The Jewish Outdoor, Food, Farming, and Environmental Education (JOFEE) Fellowship began in 2015 with the goal of placing three cohorts of Fellows at host institutions nationwide. To date, the Fellowship is halfway to this goal—the 17 Fellows of the first cohort have fully completed their Fellowship, and the 18 Fellows of the second cohort are well under way with theirs. Through the JOFEE Fellowship, Hazon, which designed and is implementing the Fellowship, and the Jim Joseph Foundation, which is funding the Fellowship, aim to:
1. Develop a training program that integrates Jewish and JOFEE learning and develops the Fellows as JOFEE educators;
2. Implement JOFEE programs across host institutions to help them sustain and invest in JOFEE programming; and
3. Create partnerships and resources for the JOFEE world.
The main focus of the Fellows’ work is to design and implement JOFEE programming at their placements. To support them, Fellows also receive training throughout the Fellowship, along with mentorship from a seasoned JOFEE professional.
JOFEE as a field is a relatively new concept for those involved in Jewish education. However, as revealed in research conducted in 2014 for the Seeds of Opportunity report—which evaluated the state of JOFEE overall—it is a powerful tool for targeting and engaging members of the Jewish community, particularly younger members. The Fellowship is a direct offshoot of the 2014 report, created with the primary goal to build the capacity of JOFEE educators, leading to a broader, more robust field.
The Jim Joseph Foundation and Hazon engaged Informing Change to conduct a four-year evaluation of the Fellowship. Rooted in the expected outcomes for the JOFEE Fellowship, this evaluation is designed to examine the components of the Fellowship within the framework of five evaluation questions.
Learnings from the JOFEE Fellowship, Year 2 Evaluation Report, September 2017
The Los Angeles Jewish Teen Initiative (LAJTI or the Initiative), through a funding partnership between the Jewish Federation of Greater 
Los Angeles (the Federation) and the Jim Joseph Foundation (the funders), launched in 2015 and just completed its second year of implementation. To achieve the ultimate goal of engaging Jewish teens in Los Angeles in activities that promote a healthy, personally meaningful, and fulfilled Jewish life, LAJTI has three main strategies:
1. Expand and create teen engagement programs of excellence.
2. Nurture the teen ecosystem and build community commitment to teen engagement.
3. Support the professional development of educators of Jewish teens.
LAJTI seeks to create ripple effects throughout the community—including the teens who attend programs, their parents, program staff and leaders who design and deliver teen-focused programming, and community leaders and funders who champion and support the work.
The funders have partnered with Informing Change to evaluate LAJTI over its first three years. After completing the Year 1 evaluation report, which provided a baseline assessment of LAJTI, Informing Change collaborated with LAJTI staff and funders to develop seven evaluation questions to explore specifically in Year 2. LAJTI leaders wanted to understand certain phenomena in this second year of implementation that would inform the Initiative’s further development, while also retaining some of the original evaluation questions. This change also necessitated a shift in some of the data collection methods.
Prioritizing Jewish Teens: Findings & Lessons from the LAJTI Year 2 Evaluation, October 2017
Expanding the Circle of Teen Education & Engagement: Evaluation of Year 1 of the Los Angeles Jewish Teen Initiative, December 2016
Learn more: A Taste of the Real World: Lessons Learned from a Community Internship Program for Teens
With a $10.2 million combined investment from the AVI CHAI Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation (the funders), the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) incubated four new Jewish specialty camps from October 2012 through November 2016, turning ideas into actual, functioning camps.
The fun
ders engaged Informing Change in October 2012 to design and implement a five-year evaluation of this second cohort of FJC’s Specialty Camps Incubator (the Incubator). Informing Change evaluated the extent to which the new camps developed the capacities needed to run strong summer programs, deliver intended camper outcomes, become sustainable nonprofit entities, and expand the number of Jewish youth attending camp. The evaluation findings are based on surveys from campers and parents, as well as interviews, site visits, observations, and materials reviews.
The Hard Work Behind the Magic of Camp: Results & Learnings from the FJC Specialty Camps Incubator II, Informing Change, August 2017
Executive Summary
Full Report
The purpose of this qualitative research project was to understand the Moishe House Peer-Led Retreat Program and to gain insight intofurther improvements to be made to the existing model. The Peer-Led Retreat Program currently recruits and equips Jewish young adults with the skills to lead a weekend Jewish retreat for a group of their peers. Data for this research were gathered during the 2016 calendar year through review of nine responses to a written feedback survey designed and administered by Moishe House, and through phone interviews conducted by the Jim Joseph Foundation with five retreat facilitators and two retreat participants. The common themes that emerged were used to organize and frame the insights, recommendations, and questions below.
Moishe House Peer-Led Retreats – Interview Highlights and Insights, August 2017
The four-year, nine million dollar New York Teen Initiative is a jointly funded investment of the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jim Joseph Foundation. With The Jewish Education Project serving as lead operator, the Initiative seeks to redesign and redefine the area’s Jewish teen engagement through the creation of compelling summer experiences. The Initiative builds on UJA-Federation of New York’s historic and current efforts to support programs that attract teenagers to Jewish life and experiences. The Initiative is part of a national effort —spearheaded by the Jim Joseph Foundation — in which 14 foundations and federations are working together as a “Funder Collaborative” to expand and deepen Jewish teen education and engagement in 10 communities across the United States.
In Year 2 of the Initiative, the evaluation was focused on four sets of concerns and associated questions: Program Implementation; Expanded Reach to Teens; Participant Outcomes; and Tracking Year 1 Participants.
New York Teen Initiative and New York Incubator of Intensive Summer Experiences for Jewish Teens: “That was the most myself I have ever been,” Year 2 Evaluation Findings, February 2017
The formation of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative was the result of a process begun by the Jim Joseph Foundation in 2013. At that time, in an effort to spawn innovative, locally sustainable teen engagement programs, the Jim Joseph Foundation brought together an array of funders to explore various approaches. The first 24 months of this deliberate process in which ten local and five national funders undertook to educate themselves, build relationships and co-invest in community-based Jewish teen education and engagement initiatives was thoughtfully documented in a case study issued in January 2015 by Informing Change, entitled, Finding New Paths for Teen Engagement and Learning: A Funder Collaborative Leads the Way.
This case study documents the next stage of the Funder Collaborative’s development, roughly the 21-month period from January 2015 through October 2016 and reflects the Collaborative’s commitment to share its process with others who may choose to embark on their own co-funding endeavor. The case study explores the Collaborative’s experience as it deepens its work in the realm of Action and slowly considers how to move toward Impact.
PREPARING TO DEEPEN ACTION: A Funder Collaborative Finds its Way, June 2017
The formation of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative began in 2013, when more than a dozen local and national funders of Jewish teen programming were brought together by the Jim Joseph Foundation for an ongoing series of discussions about expanding teen involvement in Jewish life. Over the next two years, this group developed into a more formal Funder Collaborative, with the expressed aim of making grants to support comprehensive, innovative, and sustainable new community-based initiatives in ten communities across the United States: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, and San Francisco.
In order to understand the process and outcomes of teen programs, both in individual communities and across multiple regions, two concurrent evaluation efforts were undertaken alongside the community initiatives. In each community, local evaluators were contracted to study regional initiatives; and, on a national level, a Cross-Community Evaluation (CCE) was initiated in 2015.
The CCE is designed to answer a set of primary evaluation questions centered on the learning and growth of Jewish teens in different communities, as well as to facilitate and encourage continual communication and sharing of lessons across communities. At its heart is an exploration into how, and to what extent, local initiatives are successfully engaging teens in Jewish learning and growth.
INITIAL OUTCOMES ACROSS COMMUNITIES: First Fruits from the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, June 2017
The Jim Joseph and William Davidson Foundations have been working diligently over many years on the demanding and pressing issues of Jewish engagement and learning. It is universally accepted that digital media engage youth and adults and can deliver educational outcomes. Yet the Jewish community can do much more to harness these powerful, ubiquitous, engaging Ed Tech tools efficiently in the service of Jewish engagement and learning. Lewis J. Bernstein and Associates present the following report advising the Foundations on making strategic Investments in Ed Tech and Digital Engagement in service of their missions.
Educational technology (Ed Tech) is broadly defined to include: digital technology, internet connectivity, and digital content in the service of a full range of educational and learning objectives. It is designed for use by teacher/instructors, educational institutions, and student/learners.
This report is a result of months of Ed Tech audits, over fifty interviews, and the Principles’ collective experience in the field. Smart Money is presented in two sections: 1) set of Recommendations for the foundations to consider and 2) a Landscape Report of the trends and tools used in Ed Tech.
Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy, March 2017
Introductory Blog to Smart Money, by Kari Alterman, William Davidson Foundation, and Josh Miller, Jim Joseph Foundation
The Los Angeles Jewish Teen Initiative (LAJTI or Initiative) is a collective effort among organizations across the greater Los Angeles Jewish community to enhance the opportunities for teens to engage positively in Jewish life. The LAJTI launched in 2015 after several years of planning with a broad base of community stakeholders. Cofunded by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles (the Federation) and the Jim Joseph Foundation (the funders), the LAJTI includes three main strategies, each with multiple components working toward shared goals: Expand and create teen engagement programs of excellence; Nurture the teen ecosystem and build community commitment to teen engagement; Support the professional development of educators of Jewish teens.
Informing Change has been engaged to evaluate the first three years of the LAJTI. The evaluation is both process and outcome oriented, with an intention to provide ongoing feedback on the LAJTI’s various components to inform strategic pivots, while also assessing the Initiative’s results.The data collected during the LAJTI’s first year largely serve as a baseline for assessing change over time. The baseline described in this report provides a promising outlook for the years ahead. The LAJTI launched many of its moving parts in Year 1, most notably the Accelerator and efforts to enhance the professional development for Jewish teen educators. These early starts are accomplishments in and of themselves; yet, as with any new endeavor, there have been bumps and requisite tweaks along the way. This report documents the LAJTI’s development and accomplishments in its first year of implementation, along with early lessons learned and recommendations for Year 2.
Expanding the Circle of Teen Education & Engagement: Evaluation of Year 1 of the Los Angeles Jewish Teen Initiative, December 2016
Learn more: A Taste of the Real World: Lessons Learned from a Community Internship Program for Teens
In 2014, Entwine received a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation to support the continued expansion of select programs, to track and evaluate Jewish identity and service learning outcomes produced by the programs, and ultimately to develop Entwine’s internal capacity for ongoing self-assessment and learning.
In April 2015, Rosov Consulting was commissioned to carry this evaluation and capacity building efforts. The study included three separate, but closely related, components:
• An alumni study of Entwine trip and fellowship participants who were involved in the program between 2008 and January 2015.
• A real time study of trip and fellowship participants between June 2015 and February 2016.
• An assessment of Entwine Learning Networks across the country, encompassing leaders, participants, and trip-alumni nonparticipants in various communities.
Both the alumni and real time studies employed a combination of quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (focus groups and interviews) methods. The Learning Network assessment used qualitative methods (focus groups), with supplemental quantitative data that was obtained though the Alumni survey.
Vision in Action: Evaluating JDC Entwine’s Continuum of Service and Engagement, January 2017
The B’Yadenu (“In our Hands”) Demonstration Project was created because, historically, students with special learning needs (SLNs) have had difficulty succeeding in Jewish day schools (JDSs). Under-enrollment has been due to a variety of school conditions such as lack of skills, strategies, and resources to serve these students, resistance to change, insufficient professional development (PD), and limited experience addressing SLNs. The five-year model demonstration project (Phase 1), funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Ruderman Family Foundation, was designed and implemented by a team from Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP), Gateways Access to Jewish Education, and Yeshiva University. Five Boston area JDSs participated in two cohorts: two schools in Cohort 1 (a third dropped out) and three schools in Cohort 2.
The two primary goals articulated in the B’Yadenu Logic Model were to: 1) Create and deliver an effective, sustainable, and adaptable model for JDS education to serve an increased number and range of students with SLNs in the Boston area and 2) Document and disseminate the model for adaptation in other communities. To address those goals, the primary “intervention” of B’Yadenu was professional development (PD) at each school, tailored to each school’s plans and overseen by the school leadership team.
From 2012 through 2016, Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) conducted an external evaluation of the project, funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation.
Evaluation of the B’Yadenu Demonstration Project: Executive Summary of Final Report of Phase 1, November 2016
About a century after the first Jewish overnight summer camps were established in North America, Hebrew remains an important component of the camp experience. Some camps use very limited Hebrew, such as blessings and a few terms like Shabbat shalom and tikkun olam. Others incorporate Hebrew in activity names, announcements, and theatrical productions. To understand better how and why camps use Hebrew, Sarah Bunin Benor, Jonathan Krasner, and Sharon Avni — a sociolinguist, a historian of Jewish education, and an educational linguist —conducted this study.
This report is part of a larger study, “Hebrew at North American Jewish Overnight Summer Camps,” including observation and interviews, the results of which will be published as a book (Rutgers University Press, expected publication 2017). The study is a project of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University, with funding from the Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE) and additional support from the Wexner Foundation, Hebrew Union College, and City University of New York.
Beginning with pilot research in 2012 and culminating in 2015, the study involved several components:
- observation at 36 camps around north america;
- interviews and focus groups with about 200 staff members and campers;
- archival research; and
- document review.
To complement this qualitative research, the researchers conducted a survey of Hebrew use at camp, the results of which are reported in Connection, Not Proficiency. 103 camps participated in the survey, a response rate of 64%. They represent approximately 45,000 campers at a diversity of camps according to region, religiosity, and orientation toward Israel. For results of the full study, see the authors’ book, forthcoming in 2017.
Connection, Not Proficiency: Survey of Hebrew at North American Jewish Summer Camps, August 2016