said, giving examples of milestones such as, “doing IVF for same sex couples to have a baby
 Rituals for gender transitions, taking on your new name and your new identity. People are living longer and wanting to still be engaged Jewishly. Their Jewish life is not just about raising their kids or being with their grandkids, but potentially having a new ‘b-mitzvah’ ceremony or rituals for retiring or when they move out of the home that they’ve raised their family in for 30 years.”

Currently, the three older sites are still running, with plans for Haggadot.com to stay active at least through next Passover. Some of the rituals on the new site are linked to the old domains, while other rituals just say “coming soon.”

Custom & Craft, the design lab that created all three sites, has a long tradition of teaming with other nonprofits and organizations in the Jewish community to create content targeting diverse demographics. Current partnerships include Jewtina and OneTable, which is helping create volunteer cohorts to envision new ways to remix traditions.

“We feel like this opportunity would be great for us to partner with an organization that has a very similar vibe to what we have, believes in DIY, believes in connectivity around peer engagement,” Amy Bebchick, chief program officer at OneTable, an organization that has helped fund and plan over 100,000 Shabbat dinners, told eJP.

This year, OneTable expects to engage 65,000 unique individuals in Shabbat dinners, and Bebchick believes the partnership with Recustom will serve as a bridge. “For some people that have been One Tabling with us for a while, or Shabbating with us for a while, it may be that they’re ready for what’s next for them. They’re ready to explore the next Jewish ritual.”

Recustom plans to license its mix-and-match technology to congregations and organizations that can create interactive ritual templates that they can embed on their main sites. Levinson describes the initiative as “like a WordPress, or even Slack, for Jewish ritual making,” and plans to launch it in late 2024. The templates will be able to be customized to change pronouns, insert family names, pictures, poetry and videos.

Funding for Recustom comes from the Jim Joseph Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, through the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund.

Their first step towards this goal is a partnership with two organizations, the Conservative movement’s rabbinic arm, the Rabbinical Assembly, and its Cantors Assembly, which are collaborating to create what Rabbi Joshua Heller, the senior rabbi at Congregation B’nai Torah in Sandy Springs, Ga., and a senior editor on the project, described via email as a “new kind of Rabbi’s/Cantor’s manual for our over 2,000 Conservative/Masorti clergy around the world.”

Heller said this new manual is meant to make clerical life easier. “With the old printed manual, we could offer one or two versions of a given ceremony or a handful of optional additional readings,” he said. “Rabbis would have a book filled with slips of paper and have [to] adapt the printed language, remembering where to fill in names in each place and adjust grammar and pronouns as they went. Now we can have a rabbi start with a template and have incredible flexibility to choose the liturgical alternatives that are most appropriate for the specific people they are serving.”

Rabbi Mordechai Rackover, director of publications and digital engagement at the Rabbinical Assembly, told eJP that the organization had a dream to create “a product that is adaptable to changing social and religious conditions in the U.S. and across the globe” and Recustom was the team that could “translate our vision.”

Currently, Levinson and the Custom & Craft team are focused on preparing content for the High Holidays, with the goal to have a full ritual library launched by January 2024. They hope to reach 2 million annual users by 2025, up from the 650,000 users who accessed Custom & Craft sites in 2011.

As the site grows its offerings, Recustom aims to connect more with Jews of color and younger Jews. “We have a strong audience that is over 55 because we’ve been doing a lot of work in the aging area,” Levinson said. “We’re over-representative in the queer Jewish communities
 We’re less than 10% Orthodox. We just did a survey of our users in the winter, and it was much more ranging Reform, Conservative, just Jewish, Reconstructionist, Renewal, and so pretty diverse as far as everyone who’s not super-Orthodox.”

Although Levinson hopes the site is welcoming to all, she said. “Our brand is about reimagining, rethinking, [and] that obviously means that there’s more work into the how do we reimagine, rather than how do we keep things the same. Our intention is definitely not to throw out anything in Judaism but it definitely is about making it fit for you.”

published in eJewish Philanthropy

JIMENA: Expanding its Role as an Educational Leader

As the leading voice for Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, JIMENA is expanding its role as a thought leader and resource hub for the Jewish community and the field of Jewish education. While JIMENA has always worked to educate alongside its advocacy efforts, today the organization is in the midst of a strategic plan designed to deepen and grow its role in this critical area so that Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews and their histories are more fully included in American Jewish life.

JIMENA’s newest resource, Distinctions: A Sephardi and Mizrahi Journal, addresses contemporary Jewish concerns through a classical Sephardi and Mizrahi lens. The online quarterly publication offers fresh and impactful content that elevates the perspectives and raises the profile of Sephardi and Mizrahi people and communities. Distinctions’ inaugural Summer 2023 issue focuses on antisemitism, with a special introduction by Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, as well as a featured story by Sharon Nazarian, who has worked on international affairs as a senior vice president for the Anti-Defamation League. Each issue of Distinctions will be framed around a theme of communal interest to Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. 

Distinctions is designed to push our community forward, to uncover people and perspectives on issues that for too long have been ignored. JIMENA believes that to genuinely change internal Jewish narratives and attitudes — and to become more inclusive and respectful of Sephardi and Mizrahi people and communities — we need this new platform.
– Ty Alhadeff, JIMENA’s director of education and director of JIMENA’s Sephardic Leadership Institute

JIMENA’s growth as an educational leader and expert is timely and fills a previous void in the field. To help advance the White House’s recently released U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, JIMENA curated a collection of lesson plans and educational units on antisemitism and Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, all of which are available at no cost to state departments of education, school districts, and individual schools.

These resources will help students understand the many ways antisemitism manifests and the diversity of Jews impacted by it. We were privileged to be a part of the development of the National Strategy. Now we need to play a role in its implementation. It is our hope to raise the funding to produce more lessons on Nazi camps in North Africa, the Farhud in Iraq, Convivencia as a model to fight antisemitism and bigotry of all forms, and other country-by-country lessons.
– Sarah Levin, executive director of JIMENA

JIMENA also has undertaken major efforts to help New York and Los Angeles Jewish Day Schools better integrate Sephardic and Mizrahi students, culture, and content. The projects began recently with an assessment of Day Schools in those cities to determine what types of interventions school administrators and educators need to create more inclusive classrooms. The assessments’ findings will enable JIMENA to design the right training for Jewish educators and administrators.

Over the next few years, as JIMENA grows, so too will its leadership development programs and knowledge-base it can share with the field. In particular, JIMENA commissioned a research team under the direction of Dr. Mijal Bitton to conduct the first-ever demographic study of Sephardic Jewish Americans. The research is designed to help inform professionals, educators, leaders and scholars about who Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in America are and recommendations for their representation and inclusion in Jewish life, among other key outcomes.  

Learn more at jimena.org. The Jim Joseph Foundation is a supporter of JIMENA.

Scaling Impact in the Jewish Community: A New Masterclass Powered by Jewish Federations

What does it mean to scale impact? Many of us equate growth and scale. However, the difference between these approaches to achieving greater impact is worth understanding.

  • Growth = Adding resources at the same rate that you’re adding reach
  • Scale = Adding incremental time and resources for exponential impact (increase impact without resource investments). Also known as the J curve! 

Thanks to a strategic partnership between Spring Impact and the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative (Funder Collaborative), powered by Jewish Federations of North America, there’s a new opportunity for professionals in the Jewish community to amplify this critical knowledge, skill set, and ultimately, their impact.

The Funder Collaborative, an innovative philanthropic experiment launched over a decade ago, unites national and local funders and practitioners to create, nurture, sustain and scale contemporary approaches to Jewish teen education and growth. From the beginning, the Funder Collaborative committed to sharing frameworks, tools and learnings openly with the goal of helping to advance the entire field of Jewish education and engagement. In 2019, the Funder Collaborative entered into a strategic partnership with Spring Impact, a global organization that specializes in scaling social impact that has worked with over 250 organizations. Today, the Funder Collaborative has become the go-to expert deploying a methodology for scaling impact in the Jewish community.

What does this mean? Think a step-by-step disciplined Methodology to Extend Impact, online toolkits, courses, 1:1 coaching with scaling experts, cohort experiences, and in-person gatherings focused on this content. With new innovations blossoming out of pandemic necessities, and pressures for increased efficiency and expanded impact, there is growing demand for the know-how that can guide this sort of exponential reach. After a few online Scaling Masterclasses, two dozen alumni, including from Hazon (now Adamah), Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Moving Traditions, and Dorot/UJA have each internalized the lessons to scale to new communities. These successes emerged specifically from the Funder Collaborative’s work, and now there is the opportunity to take this methodology to the broader Jewish community. The Funder Collaborative selected organizations to join its first in-person Masterclass in Scale this past April in Silicon Valley.

The signal and invitation were clear: if you have a program or organization that is ready to scale (based on a readiness assessment), come spend two days with like-minded professionals from across the Jewish community’s education and engagement field and create an action plan to expand your impact. Right-fit organizations participated in an online orientation, received 1:1 coaching, and gained access to an online classroom.

I was fortunate to attend the Masterclass in Scale and witness the impactful experience first-hand. Leadership teams from 12 organizations (including Jewish Kids Groups, Jewish LearningWorks, and Hillel International) came together for a masterclass convening that provided a deep dive into nearly all things scaling, guided by the following learning principles and objectives:

  1. Understand the spectrum of scaling models and select a resonant model
  2. Connect the scaling methodology to Jewish context and conversation on growth, expansion, and adaptation
  3. Learn the multi-step process of scaling in a practical step-by-step way
  4. Identify and articulate barriers and explore collaborative solutions
  5. Be inspired by tangible examples of successful scale
  6. Share an experience and connect with a  cohort designed to offer support and opportunities for cross-promotion

Together, participants learned about different approaches to scaling, the roles and responsibilities that must be accounted for, various stages to anticipate, and more. Participants chose a pathway to scale (from the nine pathways below), and built in time for pitching, action planning, and brainstorming as an organizational team and cohort. The convening married theory and practice, creating a scaling lab with coaches, teachers, and the cohort colleagues on hand.

As a funder representative and believer in this work, the benefits of this Masterclass were clear. Here are some learnings from the experience:

  1. Theory and Practice Are Essential. The Masterclass provided a valuable space for learning and building connections. An in-person setting is most conducive for action planning and relationship building – skill building and cohort building go hand-in-hand for impact.
  2. Thoughtful Convening Design. Event designers took this training to the next level by infusing connection time and gathering best practices. Pre and post meetings helped make the most out of the in-person time together.  
  3. Belonging Matters and Creates Momentum. Professionals from the 12 organizations expressed a sense of belonging and an appreciation for the diversity of people and programs represented. Participants craved more learning and social together time in person and partnerships are already being explored.
  4. Next-level Professional Development. Participants praised the PD experience as unique in the ecosystem, many of them creators of training programs themselves. They enjoyed opportunities to learn from others and the real-world stories that validated all the effort it takes to plan and scale effectively.
  5. Field and Funder Education is Needed.  There is a significant opportunity and critical need for our field to understand the difference between scale and growth and provide the resources to extend impact accordingly.
  6. Scaling does not get the credit it deserves in the innovation ecosystem. Building from scratch is important, and so too is not reinventing the wheel and successfully spreading all the good ideas already out there.
  7. Relevance Beyond Programs and Across Organizations. Scaling methodology is relevant for organizations of all shapes and sizes and at different points in the lifespan. From synagogue programs to regional afterschool programs to Hillel International, this content and experience was valuable for everyone. Though the training is designed for program scaling, it offers value to the entire organization’s way of thinking and doing.
  8. Organizations Need Technical Assistance. Organizations receive funding to scale but often don’t have the skills to get there. Their professionals  need to be equipped with more support and training, earlier in their scaling journeys.

As we continue to share learnings around scaling, with the Funder Collaborative leading these efforts, we also look to share “learnings around learning.” Throughout this year, the Foundation has shared insights around small convenings, large network conferences, and more. Masterclasses are yet another tool in our field’s toolkit to bring people together and share best practices.

We are especially excited to see the concept of scaling continuing to make inroads in our field.  Innovation and experiments with new initiatives are of course important. But so too is understanding how to scale effective programs, whether new or legacy, that have proven, positive outcomes. We recognize the importance of education and thought partnership on this topic, with funding colleagues and grantee partners alike. If you are interested in learning more about upcoming Scaling Masterclasses, please complete this form and if you’re a funding colleague interested in supporting and elevating this work in your portfolio, please reach out to me, [email protected]

Rachel Shamash Schneider is a Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation.