Lessons from the Pinnacle: Coordinated Innovation Shifts the Landscape of Jewish Teen Education & Engagement

Eight years after the first local initiative was launched as part of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, the Cross-Community Evaluation team explores in this final report what has been accomplished to date. The research team examines to what extent the Funder Collaborative’s goals were realized and the main educational lessons learned from this project. They employ a high-altitude view to search for patterns across the 10 participating communities and across the arc of multiple years. And they draw on findings already produced by local evaluators in each of the communities and on the insights gained by those evaluators, as gathered in their annual reports.

These insights have been further supplemented through structured questioning of the local evaluators by the Cross-Community Evaluation team. In this way, researchers construct a picture of the educational and engagement strategies employed, achievements reached, obstacles faced, and implications for future work in this field. Ultimately, this pinnacle report provides an opportunity to explore the extent to which philanthropic leadership and coordinated programmatic interventions can induce a largescale shift in how and for whom Jewish education and engagement is practiced.

The report covers insights in the following key areas related to strategic philanthropy, collaboration among and between funders and practitioners, and Jewish teen engagement:

• Local Enterprises Meet Local Needs & Reflect Culture – Peer-to-Peer Learning Facilitates the Spread of Good Ideas
• It’s All About the Teens – Shifting the Mindset of Jewish Growth and Learning
• Development of Sustainable Models Takes Many Forms – Positive Change Tied to Structure and Innovation Strategies
• A Common Cause: Professional Development for Teen Educators – Investing in Professionals is an Important Ingredient for Long-Term Change
• (Re-)Setting the Communal Table – Building a Holistic Ecosystem Involves Teens, Parents, Educators and Stakeholders

Lessons from the Pinnacle: Coordinated Innovation Shifts the Landscape of Jewish Teen Education & Engagement, Rosov Consulting, December 2021