Last week marked six months since I was hired as an Administrative Assistant at the Jim Joseph Foundation. I thoroughly enjoy my work, which, as I expected, is rewarding. What I didn’t anticipate, however, is how my engagement in Jewish life professionally would lead to new opportunities for engagement and Jewish learning in my personal life.

My journey is probably similar to many other young professionals at various Jewish organizations. I was raised in a Jewish-secular household. My parents, both raised in Israel, are not religiously observant but provided me with an upbringing rich with Jewish culture, pride, and values.

I moved to San Francisco after graduating college. While being very happy in the Bay Area, after a couple of years I started to feel disconnected from Jewish life. This certainly is a common sentiment for many during their post-college years. So, I looked for new ways to engage and connect to Jewish life. I first started volunteering at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM), something that I find to be very fulfilling. The museum is dedicated to focusing on Jewish artists, thinkers, and experiences. (The CJM is a major grantee of the Jim Joseph Foundation.)

I then discovered another organization funded by the Foundation—Kevah, which provides communal learning experiences for young Jews through self-organized Torah study groups. It is a relatively young organization, aligned well with the Foundation’s strategy to support organizations that concentrate on Jewish education aimed at inspiring young people to discover the joy of living vibrant Jewish lives. Kevah also is exactly what I have been seeking in my personal life, and is a vehicle through which I work toward my own personal Jewish growth.

The structure of the organization was most appealing to me. It is DIY (do-it-yourself) Jewish education—totally customizable and personalized, as you are matched with a group of people who want to learn about the same Jewish topics as you do. My group decided to focus our learning on daily mindfulness. We were then paired with a skilled instructor who has an expertise in that area. The learning takes places in an informal setting; classes are usually held in a home. And of course the group learning environment and discussion of ideas and concepts are all integral parts of Judaism. The combination of informal and traditional approaches to Jewish education appeals to my generation. Socializing, noshing, discussing Jewish texts, and recognizing how we can relate these concepts to our everyday lives helps to shape our Jewish identities and build community.

Finally, I also am a part of the JDC Entwine San Francisco Planning Group. Entwine is the young adult service division of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), another major grantee of the Foundation. Through Entwine, I hope to take action regarding my concerns and interest in Jewish global issues. “Tikkun olam” (repair the world) is a phrase I heard a lot growing up. I take seriously the sense of shared responsibility that Judaism invokes for healing and transforming our world. This is a central theme in JDC Entwine’s efforts to provide education, trips, events, and leadership opportunities to young Jews who want to make an impact on global Jewish needs and humanitarian issues.

Jewish education has become a focal point both in my professional and now personal life. With the merging of these two spaces, I have felt more connected to Judaism and Jewish life in the past six months than I have in my five previous years living in the Bay Area. As a young adult, I am still growing and trying to shape my identity. I am developing my own values and perspectives through a Jewish lens, and I feel incredibly privileged to work at a Foundation that is committed to broadening Jewish learning experiences for young adults. I am benefiting not only professionally, but personally as well.

While usually defined by shorter grant periods, a bridge funding grant can have a significant catalyzing impact on the grantee—and often is indicative of an exciting new stage of organizational growth or direction. Bridge funding grants most commonly follow a leadership transition in the organization and often result from the development of strategic and business plans, capacity building plans, and pivots in overall mission and vision. Bridge funding also is awarded as an initial foray into capacity building when program funding has been awarded previously as a multi-year commitment.

Following bridge funding, many organizations receive multi-year grants and are arguably better positioned to capitalize on the more substantial grants as a result of that sequence. In many foundations, including the Jim Joseph Foundation, where I work, the first grant awarded generally has a notably shorter term than the second. Since the Jim Joseph Foundation’s inception nine years ago, bridge funding has been a part of the Foundation’s grantmaking strategy. While these are common characteristics of the Foundation’s bridge-funding grants, grant recipients of bridge funding include a broad array of Jewish organizations: Hillel International: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, Jewish Student Connection, Moishe Foundation, Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies – North America, Reboot, and Repair the World.

At the same time, the ordering can also be switched; major grant recipients can receive bridge funding after receiving multi-year grants—a seemingly regressive kind of funding arrangement. But this would be an incorrect assumption. Regardless of sequence, receiving a bridge funding grant is an important development for a grantee. In thinking about bridge funding, the following insights gleaned from my time as a foundation professional may be relevant for both funding recipients and funders:

For Grantees and Potential Grantees:

1. The receipt of bridge funding creates a moment of opportunity
   The typical goal when a funder awards bridge funding is to test the ability of an organization to achieve short-term goals and measures of success. While the grantee perhaps would have rather received a multi-year commitment to show stability and success to its Board of Directors and other stakeholders, a bridge funding grant creates a unique moment of opportunity to mobilize a Board and a professional team to reach specific benchmarks. Along with the tangible dollars, bridge funding also represents an important stamp of approval. At the Jim Joseph Foundation, the 26 organizations who have received the most funding awards have been awarded 88 percent of the total grant dollars. To receive a grant from a foundation or philanthropist is a big deal and a testament to faith in the organization.
2. There are no guarantees for future funding after bridge funding is awarded
   Apart from several undecipherable MC Escher and Rube Goldberg sketches, I have yet to see a bridge that does not lead somewhere. The inevitable goal of most funders, thus, is to have a bridge that leads to greater success and subsequently further funding opportunities. But, while funders generally aspire to provide additional funding after the grant has concluded, priorities adjust, key decision-makers change, or organizational leadership may fail to execute. Essentially, funding is not infinite. Unless there is a written commitment, there is no guarantee.
3. The goals and measures of success for a bridge funding grant are not merely suggestions
   While there are no guarantees that a funder will provide future funding, there is a guarantee that if a grantee fails to take seriously the goals of the grant, it will not receive subsequent funding. As with any grant, some goals may not be reached—and some may change entirely— but they should be recognized and treated as clear objectives.
4. Be honest
   If key objectives change, a program is altered, or attendees just do not show up, it is far better to share these items in advance rather than waiting until the end of the grant for the big reveal. On the same note, if a potential grantee knows it will not be able to achieve the goals set forth in the proposal, it is best not to set them as objectives. In addition to likely forgoing future funding from this donor, failing to be honest about capabilities as an organization likely will hinder other funding opportunities in the future too.

For Funders:

1. Consider bridge funding even if an organization has always received long-term support
   Whether following a change in leadership, a pivot in an organization’s strategic priorities, or the formation of a new strategic plan/strategic business plan, bridge funding may be the appropriate step for a foundation or individual funder to make. Simply because it is funding awarded for a lesser amount of time, it is not a value judgment on an organization—nor should it be presented as one.
2. Do not call a grant bridge funding if there is no prospect of future support for the organization
   A grantee invests tremendous amounts of time and resources cultivating a relationship with a funder. Transparency, too, is critical for both the funder and the grantee to sustain this relationship. If there is no chance for future support, share this information with the grantee as early as possible. Postponing this will not make the grantee feel any better.
3. An effective bridge funding grant should not be less on a per-year basis than a multi-year grant would be
   If a foundation is asked to award $100,000 per year over a five year period, it is unlikely that awarding $50,000 for one year will be adequate to accomplish year-one goals set forth in the original grant. Often, if there is strategic planning or business planning involved, the bridge funding could be higher on a per-year basis than the proposed multi-year grant.
4. Bridge funding does not have to be for one year
   Despite the fact that a majority of grants correspond to calendar or fiscal years, the term of a grant need not fit neatly within those parameters. A bridge funding grant could be for one month or two and a half years, depending on the objectives set during that period of time.  Similarly, a one-year grant may not be bridge funding.

Bridge funding grants—with their varying characteristics and purposes—are, like other grants, an opportunity for funder and grantee to deepen a relationship and work towards a common goal. Any grant speaks to the confidence that a funder has in a grantee to think creatively and to implement strategically. The length and largess of a grant do not define an organization’s importance and are not barometers for achievement. Rather, the outcomes an organization achieves are the true measurements of success. And often, bridge funding can be an important means to that end.

Steven Green is Director of Grants Management and Administration at the Jim Joseph Foundation,which seeks to foster compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for young Jews in the United States.

Source: “A Bridge Leading Somewhere,” Philanthropy Journal, April 27, 2015

I hope you enjoyed a meaningful Pesach with family and friends. In this month’s blog, I want to share with you several significant personnel changes at the Foundation.

Sandy Edwards, the Foundation’s Associate Director since 2006, will step down in June of this year. After I was named Executive Director, Sandy was the first person I brought on board as I built the Foundation’s professional team. If you have had the privilege to work with Sandy, you are well aware of her life-long commitment to Jewish education; her understanding of multiple ways to assess Jewish learning; and her strong desire to share best practices. Many of the Foundation’s standard operating procedures regarding its evaluation program and model documentation were conceptualized and implemented by Sandy. Thankfully, she plans to remain involved in Jewish education and philanthropy through consulting and volunteering efforts.

The Foundation also is excited to announce some new promotions and hires.

Dawne Bear Novicoff, who has been with the Foundation since 2009, is now the Foundation’s Assistant Director. Dawne is a talented, experienced, and spirited individual who is extremely well-suited for this new role. She manages an impressive portfolio of grants, including the Foundation’s six-year Education Initiative (with $45 million total funding for HUC-JIR, JTS, and YU), along with grants in critical areas such as Israel education and Jewish service learning. Dawne will assume expanded managerial and leadership responsibilities as Assistant Director—something that I believe will be a benefit to Foundation colleagues, grantees, and co-funders alike.

Just a few months ago, the Foundation welcomed Jeff Tiell as a new Program Associate. Jeff has the distinction of being the Foundation’s first-ever Program Associate. This position was created to offer a professional new to the field the opportunity to learn about Jewish education grantmaking. Jeff works closely with his direct supervisor, Senior Program Officer Josh Miller, and continues his onboarding process with colleagues and in interactions with grantees. I encourage you to read Jeff’s recent blog about his past experience and transition to the Foundation.

This week, the Foundation also welcomes Aaron Saxe to the team as Program Officer. Aaron has spent the last two and a half years as a Philanthropic Advisor at the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund of San Francisco, The Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties. Some already know Aaron from his past professional and volunteer work. He is deeply committed to Jewish education and philanthropy—his family has a long legacy of giving back—and the Foundation is fortunate to have him as a member of the professional team.

I also want to share news regarding the Foundation’s Grants Management and Administration (GMA) staff. David Agam, who has been with the Foundation nearly two years, is moving on this week to become the Executive Assistant/Development Coordinator at Congregation Sherith Israel. We wish David well. It is heartwarming to see a bright, dedicated young individual grow in his skills and knowledge at the Foundation and further pursue his commitment to Jewish education.

The Foundation also welcomed two new members of the GMA team recently: Nicole Levy and Rachel Halevi. We are grateful to have them on board.

Finally, some of you saw the announcement earlier this month that I will step down as Executive Director in 2016. As I noted then, serving in this position has been the professional opportunity of a career. Coming to work every day with talented individuals who care deeply about Jewish education is a blessing. I look forward to a rigorous schedule over the next twenty months assisting the Foundation in myriad ways to hopefully advance several major Jewish educational initiatives.

Looking ahead, in just a few months the Foundation Board of Directors and professional team will hold a special June Board meeting in Israel. This is a unique opportunity for the Foundation to mark its ten-year anniversary. We look forward to various briefings in Israel, interactions with individuals who benefit from Foundation-funded Israel experiences, and a visit to the grave of Jim Joseph, z”l, to honor Jim’s memory. As part of the ten-year anniversary, in early fall the Foundation will release an online-only retrospective timeline, showcasing many grantee accomplishments and sharing a wealth of lessons learned with the field.

This is an important time of personnel change and growth for the Foundation. Our mission remains the same: to help foster compelling and effective Jewish learning experiences for youth and young adults. It is a great responsibility—one we will continue to steadfastly pursue in close partnership with an array of passionate partners.

For all Jews worldwide, it recently was Pesach. What did it mean to you? To me, every year, it means reflection on two questions emanating from the same root: Am I free and Are we free? The “we” meaning my family, my friends, my communities (Jewish and otherwise), my city, our society, our world. These questions could be unpacked in a host of different ways, discussed, argued, and contested. After all, that’s the point right? For me, these questions held special significance this Pesach because I asked them as a recent hire of the Jim Joseph Foundation.

At the end of January I began my job as Program Associate at the Foundation. The Program Associate role is a new one for the Foundation. It was conceived as a way to provide the opportunity for a professional new to the field to learn about the art and science of grantmaking dedicated to the support of Jewish education. It is one way for the Foundation to positively influence the next generation of Jewish philanthropic leadership.

During my first few months I have engaged in important onboarding work to gain an understanding of the Foundation’s practices: shadowing colleagues in meetings, participating on calls with grantees, and spending a good amount of time with my direct supervisor, Josh Miller, a Senior Program Officer at the Foundation. This time has afforded me the opportunity to discuss the business of the foundation, to ask questions, and to be mentored. Learning from and working with Jim Joseph Foundation colleagues is humbling. So, too, is my new reality that I practice through this work—the pursuit of helping to create more philanthropically funded Jewish learning experiences and sparking individuals to lead vibrant Jewish lives.

Even I wouldn’t have expected to be in this position as little as two or three years ago. My background is in the inter- and multidisciplinary worlds of research, community planning, and secular education. I have spent time in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Bay Area as an academician and practitioner interested in questions on how place and education intersect and impact one another. As many organizations and authors have noted, where you live affects how long you live, and the opportunity afforded to you during your life.[1] Put plainly, your zip code matters.

It was through these social justice and education issues that I began to understand myself as a Jew in a renewed way. When I moved to the Bay Area in the summer of 2012, I became involved in organizations such as Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, American Jewish World Service, and The Kitchen. I sought out places to engage Jewishly with peers who had similar hearts and minds. I also began to realize that although I had previously held Judaism and “doing Jewish” at arm’s length, I now had something to say about being a Jewish millennial with a renewed desire to “do Jewish” on my own terms. And isn’t this what education and learning is about? Knowing thyself.

Building on this concept, when I saw that the Foundation was seeking a program associate, I realized that this was an opportunity to further “have my say” and add to the conversation. I’m not only tasked with professionally growing and developing within the organization. I also contribute to the Foundation’s work of providing, through its grantees, opportunities for other Jews to learn, grow, and develop; to reach Jewish youth and young adults where they are.

Amartya Sen, the Nobel scholar and economist, wrote a notable book titled Development as Freedom. Within its pages he argues that “freedom is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world’s population.” Freedom. The ability to choose for oneself. The ability to act on one’s own behalf. As a program associate at this Foundation, I feel wholly empowered to creatively think about Jewish learning and life. I feel free. A humbling thought, especially given the notion that so many still are not. How do we as a Foundation, and I as a part of this organization, imbue freedom of Jewish opportunity? How do we imbue freedom of Jewish expression, freedom to be Jewish in the ways that resonate with each of us, freedom to learn and live a vibrant Jewish life?

It has been a privilege to be at the Foundation and ask myself these questions most every day. During Pesach, these questions took on special meaning. From my eyes, what the Jim Joseph Foundation is doing is at the heart of what the Pesach story teaches us about what it means to be a Jew. To be free to learn and understand — something I look forward to continuing to experience on the job and to seed to others through the job.

[1] For one example of this, see Robert Wood Johnson Foundation article, http://www.rwjf.org/en/culture-of-health/2014/12/why_zip_codes_matter.html.

In the midst of its tenth year, the Jim Joseph Foundation has created what might be called “a family of beneficiaries.” There are young Jews who have, as an example, traveled to Israel on Birthright, lived in a Moishe House, enrolled in HUC-JIR, Mechon Hadar, or other education institutions, and perhaps earned credentials as expert Israel educators as part of a program with the iCenter. All of these exceptional institutions and organizations are grantees of the Foundation.

Now, a new “family” is developing. And while these family members often operate behind-the-scenes, we believe they are equally as important to the Foundation’s pursuit of its mission. This family is comprised of a small number of highly skilled evaluators and researchers, which the Foundation works with as a “consortium” of evaluation advisors and providers. The “consortium” members, brought together as an experiment, complement one another’s strengths even as they all reach a consistently high level of execution. They operate collaboratively to share data, instruments, and best practices – and yet also compete as they bid for particular contracts to evaluate Foundation-supported initiatives and grantees.

There are very real benefits to forming this type of consortium that brings together – and keeps together – experts to work towards goals that undoubtedly will take years to accomplish.

At its inception, the Consortium was tasked with “framing and naming” the varieties of “Jewishness” and the parsing of those characterizations to develop a shared approach to measurement and documentation. This would ideally lead to individual evaluations becoming an extended family of connected and commensurable investigations. But, over a series of consultations, the Consortium’s goal evolved into something even bigger and more impactful: moving toward a common set of measures (survey items, interview schedules, frameworks for documenting distinctive features of programs) to be developed and used as outcomes and indicators of Jewish learning and growth for teens and young adults. No easy task, to say the least.

To further reflect on and pursue this new goal, the Consortium again convened last month. Members analyzed and discussed surveys of Jewish teens and young adults, which are being developed concurrently by a team that includes several members of the Consortium, funded by the Foundation. This includes the American Institutes for Research collaborative work with The Jewish Education Project and Rosov Consulting to develop a teen survey, a groundbreaking piece of work part of the cross-community evaluation of the Community Based Teen Education Initiative.

During the meeting, each Consortium member shared their work – from the teen surveys, to a survey being developed for Hillel, to the extensive work measuring Jewish learning and growth that resides in the NYU Berman Center’s Jewish Survey Question Bank. These efforts taken together are the building blocks for the common set of constructs and survey items for Foundation grantees. Their development would be a significant step forward for the field of Jewish education and for those who seek to effectively measure whether teen, college student, and young adult education and engagement initiatives – across different communities and different organizations – can be deemed effective.

Why is this important? Currently, simple survey questions are not asked in uniform ways to allow the Foundation (or the field in general) to look across populations (for example, participants in different programs, or teens in different communities) or to track participants across their many experiences (for example, Jews who participate in BBYO, then Hillel, then Moishe House). Complex outcomes related to Jewish learning and growth are not defined by similar metrics. All of this limits the Foundation’s ability to more deeply understand the outcomes achieved by the organizations funded.

We are excited to report that the Consortium is moving the needle in this important direction. The Foundation is in essence relying on the Consortium to support an effort to develop a coherent, interesting, persuasive and evidence-based account of what they, as evaluators, have learned about the Jewish learning and growth displayed by the “family of beneficiaries” described above: the teens, college students, and young adults who participate in the programs supported by the Foundation. Chip Edelsberg recently discussed Leap of Reason’s Performance Imperative, which offers social-sector organizations information, metrics, and tools to both measure and achieve “high performance.” The Foundation, too, strives to achieve more meaningful, measurable change, and the Consortium’s success is critical to the Foundation’s ability to hold itself accountable and to determine the success of our grantmaking strategies.

Over the next few months, the Foundation, with the Evaluators’ Consortium, will think deeply about the “sausage making”-type work of developing cross-community and cross-age evaluation metrics and survey tools. The Consortium will draw on the remarkable collective expertise of its members to develop a plan that builds on the teen and young adult Jewish learning and growth outcomes already known. Big questions need to be answered: What does an ideal “report” on the Foundation’s contribution to Jewish learning and growth for teens, college students, young adults look like? How similar do survey items need to be? How would the strategies, models and programs be documented/described to enable an understanding of survey results?

As the Consortium moves forward, the Foundation will look to share insights and important lessons learned with the field about how the Consortium members work together – and how their work is progressing. Since the Foundation’s inception, it has awarded almost $9 million towards evaluation of grants and initiatives. We hope to see tangible outcomes from the Consortium’s efforts that will leverage these dollars as effectively as possible, including:

• A plan for researchers, funders and practitioners to agree on common constructs;
• The development of a set of standardized questions that can be utilized across the Foundation’s portfolio of grantees;
• Field testing of a “universal toolkit” for collecting data on common outcomes and demographics;
• A plan for longitudinal testing, and recommending resources to disseminate and encourage the use of universal sets of tools.

This is an exciting moment of opportunity, bringing together numerous organizations and initiatives. We are in a better position than ever before, thanks to the Evaluators’ Consortium, to develop the right mechanisms and systems for doing this work. Too much is at stake to let the moment pass.

Members of the Evaluators’ Consortium include Professor Steven M. Cohen, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; Ellen Irie, Principal, Informing Change; Yael Kidron, Ph.D, Principal Researcher, American Institutes for Research; Ezra Kopelowitz, Ph. D., Chief Executive Officer, Research Success Technologies; Alex Pomson, Ph. D., Director of Research Evaluation, Rosov Consulting; Wendy Rosov, Ph. D., Principal, Rosov Consulting; Mark Schneider, Ph. D Vice President, American Institutes for Research; Lee Shulman, Ph.D., President Emeritus, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus, Stanford University

Since the Jim Joseph Foundation’s inception nine years ago, bridge funding has been a part of the Foundation’s grantmaking strategy. While usually defined by shorter grant periods, a bridge funding grant can have a significant catalyzing impact on the grantee—and often is indicative of an exciting new stage of organizational growth or direction.

The Foundation’s bridge funding grants have most commonly followed a leadership transition in the organization and often have also resulted from the development of strategic and business plans, capacity building plans, and pivots in overall mission and vision. Bridge funding also has been awarded as an initial foray into capacity building when program funding had been awarded previously as a multi-year commitment.

While these are common characteristics of the Foundation’s bridge-funding grants, grant recipients of bridge funding include a broad array of Jewish organizations:  Hillel International: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, Jewish Student Connection, Moishe Foundation, Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies – North America, Reboot, and Repair the World.  Following the bridge funding (ranging from $100,000 over several months to $3,000,000 over three years), many of these organizations received multi-year grants and were arguably better positioned to capitalize on the more substantial grants as a result of that sequence.  In many foundations, including the Jim Joseph Foundation, the first grant awarded generally has a notably shorter term than the second.

At the same time, approximately 23 percent of the Foundation’s major grant recipients received bridge funding after receiving multi-year grants—a seemingly regressive kind of funding arrangement. But this would be an incorrect assumption. Regardless of sequence, receiving a bridge funding grant is an important development for a grantee. In thinking about bridge funding, the following insights gleaned from my time as a foundation professional may be relevant for both funding recipients and funders:

For Grantees and Potential Grantees:

1) The receipt of bridge funding creates a moment of opportunity
The typical goal when a funder awards bridge funding is to test the ability of an organization to achieve short-term goals and measures of success. While the grantee perhaps would have rather received a multi-year commitment to show stability and success to its Board of Directors and other stakeholders, a bridge funding grant creates a unique moment of opportunity to mobilize a Board and a professional team to reach specific benchmarks.

Along with the tangible dollars, bridge funding also represents an important stamp of approval. At the Jim Joseph Foundation, the 26 organizations who have received the most funding awards have been awarded 88 percent of the total grant dollars. To receive a grant from a foundation or philanthropist is a big deal and a testament to faith in the organization.

2) There are no guarantees for future funding after bridge funding is awarded
Apart from several undecipherable MC Escher and Rube Goldberg sketches, I have yet to see a bridge that does not lead somewhere.  The inevitable goal of most funders, thus, is to have a bridge that leads to greater success and subsequently further funding opportunities.  But, while funders generally aspire to provide additional funding after the grant has concluded, priorities adjust, key decision-makers change, or organizational leadership may fail to execute. Essentially, funding is not infinite. Unless there is a written commitment, there is no guarantee.

3) The goals and measures of success for a bridge funding grant are not merely suggestions
While there are no guarantees that a funder will provide future funding, there is a guarantee that if a grantee fails to take seriously the goals of the grant, it will not receive subsequent funding.  As with any grant, some goals may not be reached—and some may change entirely— but they should be recognized and treated as clear objectives.

4) Be honest
If key objectives change, a program is altered, or attendees just do not show up, it is far better to share these items in advance rather than waiting until the end of the grant for the big reveal. On the same note, if a potential grantee knows it will not be able to achieve the goals set forth in the proposal, it is best not to set them as objectives. In addition to likely forgoing future funding from this donor, failing to be honest about capabilities as an organization likely will hinder other funding opportunities in the future too.

For Funders:

1) Consider bridge funding even if an organization has always received long-term support
Whether following a change in leadership, a pivot in an organization’s strategic priorities, or the formation of a new strategic plan/strategic business plan, bridge funding may be the appropriate step for a foundation or individual funder to make. Simply because it is funding awarded for a lesser amount of time, it is not a value judgment on an organization—nor should it be presented as one.

2) Do not call a grant bridge funding if there is no prospect of future support for the organization
A grantee invests tremendous amounts of time and resources cultivating a relationship with a funder. Transparency, too, is critical for both the funder and the grantee to sustain this relationship. If there is no chance for future support, share this information with the grantee as early as possible. Postponing this will not make the grantee feel any better.

3) An effective bridge funding grant should not be less on a per-year basis than a multi-year grant would be
If a foundation is asked to award $100,000 per year over a five year period, it is unlikely that awarding $50,000 for one year will be adequate to accomplish year-one goals set forth in the original grant. Often, if there is strategic planning or business planning involved, the bridge funding could be higher on a per-year basis than the proposed multi-year grant.

4) Bridge funding does not have to be for one year
Despite the fact that a majority of grants correspond to calendar or fiscal years, the term of a grant need not fit neatly within those parameters.  A bridge funding grant could be for one month or two and a half years, depending on the objectives set during that period of time.  Similarly, a one-year grant may not be bridge funding.

Bridge funding grants—with their varying characteristics and purposes—are, like other grants, an opportunity for funder and grantee to deepen a relationship and work towards a common goal. Any grant speaks to the confidence that a funder has in a grantee to think creatively and to implement strategically. The length and largess of a grant do not define an organization’s importance and are not barometers for achievement. Rather, the outcomes an organization achieves are the true measurements of success. And often, bridge funding can be an important means to that end.

In 2011, social-sector thought leader Mario Morino released a book entitled Leap of Reason. In essence, Morino argued that the social-sector could be vastly improved by relentlessly measuring results for which organizations held themselves accountable to achieve. Morino subsequently created a community of stakeholders committed to this perspective and a website as a portal for conversation about Leap of Reason’s thesis and main ideas.

In the years that followed, Leap of Reason expanded from being a title of a book to the name of an ambitious initiative. Last month, this ambition was on full display as Leap of Reason’s e-newsletter asked a simple yet profound question: “Are you High Performance”? Of course, who doesn’t want to answer a resounding “Yes!”

But nonprofits organizations, including the Jim Joseph Foundation, cannot answer “yes” honestly without first determining the definition of “high performance.” More challenging is having proper tools in place for measuring any set of targeted outcomes. Perhaps even more daunting still is charting a course–and following through with pragmatic implementation–that leads a nonprofit to reach the level of “high performance.”

Leap of Reason has set out to arm organizations with information to address the key questions above. After a year of work and collaboration by its Ambassadors Community, Leap of Reason unveiled The Performance Imperative: A framework for social-sector excellence (PI) to provide clear, actionable answers. The PI is designed to help organizations not only answer the questions from a place of empirical knowledge, but to have that answer be “yes, we are high performance.”

The PI offers both a bird’s-eye view of strategic considerations—its seven pillars—accompanied with detailed operational considerations covering a range of areas, from management style and culture, to organizational financial stability, to programmatic design.

In full disclosure, I am a member in Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community. But regular readers of this blog or those who follow the Jim Joseph Foundation’s work closely know that principles encompassed in the PI have significantly informed the Foundation’s work since its inception in 2006.

Holding ourselves accountable—along with the Foundation’s grantees—is one way we believe helps to address the high performance question. Undoubtedly, thorough information gathering, concrete measurement of outcomes, and a critical analysis of data are core to the Foundation’s approach to philanthropy.

The Foundation’s understanding of best measurements and metrics to determine our level of performance and that of grantees is still evolving. I would argue that this is true for our field as a whole, given the field’s complexities and plethora of views on what constitutes successful Jewish education outcomes and experiences.

That said, we strive to set high standards and to hold ourselves and grantees accountable to those standards. Grantees attest that the Foundation not only wants to see those standards reached, but also wants to ensure that the standards identified align appropriately with the Foundation’s mission and vision. Those elements together constitute an often complex process of measurement and evaluation. But through past trials and errors and continued learning, we work closely with grantees to hold all parties accountable and to determine, as best as we can, whether standards are being met.

As one example, various grants to the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) can be deemed successful based on the increase in campers; the diversity of Jewish backgrounds represented in those families; and the outcomes regarding Jewish learning and connections those campers exhibit. FJC recognizes that it must undergo this scrutiny to help determine whether its strategies are working and are worthy of continuation, or warrant a change in direction.

Secondly, the Education Initiative—comprised of the major grants to Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) and Yeshiva University (YU)—has undergone a rigorous evaluation process each of the past three years examining a range of important areas. Obviously, reaching a benchmark of numbers of graduates is not enough to deem this grant successful. The Foundation and these institutions expect deep, long-lasting outcomes as a result of this investment, with the capacity of HUC-JIR, JTS, and YU graduate programs substantially enhanced.

As a third example, for the various Foundation grantees focused on teacher training and induction, we can point to evaluations that show increases in tenure at day schools for teachers who have participated in DeLet, the Jewish New Teacher Project, and programs offered through the Pardes Institute, among other grantees in this space.

Do these examples mean the Foundation and these particular grantees are high performance? Possibly not. But they are integral pieces of a puzzle that helps to answer the question, “is the Foundation effectively selecting grantees that perform successfully?”

I believe that the field of Jewish education has much to gain by vigorously and transparently pursuing high performance.

The PI explains:

“The journey toward high performance leads to more meaningful, measurable change – whether its lifting families out of homelessness, closing global health inequities, preserving land, inspiring artistic expression, raising educational achievement, or any of the myriad missions that give purpose to the worlds social-sector organizations…In this era of scarcity and seismic change, high performance matter more than ever. The social and public sectors are increasingly steering resources towards efforts that are based on a sound analysis of the problem, grounded assumptions about how an organization’s activities can lead to the desired change, and leadership that embraces continuous improvement. This is the formula at the core of the PI.” (page 3)

I encourage you to learn more about the PI by watching this brief video. While broad in scope, the PI’s focus on the single and critical question of “high performance” makes it a practical framework. It is a valuable resource for organizations of varying sizes, structures, and missions. And it may be a catalyst for important conversations about how our field can achieve more significant outcomes in more efficient ways.

In the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to identify and analyze best grantmaking strategies, we have seen grantees achieve outcomes that both strengthen organizational capacity and position organizations for future growth. By virtue of grantees’ strong performance, the Foundation is gaining experience as a capacity building funder.

Before I share examples of successes, it is helpful to understand what a capacity building grant actually is designed to do. The term itself is somewhat general and may refer to different types of grants, depending on the context and situation of the potential grantee.

Capacity building, broadly defined, refers to “activities that strengthen nonprofits so that they can better achieve their mission.”[1]  Tools exist to help organizations assess their capacity.[2]  Organizations at different points of relatively predictable organizational life stages[3] potentially can benefit from differentiated, targeted capacity building support.

The goals of capacity building grants are equally as general and can apply to various aspects of the grantee’s operations: “In theory, capacity building is designed to change some aspect of an organization’s existing environment, internal structure, leadership, and management systems, which, in turn, should improve employee morale, expertise, productivity, efficiency, and so forth, which should strengthen an organization’s capacity to do its work, which should increase organizational performance.”[4]

To shed light on capacity building, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) offers detailed answers to this grantmaking strategy and to related factors such as readiness and assessment.  In general, GEO is an excellent source of information for those readers seeking insight into current trends in funding of capacity building.

For our purposes, the Foundation sees that regardless of an organization’s size, age, target audience, and goals within the arena of Jewish education, capacity building grants can be a catalyst for improved performance and major growth.

Hillel, for example, is 101 years old. The Foundation awarded Hillel a capacity building grant in 2014 that built on the success of its Senior Jewish Educators/Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative. The 2014 grant award included funding for the development of a comprehensive business plan as well as funding for efforts that are part of Hillel’s three pillars for future growth of the organization—Excellence on Campus: Supporting and Measuring Quality; Excellence in Recruiting and Developing Talent; and Excellence in Resource Development.

Under the leadership of CEO Eric Fingerhut and with support of Hillel’s Board of Directors, Hillel is taking decisive steps to grow from a $90 million per year organization to a sustainable $200 million per year organization. The Jim Joseph Foundation recent grant is assisting Hillel to determine if this aspirational future is achievable and to enable the organization to chart a path toward desirable growth.

Moishe House, an organization much younger than Hillel, has been in existence for just nine years. Yet it already has exhibited rapid growth, and it has positively influenced the lives of tens of thousands of young Jewish adults across the United States and internationally. Moishe House is poised, potentially, to accelerate its growth and positioned to reach ambitious milestones in part because a group of foundations joined together to help Moishe House design and implement a Strategic Growth Plan. The development of that plan was funded significantly by the Jim Joseph Foundation after a 2011 external evaluation of Moishe House demonstrated that the organization had developed an effective, affordable, and scalable approach to executing on its mission.

In both these cases, Hillel and Moishe House conducted careful strategic planning that was core to their capacity building. The Jim Joseph Foundation believes dedicating resources for this type of planning is an effective way for the Foundation to support not-for-profit capacity building.

The Jim Joseph Foundation also has seen that capacity building grants can actually help to advance an entire field. The clearest example is the emerging field of Israel education, which has been rapidly developed by the iCenter during the last five years. Through a series of grants, the iCenter’s capacity has grown—evidenced, for example, in its remarkable network of expert educators and skilled staff who work with major organizations and educational institutions across the country to advance Israel education.

Recently, I attended a Taglit Fellows seminar for Cohort 2, a project generously funded by the Maimonides Fund. The iCenter, in partnership with Taglit-Birthright Israel, designed the seminar, bringing together experts in Jewish education to train and support nearly 100 Taglit Fellows (for just one cohort) who will staff Taglit-Birthright Israel trips serving in a pre-trip, trip, and post-trip role to augment participants’ Birthright Israel experience. A cohort 2 Fellow and leaders of the program shared their thoughts here, indicative of the deep impact and broad reach the iCenter now enjoys.

Finally, over the last two years, the Foundation has awarded multiple grants designed to build capacity of organizations in the very active emerging field of Jewish Outdoor, Food, and Environmental Education (JOFEE). The JOFEE report, commissioned with other funders, was an important determining factor in the Foundation’s assessment that this field is ripe for maturation and further professionalization, with the potential for significant outcomes in Jewish education.

Obviously, we have much to learn still about capacity building grants. Professionally, I am of the persuasion that “in order to reach and sustain social impact, philanthropists need to assign greater value to grantees’ capacity to implement programs; encourage ongoing learning and adaptation as work unfolds; and support a foundation of organizational and operational structures, processes, and capabilities that ultimately turn vision into change on the ground.”[i] At the Jim Joseph Foundation, we are seeing that smart funding, tailored to an individual organization’s life stage, capacity building readiness, and demonstrated commitment to maximizing organizational effectiveness and field impact, creates exciting philanthropic opportunity.

[1] Connolly and York. Building the Capacity of Capacity Builders, 2003, p.3

[2] TCC’s Core Capacity Assessment Tool – the CCAT – has also had more than a decade of use.

McKinsey and Company’s Capacity Assessment Grid has been in use since 2000.

[3] Brothers. Building Nonprofit Capacity: A Guide to Managing Change Through Organizational Lifecycles. 2011.

Connolly. Navigating the Organizational Life Cycle. 2006.

Olive Grove Consulting. Characteristics of Organizational Life Cycle Stages.

[4] Light, Paul. Sustaining Nonprofit Performance, p. 46

[i] Patrizi and Thompson. Beyond the Veneer of Strategic Planning, The Foundation Review 2, no. 3 (2011): 52-60.

This week, more than 3,000 Jewish teens from around the country and across the globe will join together in Atlanta for three days of service, learning and celebration as part of BBYO and NFTY’s International Conventions. They will come from cities near and far, towns big and small, each on a leadership journey, all inspired to contribute to the future of the Jewish people.

We can think of no better moment to focus our communal attention on the vital importance of Jewish teen engagement and education.

That is why our foundations are simultaneously bringing together 250 Jewish philanthropists, foundation professionals and communal leaders for the first-ever Summit on Jewish Teens. Concurrently, the leaders of the major youth movements will run a Coalition of Jewish Teens Summit to set shared goals and present a coordinated plan for engaging and educating as many teens as possible about Jewish life and leadership.

These summits come at a time when we more fully understand the positive, long-term impact of engaging teens. Indeed, the good news is that study after study proves that when young people are involved in meaningful Jewish experiences during their teenage years, they are much more likely to be active, lifelong members of the Jewish community. They participate in Jewish life, take on Jewish professional and lay leadership roles, and build a strong connection with Israel and the global Jewish people. What’s more, they often directly credit the organizations and programs they participated in as teens for shaping their Jewish journeys throughout adulthood.

Participants at 2014 BBYO International Convention (IC); photo courtesy.

And yet, the bad news is that as far as we have come, we still have a long way to go before we fully address the disturbing fact that in most communities, an estimated 80 percent of Jewish teens drop out of Jewish life after their b’nai mitzvah.

As funders and community leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure that the post-bar/bat mitzvah years become an on ramp to, rather than exit route from, active Jewish life and leadership.

It will take continued hard work, significant additional investment and sustained commitment if we are going to realize the full potential for Jewish engagement and education during the teen years. We are sharing here a few of the lessons we have learned that we hope will encourage and guide increased investment in the teen space.

The most successful programs put teens in the driver’s seat.

Teens today are an empowered generation. They know what they want, how to find it and how to build it. That’s why teens are most attracted to opportunities that allow them to take ownership for creating experiences, rather than simply consuming one-size-fits-all programs.

BBYO, for example, has seen tremendous success basing its entire model around allowing teens to shape peer-led experiences – a philosophy that has helped them grow from engaging 12,000 to nearly 50,000 teens annually over the past decade. What they and others have found is that ownership inspires leadership and continued excitement to be part of a community that values members not just as consumers but as creators.

Likewise, Jewish teen philanthropy programs are attracting more and more participants by putting teens front and center, empowering them to make strategic philanthropic decisions that have direct impact on their local communities.

Talented Jewish youth professionals make a difference.

The North Shore Teen Initiative (NSTI), a pilot project supported by the Jim Joseph Foundation, provides another successful model, due in large part to the staff. NSTI invests in talented staff who, in turn, make a point of empowering teens to be involved in everything from event planning to recruiting friends to program implementation. Indeed, according to a 2013 study, “Effective Strategies for Educating and Engaging Jewish Teens,” it is that combination of empowerment and support from talented educators that best yields attractive and meaningful experiences.

Other organizations including BBYO, iCenter, Union for Reform Judaism, Foundation for Jewish Camp, Moving Traditions and Jewish Student Connection also understand the importance of investing in training and support to help develop professionals who serve as close mentors, role models and guides to our teens.

Service and Israel play crucial roles in teen experiences.

Service opportunities can be one of the most effective ways to engage teens in Jewish life. Teens are eager to join a community of like-minded peers and make a difference in the lives of others, as evidenced by Repair the World’s J-Serve, the American Jewish Society for Service, summer and gap year service programs and the overall increase in these opportunities and recurring findings from research about the millennial generation.

Likewise, opportunities to connect with Israel are effective catalysts for Jewish engagement. Teen Israel trips play a vital role in helping young Jews forge connections with their peers, with Israelis and with our beautiful and diverse homeland. Studies also show that the impact of an Israel trip actually grows over time, inspiring increased and ongoing involvement in Jewish life and with Israel.

Collaboration is key and leads to creative, new teen engagement opportunities.

It is fitting that the theme of BBYO’s International Convention this year is “Stronger Together.” As funders and communal leaders, we too are stronger together. As we push forward and take action to support and inspire teens, we should remember that no one foundation or organization can tackle this critical issue alone. Many of us are part of a Funder Collaborative that is focusing on how we can create local and national partnerships to help engage more teens in select communities across the country. Already we are seeing that through forming strategic partnerships, scaling innovative initiatives and strengthening the pipeline of continued engagement, we each have unique and vital roles to play.

Now is the moment for us to embrace those roles as part of a broader ecosystem with shared goals and outcomes. We have models of engagement that are working. We have teens who are hungry for opportunities to tap into something larger than themselves, to live as engaged global citizens and to find new ways to connect with Israel and to repair the world. We have studies that show the quantifiable impact of this work and its direct effect on the strength and vibrancy of the Jewish future.

But we need the communal commitment. There are many who are already doing important work in this space. We hope even more will join us, starting this week at the Summit in Atlanta.

Together we can scale successful models and seed new ones so they can reach and engage growing numbers of teens. With this strategy, a generation from now, the 80 percent figure may reflect the number of teens engaged with, rather than disengaged from, Jewish life. And we can inspire teens to have a love of Jewish life and learning, to actively work to strengthen our peoples’ future, and to draw on Jewish values as they create change in the broader world.

Source: “Investing in Jewish Teens: “A Golden Opportunity for Action,” eJewishPhilanthropy, February 9, 2015

In the dead of winter, with a Nor’easter bearing down, what compels someone to travel from Miami to Boston? If you work in Jewish education, it’s the opportunity to see first-hand and learn about all of the elements of a successful project called B’Yadenu. I had the opportunity as well to sit-in on this dissemination, known as the Community Partner Workshop. Important takeaways from this process can help other foundations, schools, and organizations as they decide when and how to disseminate a successful model.

As a demonstration project, B’Yadenu aims to create an effective, sustainable, and adaptable model to provide a Jewish Day School education to more students with a range of special learning needs in the Boston Jewish Day School community. The project is managed by Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston in partnership with Gateways: Access to Jewish Education, based in Newton, MA, and Yeshiva University’s Institute for University-School Partnership in New York. Now in its 3rd year, and with two cohorts of five Boston-area Jewish Days Schools, we are beginning to see positive results. Each participating school has developed a Leadership team consisting of administrators and teacher leaders who plan a professional development program for their school as they create and implement a whole school approach to meet the needs of diverse learners.

For the Jim Joseph Foundation, seeing these initial positive results presents a major opportunity in line with our approach to strategic grantmaking and to model documentation and dissemination. This opportunity is why, for two days last month, community and school representatives from Miami and Detroit flew to Boston to learn about the B’yadenu model and the concepts supporting implementation, the project toolkit, and initial outcomes directly from those leading the project.

The Foundation works with grantees to disseminate models in a variety of ways, from websites to hard copy reports. Different models lend themselves to different forms of dissemination. And, the in-person dissemination of B’Yadenu certainly has its benefits:

• A Substantive Model: When the “host” community – in this case Boston – invites other communities to fly in and learn first-hand about an initiative, there is an implicit message that “we have something working here, and we want to help you adapt it for your community.” When different communities take the time and resources to come together in this manner, all parties involved make a commitment to learn and to take the steps necessary to make successful adaption more likely.
• In-person engagement: Even with all of the technology in our world today, the opportunity to interact in-person for two days allows for deep learning. The Miami and Detroit representatives engaged in exercises, asked pointed questions, and had the opportunity to reflect with the Boston representatives on what this might look like in their communities.
• Seeing is Believing: As part of the two-day dissemination, the Miami and Detroit representatives toured schools where B’Yadenu has led to change. They were able to see what the project actually looks like in implementation. By seeing something working, the planning process – while perhaps still daunting – feels incredibly worthwhile. Julie Lambert, Director of Professional Learning Initiatives at CAJE Miami, attended the Workshop and commented, “It was exciting to learn about the B’Yadenu model. We saw how well the project connects to our work in Miami, and how it can be adapted to further develop what we have accomplished in our day school community. We left Boston with renewed energy and increased knowledge to build our capacity for serving our diverse student population.”
• Looking Inwards: While the Workshop was designed to benefit the Miami and Detroit communities, the preparation that the Boston B’Yadenu team went through to lead an insightful and productive two-day workshop was helpful to them as well. The process forced the team – in a good way – to think deeply about the B’Yadenu design and implementation process, what has worked well, what it would change, and how the outcomes are beginning to take root.

“As a demonstration project, B’Yadenu has benefitted from an exceptional interchange of learning between all of our partners (both schools and regional/national agencies),” said Alan Oliff, Director of Jewish Learning and Engagement at CJP and the Project Manager for B’Yadenu. “The dissemination workshop expanded our learning through the questions, ideas, and concerns raised by the Miami and Detroit participants. We appreciated the opportunity to share all that we learned and create new networks that can add to the knowledgebase in the field about best practice going forward.”

Sharing the B’Yadenu model at this relatively early juncture in its development provided a substantial learning opportunity for Boston and the communities considering adapting it. The B’Yadenu team will continue to support Miami and Detroit educators as they determine how to adapt B’Yadenu to their communities.

Other Foundation grantees also are currently involved in model documentation and dissemination. As one example, the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Marin and Sonoma Counties Early Childhood Education Initiative, is about to embark on model documentation of its successful Jewish Resource Specialist program. This four-year-old initiative is expanding the capacity of 15 Jewish pre-schools to enhance the Jewish learning taking place, as well as to engage families more deeply in Jewish family experiences.

The recent Grantee Perception Report on the Jim Joseph Foundation indicated clear field interest in the Foundation continuing to broadly share efforts of its grantees. We hope that the building, documentation, and dissemination of successful models is an effective response to this expressed interest of stakeholders in Jewish education.

Sandy Edwards is Associate Director of the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Source: “More than One Way to Document a Model,” Sandy Edwards, eJewishPhilanthropy, January 13, 2015

In the dead of winter, with a Nor’easter bearing down, what compels someone to travel from Miami to Boston? If you work in Jewish education, it’s the opportunity to see first-hand and learn about all of the elements of a successful project called B’Yadenu. I had the opportunity as well to sit-in on this dissemination, known as the Community Partner Workshop. Important takeaways from this process can help other foundations, schools, and organizations as they decide when and how to disseminate a successful model.

As a demonstration project, B’Yadenu aims to create an effective, sustainable, and adaptable model to provide a Jewish Day School education to more students with a range of special learning needs in the Boston Jewish Day School community. The project is managed by Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston in partnership with Gateways: Access to Jewish Education, based in Newton, MA, and Yeshiva University’s Institute for University-School Partnership in New York. Now in its 3^rd year, and with two cohorts of five Boston-area Jewish Days Schools, we are beginning to see positive results. Each participating school has developed a Leadership team consisting of administrators and teacher leaders who plan a professional development program for their school as they create and implement a whole school approach to meet the needs of diverse learners.

For the Jim Joseph Foundation, seeing these initial positive results presents a major opportunity in line with our approach to strategic grantmaking and to model documentation and dissemination. This opportunity is why, for two days last month, community and school representatives from Miami and Detroit flew to Boston to learn about the B’yadenu model and the concepts supporting implementation, the project toolkit, and initial outcomes directly from those leading the project.

The Foundation works with grantees to disseminate models in a variety of ways, from websites to hard copy reports. Different models lend themselves to different forms of dissemination. And, the in-person dissemination of B’Yadenu certainly has its benefits:

• A Substantive Model: When the “host” community—in this case Boston—invites other communities to fly in and learn first-hand about an initiative, there is an implicit message that “we have something working here, and we want to help you adapt it for your community.” When different communities take the time and resources to come together in this manner, all parties involved make a commitment to learn and to take the steps necessary to make successful adaption more likely.

• In-person engagement: Even with all of the technology in our world today, the opportunity to interact in-person for two days allows for deep learning. The Miami and Detroit representatives engaged in exercises, asked pointed questions, and had the opportunity to reflect with the Boston representatives on what this might look like in their communities.

• Seeing is Believing: As part of the two-day dissemination, the Miami and Detroit representatives toured schools where B’Yadenu has led to change. They were able to see what the project actually looks like in implementation. By seeing something working, the planning process—while perhaps still daunting—feels incredibly worthwhile. Julie Lambert, Director of Professional Learning Initiatives at CAJE Miami, attended the Workshop and commented, “It was exciting to learn about the B’Yadenu model. We saw how well the project connects to our work in Miami, and how it can be adapted to further develop what we have accomplished in our day school community. We left Boston with renewed energy and increased knowledge to build our capacity for serving our diverse student population.”

• Looking Inwards: While the Workshop was designed to benefit the Miami and Detroit communities, the preparation that the Boston B’Yadenu team went through to lead an insightful and productive two-day workshop was helpful to them as well. The process forced the team—in a good way—to think deeply about the B’Yadenu design and implementation process, what has worked well, what it would change, and how the outcomes are beginning to take root.

“As a demonstration project, B’Yadenu has benefitted from an exceptional interchange of learning between all of our partners (both schools and regional/national agencies),” said Alan Oliff, Director of Jewish Learning and Engagement at CJP and the Project Manager for B’Yadenu. “The dissemination workshop expanded our learning through the questions, ideas, and concerns raised by the Miami and Detroit participants.  We appreciated the opportunity to share all that we learned and create new networks that can add to the knowledgebase in the field about best practice going forward.”

Sharing the B’Yadenu model at this relatively early juncture in its development provided a substantial learning opportunity for Boston and the communities considering adapting it. The B’Yadenu team will continue to support Miami and Detroit educators as they determine how to adapt B’Yadenu to their communities.

Other Foundation grantees also are currently involved in model documentation and dissemination. As one example, the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Marin and Sonoma Counties Early Childhood Education Initiative, is about to embark on model documentation of its successful Jewish Resource Specialist program. This four-year-old initiative is expanding the capacity of 15 Jewish pre-schools to enhance the Jewish learning taking place, as well as to engage families more deeply in Jewish family experiences.   

The recent Grantee Perception Report on the Jim Joseph Foundation indicated clear field interest in the Foundation continuing to broadly share efforts of its grantees.  We hope that the building, documentation, and dissemination of successful models is an effective response to this expressed interest of stakeholders in Jewish education.

“True community does not come into being because people have feelings for each other (though that is required, too), but rather on two accounts: all of them have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to a single living center, and they have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to one another.” – Martin Buber, I and Thou

The end of the year is a time when I read voraciously. I do so annually wanting to rededicate myself to the concept of “otherness,” which for me derives from a long cherished belief in specific aspects of Martin Buber’s I and Thou.

Reminding myself that there is an ever-present “other” – both in the amount of content in which I lack knowledge and about which I am inquisitive, and in the “thou” that represents the individuality of every single human being whom I encounter – replenishes my senses of wonder and awe. I invariably come away refreshed from what I fancy is my personal celebration of limerence (social critic David Brooks’ term describing a passionate love for learning). And the personal translates to the public: I begin the New Year listening for understanding with heightened attention to my colleagues and Foundation Board of Directors, and searching more circumspectly with Jim Joseph Foundation grantees for effective approaches to Jewish education.

This December’s reading list included texts in several domains: the spiritual geography of place; teacher training; and contemporary Jewish sociology. On its face this looks like an entirely random set of topics, the content of each unrelated to the themes, main ideas, facts, figures, and findings of the other. But it is precisely this breadth of topic that holds its allure in its challenge for me to integrate what appears disparate and even disconnected. Moreover, and most importantly, is the matter of using discovery and learning to inform my Foundation work.

So, by way of example, Richard Cohen’s controversial Israel: Is it Good for the Jews? has no obvious relationship whatsoever to Mark C. Taylor’s Recovering Place: Reflections on Stone Hill. I accept that it is a surprising coupling of texts dissimilar in many ways. Yet Cohen writes incisively about Herzl’s vision of Israel as a place defining who we are as a Jewish people… “a place where a Jew could be a free Jew, a proud Jew, a totally unfettered Jew, but it could also be a place – and this was most important – where a Jew could be free not to be a Jew” (p.13). Taylor, ruminating poetically on a small town in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, avers “that by pausing to dwell on a particular place, we may once again know who we are by discovering where we are” (p. 3).

Cohen is a syndicated columnist who offers a highly interpretive and personalized brief history of Israel. Taylor, a professor of religion, has compiled a collection of meditations and photographs sanctifying the place where the author lives. Conjoined together, these strikingly different texts awakened in me the need to open my eyes wide to the physical space I inhabit. Absorbing these two sources helps prime me for the June, 2015 Board meeting the Foundation will hold in Israel, knowing that I will have the opportunity to engage deeply with my Israeli brethren and with the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael itself.

While Israel: Is it Good for the Jews and Recovering Place might seem like unlikely companions, Elizabeth Green’s Building a Better Teacher and Sharon Feiman-Nemser’s Teachers as Learners are easily read together, without dissonance. Both books make exceptionally strong cases for further professionalizing the field of teaching.

The story-like narrative Green artfully tells and the insightful, rigorous analysis Feiman-Nemser constructs make a compelling case for an epistemology of teaching – content knowledge about pedagogy – that defy notions of individuals “born to be teachers” or educators achieving pedagogical excellence simply by teaching to a set of imposed curriculum standards. Neither book is about Jewish education or Jewish day schools. But reading these two original contributions to the literature on teacher preparation compels me to wonder to what extent Jewish day schools invest deeply in their teachers’ ongoing professional development.

I think both Feiman-Nemser’s and Green’s books may ultimately be viewed as landmark contributions to the literature each seeks to enrich. True, secular education at certain levels is something different than Jewish day school education. Yet Feiman-Nemser and Green prompt me to think critically about what Jim Joseph Foundation investments in teacher preparation and professional development at HUC, JTS, YU, Brandeis, Pardes, and the Jewish New Teacher Project are producing. I also ponder what role the Consortium for Advanced Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE) can ultimately play in professionalizing day school teaching. These books inspire me to want to believe that the craft of teaching can be mastered. I ponder what a multitude of demonstrably great teachers might mean to the future of Jewish day school education.

My final holiday pairing of Keren McGinity’s groundbreaking Marrying Out and Brandeis University’s Steinhardt Social Research Institute’s American Jewish Population Estimates: 2012 probably seems like another logical concurrent reading of two texts. The Steinhardt study, estimating the U.S. Jewish population at 6.8 million, received a good deal of attention when it was initially released. I find the study to be informative on a number of levels. Perhaps most noteworthy is the authors’ persuasive contention that most Jewish population studies conflate demographic and sociological data. The result is both miscalculation of the population of Jews (underestimating the number) as well as distortion in representations of the nature of contemporary American Jewish life.

McGinity’s fascinating qualitative analysis of the lives of 52 men in interfaith marriages (all of the couples reside in Ann Arbor, Michigan) reveals a host of dynamics having to do with men’s identities that – to my knowledge – have rarely been researched. McGinity’s portraits are realistic, nuanced, and detailed. They uncover a depth of Jewishness and strength of Jewish identity in interfaith marriages that the literature ignores – as do the critics of interfaith marriage.

The research conducted by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute and Keren McGinity makes me wary of many commentators on the 2013 Pew study whose rhetoric of fatalism is countermanded by these empirical and qualitative findings. These texts point me in the direction of ensuring the Jim Joseph Foundation continues to track population studies while separating from them sweeping, flawed generalizations about the character of Jewish life that too often accompany the studies.

My December reading—varied and inspiring it certainly was—again showed me that in nearly all aspects of life, the need for continued learning is great. It is a simple but stark reminder that Jim Joseph Foundation personnel should read widely and respect “otherness” as a means to consider an array of solutions (some still undiscovered) to complex problems of improving Jewish teaching and learning.