News & Blogs Category: From the Foundation Team

When one’s title at a philanthropic foundation includes words like “grants management” and “compliance,” addressing tasks that fall under the “how” of organizational life is common. This includes everything from process to procedures to workflows—all of which are emphasized as core drivers of organizational excellence.  But this understanding of organizational excellence lacks an acknowledgement that achieving excellence depends on more than just completing the task at hand. The challenge, however, is that the technicality and focus on how to do something often overshadows the intentionality with which something should be done.

At the Jim Joseph Foundation, we strive to act with deep kavanah (intention) to foster compelling, effective learning experiences for young Jews. Our professional team focuses on the “how” of grantmaking and evaluation to pursue this mission. More recently, we also created space to focus on the values we hold as we do this work. The staff values below were fomented by the Foundation’s Culture Committee, a diverse cross section of the Foundation team who asserted that how we conduct ourselves matters.  Each staff value is a Jewish value that stems from Pirkei Avot, a compendium of ethical texts that are rooted in morality and common decency.  A large copy of these values is on the wall in the Foundation’s offices when one first enters, and each manager now uses these as a core part of performance appraisals[1].

• Respect & Humility: We assume positive intent (Tzelem Elohim)

We are stewards of a tremendous legacy.  When the Foundation’s benefactor, Jim Joseph z’’l, passed away in 2003, few people knew his name before the creation of this eponymous foundation. Most of his charitable pursuits were made privately and without acknowledgement.  On positive intent, we see ourselves in G-d’s image and expect to treat others with uncompromising respect.

• Learning: We are always developing and growing (Hitlamdoot)

Every undertaking has failures and successes and we are compelled to acknowledge each if we are committed to personal and professional growth.  Further, achievement is not merely about individual accomplishment.  Collaboration, constructive discourse, and mentorship are necessary components of a learning environment. Investment in professional development both internally and for grantee-partners facilitates and accelerates the learning process.

• Teamwork: We are one team and our teamwork makes us a smarter organization (Areivoot)

We aspire to create a team-oriented approach to grantmaking such that grantee-partners and foundation partners combine brainpower to solve challenges. Internally at the Foundation, we strive for a democratic and sincere approach to a professional team, informed by the deep importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. Each team member has a unique opportunity to lead and to follow and has a seat and a voice at the table. We continue to make space within each conversation so that more voices can be elevated.

• Integrity: We do the right thing even when no one is watching (Shleimoot)

Honesty, transparency, and authenticity are three prerequisites for maintaining trust both internally among co-workers and externally among other colleagues. We embrace—and try to live by—these principles. Integrity also extends to internal policies (conflict of interest, code of ethics, whistleblower), external requirements (non-discrimination clauses, harassment policies, and general child and employee protection requirements), and regular dialogue with partners and stakeholders in the broader field.

• Giving Back: We aspire to be good community stewards (Avodah)

While giving is the essence of any foundation, this value relates to more than just the stewarding of effective philanthropy. Rather, Giving Back relates to volunteering as individuals and as a team to serve with the broader community.  It also relates to acting with compassion. If a potential grantee-partner is not the right fit for the Foundation, we strive to be cordial and helpful to those in need and those representing causes that warrant support.

Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, PhD, of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, articulates ten commandments for leaders [of Jewish organizations][2] .  All are valuable to revisit but two in particular strike a chord.

Number 5:  Saturate your organization with that strong moral leadership buttressed by authentic Jewish learning 

Number 7: Treat everyone with respect: your own self, the workers and consultants you hire, the people you serve – those who put their faith in you.  Do everything you can to show everyone you meet how much they matter. 

The exercise of spending considerable time to think about and develop our staff values was both rewarding and beneficial to our professional team. I encourage others to develop staff values, to live by them, to display them on your office walls, and to articulate why they represent the organization and the people who work for it.

The Foundation’s Culture Committee is comprised of Nicole Levy, Executive Assistant to the President and CEO; Mallory Morales, Program Assistant; Dawne Bear Novicoff, Chief Operating Officer; Aaron Saxe, Senior Program Officer; Kari Simpson, Human Resources Director; and Sossena Walter, Director of Finance and Accounting. Jeff Tiell, former Program Officer at the Foundation, served on the Culture Committee too.

Steven Green is Senior Director of Grants Management and Compliance.

[1] In addition to agreeing to and embracing the staff values holistically, each team member agrees on one or two staff values with a manager at the beginning of each year on which to focus attention

[2] More than Managing:  The Relentless Pursuit of Effective Jewish Leadership, Jewish Lights Publishing, pp 222-223, 2016

In reflecting about my journey at the Jim Joseph Foundation – these last 4 ½ years – an insight from Mother Teresa comes to mind. Indeed, after a lifetime of working with the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable, Mother Teresa observed that, “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis but rather the feeling of not belonging.” What makes this observation even more powerful is that she died in 1997 – before the digital revolution really took hold, before cell phones, social media, and widespread online communities.

It is no surprise to most of us that this disease – this notion of not belonging – has reached epidemic proportions. Type in “loneliness epidemic” into google and a flurry of articles pop up – and countries are beginning to think about how to confront the issue. Just one example, in 2018, the U.K. appointed a Loneliness Minister, Tracey Crouch, to help combat the country’s chronic loneliness problem.

We long to belong.

The Jim Joseph Foundation has been on a journey itself that intersected with my own – one that has led to a stated aspiration of working with grantee-partners to help all Jews, their families and their friends lead connected, meaningful, purpose-filled lives and to make positive contributions to their communities and the world. The Foundation is looking to help fund, support, and build meaningful connection in our lives. In my own journey of wrestling with this meaning-based connection, the Jewish theologian Martin Buber has been particularly illustrative. At the core of Buber’s theology is his theory of dialogue – the idea that entering into relationship with one another is essential – because in doing so one enters into a relationship with G-d. Buber famously speaks to what he calls the “I-It” vs the “I-You” – the “I-It” characterized as how most of us tend to operate in daily life; we tend to treat the people and the world around us as things to be used for our benefit. Sometimes this is very appropriate. After all, a toothbrush is meant for my benefit (and the benefit of those around me, I might add). But what about a person? Buber speaks to the notion of the “I-You” as addressing other people directly as partners in dialogue and relationship. Only when we say “You” to our world can we perceive its eccentricity and peculiarity and, simultaneously, its potential for intimacy.

In my time at the Foundation, I attempted to carry myself with the words “I-You” on my lips. Indeed, what does it mean to be a true partner given the power and perch that comes from being positioned at a large institutional funder? These are questions that the sector would do well, in my opinion, to keep asking – as I think they remain increasingly pertinent and meaningful, particularly in a universe where our work is about furnishing the hearth of connection. This question of partnership is at the center of what effective grantmaking is concerned with. Phil Buchanan, in his latest book, Giving Done Right (in my humble opinion a book that should be required reading for all who enter the philanthropic field), discusses what it takes to build effective relationships with grantee-partners. He provides ten rules based on his organization’s, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), surveys of tens of thousands of grantee-partners about hundreds of grantmakers. One of the ten in particular spoke to me: Don’t assume you have what it takes to strengthen nonprofits or build their capabilities. Ask what they need and then offer it only if you’re positioned to do it well. As grantmakers we like to think we know something. And often we do. And often we actually don’t know as much as we think we know. Just as the heart pumps blood through our body, providing it with oxygen and nutrients, our grantee-partners pump their lived experience, their work, and their knowledge to the philanthropic sector. We would be wise to listen and when we think we are listening to actually listen more.

In their book Stories of the Spirit, Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman tell this story: A family went out to a restaurant for dinner. When the waitress arrived, the parents gave their orders, where then immediately their five-year-old daughter piped up with her own: “I’ll have a hot dog, french fries, and a Coke.” “Oh no you won’t,” interjected the parents, and turning to the waitress said, “She’ll have meat loaf, mashed potatoes, milk.” Looking at the child with a smile, the waitress said, “So hon, what do you want on that hot dog?” When she left, the family sat stunned and silent. A few moments later the little girl, eyes shining, said, “She thinks I’m real.”

Who do we believe is real in our communities? My sense, for one reason or another, is many of us have been treated like the daughter was by the parents. A question that I find myself coming back to again and again – how can I be more real and see people in all their miraculous realness? Moving from the individual to the sector perspective, this story is also illustrative of the ways in which many of us in the philanthropic sector see the nonprofit universe. Business-type thinking permeates the nonprofit world. As Phil Buchanan notes, “What we need today is a further clarifying – not a blurring – of the boundaries between the sectors. Each sector plays a distinct role. We live in a market economy, but markets have limits – and markets fail – and that’s why the nonprofit sector is so crucial.” I couldn’t agree more. No sector is superior, and the pursuit of profit and that of social impact ends may not always conflict, but they often do. As Buchanan says, “Nonprofits are often working to address the very problems markets have failed to address. So, it makes little sense to maintain that ”market approaches” are the answer to every problem.” This is often difficult for philanthropists and principals – the vast majority of them who made their fortunes in the market world – to come to terms with. And naturally so, we are hardwired to think that what worked in one situation could work in another. In philanthropy we have many examples to the contrary and more being created each and every day.

Which brings me to my last story. The psychologist and author Tara Brach writes in her work, Radical Acceptance: Mohini was a regal white tiger who lived for many years at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. For the majority of those years, her home was the old lion house, a typical twelve-by-twelve foot cage with iron bars and a cement floor. Mohini’s days consisted of pacing restlessly back and forth in her cramped quarters. Eventually, the Zoo staff worked together to create a natural habitat for her, covering several acres with hills, trees, a pond and a variety of vegetation. With excitement and anticipation, they released Mohini into her new and expansive environment. But it was too late. The tiger immediately sought refuge in a corner of the compound, where she lived for the remainder of her life. Mohini paced and paced in that corner until an area twelve by twelve feet was worn bare of grass.

So many of us find ourselves trapped in the same old patterns. The same old thinking. So many of us find our institutions trapped in the same old patterns. The same old thinking. For all of us in the Jewish communal sector, what would it look like to realize that we are actually living in an expansive wilderness and acting as if we live in a cage of our own making?

It was a privilege to be a part of and contributor to this Foundation’s work for the last 4 ½ years, to have been a colleague and a partner to many organizations and individuals in the world of Jewish education, and to continue to be inspired by the work of our grantee partners in the field – you all are the champions that made coming to work each and every day at the Jim Joseph Foundation the best job a guy could have.

Jeff Tiell was a Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation until August, 2019. He can be reached now at [email protected].

At a recent meeting discussing logic models, outcomes, and corresponding indicators I was startled by something I saw out of the corner of my eye.

A colleague was eating his lunch.

Or should I say this colleague had essentially finished his lunch. It was Thai food and there were the dregs of curry still on the plate. This colleague was using his chopsticks to pince these microscopic bits of tofu before then putting the chopsticks to his mouth.

And here I was, sitting there, looking at this astonished.

Astonished because never in one hundred years would I have thought to do this. If that had been my plate, those little bits of tofu would have been compost. And that’s the point. You see, this colleague is a very detailed-oriented thinker. He zooms in. He’s the kind of fellow who could spot a missing letter in a 50-page thesis. I on the other hand, well, I probably wouldn’t spot that letter. It’s just not what I look for. I see broad brushstrokes and eat accordingly. Now that’s not to say that my colleague and I are total opposites in the ways in which we do or are able to do and see things. There is obvious nuance. But the basic point is not lost: people see the world in different ways and bringing people of differing or outsider views together often is a good thing that leads to important opportunities for all individuals involved. It’s a good thing in life in general and it’s also a good thing inherently in the social sector because it enables organizations to do better work.

Why?

Well, for starters because educational programs and programs that provide differing views are significant professional development opportunities for employees. These differences create important opportunities to network and to learn with colleagues, and they broaden our understanding of what it means to be part of a community (professional or other). We are more likely to then bring new ideas and strategies back to the organization in which we work, gained, in part, from a certain outside resource or source that provided information we were unlikely to otherwise have.

And I’m not just talking about diversity of individuals’ lived experiences. I’m talking about diversity of organizational lived experience and diversity of organizational thought. It’s one thing to encourage and support employees to understand and wrestle with voices that may be different than one’s own externally. It’s wholly a different thing to have the organizational strength to incorporate these voices internally.

Recently, I read a book called Range by David Epstein. The book jacket reads as follows,

“What’s the most effective path to success in any domain? It’s not what you think.”

The book then proceeds to describe its thesis that we have been taught to think that there is a single path to excellence, as noted, “Start early, specialize soon, narrow your focus, aim for efficiency.” This is actually not the case. Epstein “shows that in most domains, the way to excel is something altogether different. Sample widely, gain a breadth of experiences, take detours, and experiment relentlessly.” Indeed, Epstein finds that, “in most fields – especially those that are complex and unpredictable – generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.” Increasingly, this is what our emerging world is demanding of us – to have the capacity to be generalists.

We in the Jewish communal space need to make more room for those differing views, for those outside voices both external and internal to our organizations, to the stranger who may have a thought that doesn’t conform.

We need to do this, both as individuals and as a field, because doing so makes us stronger and more equipped to deliver on our personal and professional mission and visions. It allows us to analogize from varying disciplines and bring in thinking and solutions to issues that may not be kosher on the face of it, but lead to evolutions or revolutions of thought and practice.

The Jim Joseph Foundation is beginning to think about this work and invests in more R&D efforts than previously. But this goes beyond the direct strategy of any one organization. My encouragement for us in the Jewish communal space: go to conferences that may be of interest to you that don’t seemingly “relate” to your field; bring in folks from other areas and disciplines to engage staff and boards; create professional development opportunities for staff that allow for experimentation and risk taking. My experience at the Rockwood Leadership Institute’s Art of Leadership seminar in February 2018 is just one example of the impact these interventions can have. There, I was able to engage with grantmakers from a wide variety of professional and personal backgrounds in the type of work—asking the big questions about purpose, vision, partnership, and resilience —that matters to us all collectively. This training helped me not only work more proficiently in the Jewish philanthropic work of the Foundation, but also tap into the roots of what motivates and inspires me about this work – all this from a group of 30 some “strangers.”

Welcoming the stranger is a core principle of Judaism. Indeed, the Torah instructs us 36 times to care for the stranger – far more than it commands us to observe the Sabbath or any other law. Giving credence to what this means for ourselves and our organizations will lead to a more engaged, relevant, smarter, and more thoughtful Jewish philanthropic field.

I stepped into the Jim Joseph Foundation office for the first time as a Jewish philanthropy professional around 7:45 am on Thursday, October 15, 2015. On Friday, June 7, 2019, I exited the office for the last time as a Program Officer for the Foundation. Many of us come and go from various jobs and professions, so we know what it’s like to start work, do the work, and end the work. I was honored and privileged to work here, and part of what I loved so much was the opportunity to reflect and to learn. In fact, if there’s one thing I enjoyed and appreciated most about my funder colleagues, my grantee-partners, my peers in secular philanthropy, and our trusted consultants, is how much they taught me over the past three-and-one-half years.

One of the first assignments that I received upon donning the role of Program Officer was to meet with and speak with dozens of program officers from other foundations to hear their stories: What led them to where they are now? What challenges do they see in the field of Jewish education? What opportunities on the horizon excite them? For those who know me, you can imagine this being an assignment I relished. Set up coffee dates with those wiser and more learned than me? Sign me up! I was skimming through some of these notes recently, and I must have had 30-40 conversations in those first few months to get me up to speed in the vernacular of Jewish communal life (this was, after all, my first Jewish professional job, and my first job in philanthropy. My previous 10 years had been spent running a K-12 tutoring company, and before that I was a high school math and science teacher).

My first Jewish Funders Network conference was an exciting blur of camp-meets-summit, continuing to meet new colleagues, re-connect with folks I had met virtually, and connect with a few legends in the field who my assigned first-time mentor, Jon Woocher, z’’l, made sure I met: Cindy Chazan, Joni Blinderman, and Yossi Abramowitz. As I was already starting to carve out distinct portfolios in my grantee and project work, these three helped introduce me to the worlds of Jewish leadership, early childhood education, and educational technology.

As I progressed, my feet sank deeper into learning more and more about leadership programs: What’s out there, and what works? Who are the key players? Where does the Jim Joseph Foundation currently invest, and what might a more focused leadership investment strategy look like? I remember the first presentation and discussion I led with my Foundation colleagues, based on researching our current and previous grants in the space, creating a rudimentary leadership rubric to determine which grants are “leadership grants,” and proposing a few high level ideas to inform strategic investments going forward. While some of those early ideas stuck (we led a successful Leadership Retreat in summer 2018, and are considering leadership capacity grants), others are still in formation (what would it look like to provide a coach or mentor to every Jewish professional? What would it look like to fund CEO sabbaticals?).

From this initial research, I was encouraged to explore secular leadership programs and strategies, while also continuing to dig deeper into the concept of “Jewish leadership.” Similar to my listening tour to better understand Jewish foundation professionals, I embarked on a series of conversations, focus groups, conferences, and think tanks that explored leadership from myriad angles. I met Phil Li, President & CEO of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, whose approach to networked leadership led to the creation of the Sterling Network to bring together cross-sector leaders in New York City. I met Claire Peeps, Executive Director of the Durfee Foundation, who provides leaders in Los Angeles with a Durfee Sabbatical, and other leaders with a longer Stanton Fellowship to support them to think deeply about a complex challenge. I met Holly Delany Cole, Director of the Flexible Leadership Awards, a Haas, Jr. Initiative that provides supplemental funding to core grantee organizations to more deeply invest in customized leadership capacity solutions. These three colleagues, and many others in the Leadership Funders Group, as well as Fund the People, helped nourish my soul and quench my thirst for knowledge, introducing me to new ways of thinking and new people to meet, all of whom focused their attention squarely in the leadership space.

There are too many books, articles, blogs, and publications to recount that also informed my thinking and helped me on my journey as a foundation professional learning about leadership. But a few that sparked lasting ideas around effective leadership investing are GEO’s Investing in Leadership Strategies, HBR’s On Leadership, and Bridgespan’s Leadership Pipeline Alliance Report, which led to the formation of Leading Edge. I am indebted to my friends and colleagues at the Schusterman Family Foundation and Wexner Foundation, for their continued teaching and meta-leadership in this arena. I will always be thankful to my friends and colleagues at the Jim Joseph Foundation for their patience with my numerous questions and their desire to also think big with me. And especially to the Jim Joseph Foundation’s two senior leaders with whom I worked—Chip Edelsberg and Barry Finestone. They each mentored and coached me in their own distinct way; I am eternally grateful for the opportunities they gave me.

This July, my family and I are moving to Long Beach, where I grew up, to be closer to our kids’ grandparents. It is a very bittersweet transition, not only to leave my colleagues here, but to leave my community in San Francisco, where I have lived for nearly 25 years. We will surely grow new roots in Southern California, with the gracious and generous help of our parents, friends and relatives. I feel good about the work we’ve done together. I remain optimistic about our future. The Jewish people are strong. We are resilient. We are creative, and innovative, and educated. We are not wont for leaders or leadership—they are sitting and standing among us. I know that the skills and relationships I have formed here are without a doubt some of the strongest I have made in my lifetime, and I will carry them with me into this next phase of my career. They are built on curiosity, on humility, on vulnerability. And perhaps that is what leadership must teach all of us—to be curious, to be humble, to be vulnerable—with ourselves, and with each other.

Godspeed, my friends.

Seth Linden was a Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation for 3.5 years. He is now a philanthropy consultant focusing on board culture and governance, leadership and talent development, and designing and facilitating learning retreats. He can be reached at [email protected] and you can read more at www.gatherconsulting.org.

“What would remain if Foundation funding disappeared?” This was a common question that former Jim Joseph Foundation Executive Director Chip Edelsberg posed to challenge the professional team during the early launch phases of Foundation-supported teen education initiatives. But really, the question itself reflects a guiding principle of the Foundation since its inception; that is, to support organizations and initiatives in ways that are sustainable so that Jewish learning endeavors live on—and continue to benefit young people—even after a grant period concludes.

This principle, essentially a goal for each grant, has informed grantmaking decisions and the lengths and structures of Foundation grants.  We have learned lessons over the years about strategies and approaches to make this goal more likely to be achieved, including awarding matching grants to encourage new funding sources, supporting grantee-partners’ strategic planning processes, open and frequent conversations with grantee-partners, setting expectations with grantee-partners, and providing grantee-partners with enough time to position themselves for success if and when Foundation funding ceased. We have also gained a deep understanding about the power of a capacity building grant to help a grantee-partner grow in a sustainable way. Through trials and errors—and some fail forwards—we have learned about both the benefits of growing and the potential risks when a grantee-partner or the marketplace simply is not ready.

These are all important learnings and strategies for the Foundation, and perhaps for peer funders as well. What they are not, however, are actual tools for the grantee-partner to use to help them on their path towards sustainability. Over the last couple of years, the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative (FC)—a complex, multi-faceted grouping of different funders and organizations from around the country—elevated the goal of sustainability for each of its ten communities in very concrete ways. The FC’s ten community teen initiatives all worked diligently from the beginning to lay the groundwork for sustainability. Community stakeholders were engaged throughout so that our local funding partners, often Federations, designed initiatives that reflected the community’s actual needs and wants—not just what the local partner thought the community needed or wanted. Communities had conversations with program providers at the beginning stages of the grant period about expectations around sustainability. This complex community planning process helped develop teen initiatives that had broad buy-in from the start, thus also enhancing the likelihood of their sustainability.

In this vein, the communities came together to develop clear Measures of Success—one of which is to “Build Models for Jewish Teen Education that are Sustainable.” However, defining what success looks like without also offering a way to measure against it would somewhat render it moot. While complex surveys were developed for other measures of success—an appropriate approach in those cases—measuring a community’s readiness for sustainability required something different. That’s when Rosov Consulting, which serves as the cross-community evaluator, developed the Sustainability Diagnostic Tool (SDT) for communities to better understand the ways in which they were developing a sustainable ecosystem. This diagnostic process, which, importantly, communities can use themselves, offers community leadership and stakeholders the opportunity to assess and reflect on their progress towards sustainability.

As seen above, the SDT offers clear indicators and a qualitative sliding scale for communities to gauge progress themselves. Taken together, communities will gain a deep understanding about their readiness to “make it on their own.” Particularly important is that this is a usable diagnostic tool that communities themselves can deploy; each community received instructions to conduct interviews with key community stakeholders. They posed questions to elicit answers that would inform where the teen initiative fell in different categories of the rubric: “To what extent would you say that the leadership of the community’s teen ecosystem has a clearly stated mission for its work?” To what extent would you say that the community’s teen ecosystem has strong and stable leadership?” “To what extent would you say the community’s teen ecosystem has secured a financial future?” With the indicators in mind, to what extent is there evidence in the teen ecosystem of demand for service?”

Like other funders, we have seen expensive efforts we supported grow and build momentum, achieve great programmatic outcomes, but then fail to build the kind of broader communal investment that an initiative needs to endure over the longer-term. The SDT is designed so that grantee-partners can help themselves develop that kind of staying power. We are sharing this now as some communities in the FC move towards the final stages of their grant period. They already planned initiatives, received their first grant, received a renewal, and are fine-tuning the most effective parts of their initiatives. The communities nearing the end of their grant periods are finding great value in the SDT. Equally as exciting is that other communities, in earlier stages of their grant period, are already using the SDT so that the rubric and accompanying interview questions inform their stakeholder conversations and related initiative planning now:

The Sustainability Diagnostic Tool has really helped keep us honest with respect to how we’ve measured inroads and impact in our community’s initiative. Having this rubric has been a great way to remind ourselves what we mean by ‘success’, and has enabled us to validate some paths we’ve taken, or think about course corrections when necessary. – Brian Jaffee, Executive Director of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, the local funder of the Cincinnati Jewish Teen Collective.

The FC itself is a “big” story with many layers, organizations, and learnings. We’re telling one specific, yet critical, part of it now. We hope that by highlighting our Foundation’s learnings regarding sustainability and what we believe to be a critical new tool, other funders and organizations will be able to adapt the new SDT for any initiative that they want to see achieve sustainability. Having sustainability as a principle, as a goal, was important. But the SDT helps us and grantee-partners more definitively and accurately answer that key question: “What would remain if Foundation funding disappeared?”

Before using the SDT, please reach out to Sara Allen, Executive Director of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, at [email protected] for full instructions and insights.

Aaron Saxe is a Senior Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation.

[This post is the last in the series on the new report, The Future of Jewish Learning is Here: How Digital Media Are Reshaping Jewish Education, by Stanford University’s Ari Y. Kelman. The report, commissioned by the Jim Joseph Foundation, was released in conjunction with the recent Jewish Funders Network conference. The series shares multiple perspectives on the findings and questions raised in The Future of Jewish Learning.]

The Future of Jewish Learning Is Here is an admittedly ambitious title for a report. Yet it seems to capture both the seemingly endless opportunities that new technology presents and the critical reality that people are utilizing many of these technologies to learn and to positively influence their lives. Digital media, specifically for Jewish learning purposes, are being consumed on a meaningful scale, in different ways, and by diverse groups of people, and are changing how we, as a field, should think about Jewish education.

For the Jim Joseph Foundation, this report offers much to unpack and to reflect on. A decade ago, digital media was in its nascent stage of opening new and more opportunities for Jewish learning. Yet, the Foundation shied away from any significant investment. The space, for the Foundation, presented too many unknowns. At the same time, our approach and understanding of Jewish education admittedly was not yet broad enough to include some of the very real learning that was in fact occurring online. Thus, The Future of Jewish Learning Is Here is indicative of our own evolution in thinking and recognition that the nature of Jewish learning has, and continues to, evolve – and that it is driven in part by digital media opportunities today.

A few years ago, the Jim Joseph Foundation and the William Davidson Foundation released Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy, which shared both a landscape report of the trends and tools used in Ed Tech and a set of recommendations for our foundations to consider about how we might invest in them. Following the report, the Foundation made several new grants to support some new “digital-first” Jewish education platforms as a way to expand our reach and deepen our learning and involvement with the tools of online learning. Our most important insight from getting to know these platforms is affirmed for us in this new report – people are learning online and those online engagements should be viewed as educational. While of course online learning looks different than learning in a classroom, summer camp, or beit midrash, we now see how online learning can be deeply meaningful and substantial – and often much more accessible than more traditional learning experiences.

By growing our understanding of online Jewish learning and of how these platforms are used, those of us interested in designing or investing in these learning experiences can make better informed decisions to address learners’ needs. Expanding beyond the landscape analysis in Smart Money, the Future of Jewish Learning report provides rich, compelling insight and information into how, why, and when people learn online. People turn to online Jewish learning because the experiences are accessible, can be tailored to their personal needs or questions, help connect them to a sense of community, and for many other reasons.

Advancements in digital Jewish media have minimized, if not outright eliminated, the concerns of physical space, time, teachers, and other factors that impact a person’s ability to learn. Moreover, while these previous limitations often are rendered irrelevant when a user learns through any kind of online platform, The Future of Jewish Learning makes clear that Jewish content providers offer a particularly specialized experience, replete with an “imprimatur” that provides a sense of credibility. At the same time, these uniquely Jewish platforms can also serve as vehicles for powerful real-life connections among people.

As a funder, we welcome these key findings while recognizing the call to action they seem to present. First and foremost, we know we need to learn more and to better understand how this form of learning integrates into peoples’ lives. While this report sheds light on ways in which online learning makes people less reliant on traditional institutions, offers comfort in exploring questions about Judaism, fosters connections and a sense of connection, and often follows the rhythm of the Jewish calendar, there is still much we don’t know. We are eager to continue to learn with others in the field about the communities that evolve around online learning; the types of platforms best suited for certain learning experiences or people; how educators can be further utilizing online learning tools for themselves and with their students; what this means for Jewish family experiences; and how these tools can help us reach more diverse populations of learners. These are timely and big questions that we are eager to explore.

More and more, the Foundation approaches its own learning by investing in R&D to pursue innovation and to try new experiments. This approach is warranted both in traditional learning and in online learning experiences. In the limitless world of online learning, R&D is an important way to push the field forward and to bring offerings to scale. The possibilities for where, when, and how learning can happen is entirely different than a decade ago. Let’s explore these new opportunities together, as a field, so that anyone can engage in Jewish learning – wherever, whenever, and in whatever way is meaningful and conformable for them. The future is here.

Josh Miller is Chief Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation. Seth Linden is a Program Officer at the Foundation. The complete report, The Future of Jewish Learning is Here: How Digital Media Are Reshaping Jewish Education, is available for download here.

originally posted in eJewishPhilanthropy

Whether in the realm of business, journalism, relationships, or of course in our non-profit and social sector, the act of “questioning” can be powerful. A piece in the Harvard Business Review last year noted,  “Questioning is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations: It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas, it fuels innovation and performance improvement, it builds rapport and trust among team members. And it can mitigate business risk by uncovering unforeseen pitfalls and hazards.”

In other words, to “question” makes sense. This is why the Jim Joseph Foundation, for over a decade, has invested in the process of defining and pursuing questions. We have seen this process lead to important learning opportunities. But, who exactly are these learning opportunities for (that is a good question!)?  In the past, we emphasized the critical nature of supporting the capacity of grantees to answer questions they create – “what will we achieve and how will we do that?” “did we see the changes we wanted to see?”  “how could we be more successful in the future?”

Now, however, we are beginning to ask what questions the Foundation should be creating for ourselves. Many of them are questions similar to those found in evaluations of grantee-partner programs, but adapted to a larger, cross-portfolio level.

Blending Past and Future Priorities

Recently, in a facilitated team exercise, members of the Foundation’s program team were asked to examine the assumptions we make in our work and then to consider how we might test those assumptions.  The exercise was valuable in that it opened us up to realizing there are many assumptions we all make, and even that there are assumptions only some of us make. These include, but aren’t limited to, assumptions about elements of immersive and ongoing learning experiences, issues of depth and breadth in programming, and the value of risk taking.  Which of these would we want to actually test to see if our assumptions about grantmaking, Jewish education, and young Jews bear out?  Which questions could we seek answers to that would lead to meaningful learning that would inform future grantmaking endeavors?

Certainly, moving forward, the Foundation will continue to ask many of the same questions our grantee-partners know well:

• Did a grantee-partner do what they said they would do?
• Were desired outcomes achieved? Why or why not?
• What could be changed or improved in a grantee-partner’s programming or organization to reach better results in the future?

Beyond this, in the near future we will begin to shift and prioritize other kinds of questions as well:

• To what extent do cohorts or sets of grants help the Foundation achieve our goals?
• Overall, do our investments across grantee-partners lead us to our outcomes? Why or why not?
• What could be changed or improved in our grantmaking to get better results in the future?
• What even are the best measures for our desired outcomes?

We’ve chosen a consulting firm, Arabella Advisors, to help us develop a framework of Foundation-wide outcomes measurement.  In short, over the upcoming nine months, they will design a structure for us to systematically learn from our grantmaking in order to 1) understand progress toward outcomes and 2) inform future grantmaking decisions. Specifically, they will work with us to:

• Develop learning questions, indicators, and measures within and across our strategic priorities,
• Create and pilot a process for collecting and analyzing data from grantees,
• Build a system that communicates the results of our grantmaking, and
• Map out a 3- to 5-year research agenda focused on our investments in Jewish learning that will benefit the larger field.

With newly finalized strategic priorities, defining the correct learning questions to ask and answer is an important next step.  Measurement, evaluation and research remain as consistent threads through our work.  All of this planning, questioning and assumption testing will lead to a better understanding of our aspiration to “best support more young Jews – with their families and friends – to find connection, meaning, and purpose through Jewish learning.” We look forward to formulating our questions and documenting our learning—and to keeping the field informed of our work along the way.

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

There’s no one way to innovate. In Jewish education and engagement, creating change and developing new approaches comes in many forms, often through much trial and error. In the Jim Joseph Foundation’s guest blog this month, we share the innovation approach and journey of one grantee-partner, Sefaria, which offers insights on how finding a solution to one challenge often simply means that more innovating is yet to be done. Another grantee-partner, the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, frames its entire approach on “the hypothesis that the future of Jewish life, in a climate of personal autonomy and choice, depends entirely on whether Judaism can compete in the marketplace of ideas and identities.” This hypothesis is a call for innovation, reflected throughout SHNA; its David Hartman Fellowship, for example, focuses on “innovation in applied scholarship.” From these and many other partners, the Foundation is learning about the different approaches to innovation, as well as the different ways the Foundation can support this work.

This learning is occurring as the place of innovation has grown in our field. What was once a nascent part of Jewish learning, “innovation” now is an arguably overused term. For it not to lose its meaning, we, as a field, need to constantly examine what innovation looks like today and how organizations and individuals are pursuing it. Three additional organizations—Reboot, Upstart, and Hillel—serve as useful examples for different ways and strategies with which to approach innovation. They operate, respectively, at the “Ideas Level,” the “Implementer Level,” and the “Organizational Level.” Funders and grantees, we believe, both have something to gain by understanding how these different approaches drive innovation in our fields, and how failure and humility are requisite traits as one pursues innovation.

Ideas Level: Reboot “reimagines, reinvents and reinforces Jewish culture and traditions for wandering Jews and the world we live in.” The heartbeat of Reboot is a network of creative and successful artists, makers and thinkers, now over 600 members strong, who are organized around a conversation about Jewish inheritance and action, leading to ideas and products that remix Judaism to inspire and engage new generations of Jews and those close to them.

Reboot’s support system for its network enables individuals to bring modern themes through a Jewish lens into the world. The Foundation invested in Reboot in part because of its R&D focus, which includes increasing the activation of its network as well as the products that Reboot develops, which have touched millions of people and helped evolve the Jewish conversation. Innovation occurs because ideas and concepts can be proposed and experimented with. Reboot is developing an Ideas Festival, for example, to bring together thinkers/makers/artists to discuss new big ideas in the space of Jewish arts and culture, and what methods can be used to share them broadly.

Implementer Level: UpStart “partners with the Jewish community’s boldest leaders to expand the picture of how Jews find meaning and how we come together.” It represents a different approach to innovation, one focused primarily on fueling and connecting the many organizations and leaders driving change in Jewish life. They do this by providing targeted support for changemakers at every stage, whether they’re dreaming up a new idea, building it into a promising initiative, or ultimately growing that initiative’s impact. And they do this across the field of Jewish communal life, supporting entrepreneurs and their ventures, as well as institutional leaders working to drive change from within (“intrapreneurs”). They believe that the true impact of this work is in the coming together of these changemakers to move the needle on the many challenges—and opportunities—facing Jewish life. Convenings like their annual Collaboratory are just one of the many spaces that spur this type of collaboration.

UpStart aims to couple this program suite with more substantial financial resources flowing to the Jewish innovation field—specifically to the organizations and leaders they support. Their goal is to spur strategic and sustainable investments, ensuring that the highest impact initiatives are set up to thrive.

Organizational Level: Hillel International, which connects with students at more than 550 colleges and universities across North America and around the world, “enriches the lives of those students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.” Hillel serves as a perfect final reference point, building on UpStart’s learning that any organization can spur innovation. At nearly 100 years old, Hillel is a quintessential legacy organization—although, uniquely, one that is unafraid of experimenting and of change. To create space for innovation within Hillel, the organization founded an Office of Innovation (OOI) that “is a think and do tank for the Hillel movement and the Jewish people. Modeled after successful research and innovation labs, known affectionately as ‘skunkworks,’ OOI is a group of thinkers, educators, entrepreneurs, and rabbis tasked with developing, testing, and scaling innovative approaches to serve young Jews in the Hillel movement and beyond.”

In other words, the OOI gains all the benefits of Hillel’s resources, networks, and expertise, without being hindered by people’s traditional perceptions of legacy organizations. Creating an entirely separate office helps ensure this work is carried out systemically and strategically. This is not an ad-hoc initiative or one susceptible to starts and stops. Rather, its three-step approach—exploring, incubating, and scaling—resulted in innovations going from the OOI out into the world, including Base Hillel, Fellowship for Rabbinic Entrepreneurs, and more.

A Common Denominator
While Reboot, UpStart, and Hillel, deploy different approaches to supporting innovation, undoubtedly there are similarities. One of which is that all three completed strategic and business planning over the last five years that positioned them to understand the role in innovation support they were best suited to play. They all recognize that to support innovation effectively they need to have dedicated bandwidth, and they need the right people within their own organizations—both lay and professional. The decision to become innovative was not made by a singular individual in any organization; that decision was made collectively through a planning process of lay and professional leaders over many months for each of these organizations.

Finally, each organization along with the Foundation must be humble as it works to innovate. There are and will be failures, and all parties involved know this and accept it. For each success noted above, there are myriad ideas and programs that at one point seemed promising, but in the end were not effective Jewish engagement or could not be scaled. Truly accepting that these failures are a natural part of the innovation process is an integral part of the grantee and funder building a trusting relationship. Whether an organization fits best into the “Ideas,” “Implementer,” or “Organizational,” level, each approach leverages an organization’s resources and expertise to support innovation and to create new opportunities for contemporary, meaningful, and never-before-done Jewish experiences.

Barry Finestone is President and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation

Equity and pay disparity are common and important themes in today’s public discourse, but their problematic presence in society is not new.  These gaps exist and have historically existed along the spectrum of diversity including, but not limited to, ability/disability, gender, geography, race, religion, and sexual orientation.

While each of these verticals is critical to explore on its own, there is a common theme among them: Equity is categorically tied to opportunity.  While the Equal Pay Act of 1963 coupled with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on most of these categories, there still remained a lack of opportunity for individuals to reach the pinnacles of their chosen field.  Educational opportunities in fields as different as business and medicine, and ranging from bachelor’s degrees to PhDs, continued to be exclusionary to the ultimate suppression of the minority.

The training and hiring of clergy—the spiritual leaders empowered to teach children, to comfort those in need, and to lead communities—was no exception to gross “opportunity disparities.”  In the Jewish world, rabbis have been the empowered leaders for more than 2,000 years, beginning with the codification of the Jewish law under Rabban Gamliel and Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai, among others.  Other than one noted example in the 17th century, the first ordained female rabbi was Regina Jonas in Berlin in 1935. Only in 1972 was the first American, Sally Preisand, ordained publicly through Hebrew Union College. 37 years after that, Rabba Sara Hurwitz was ordained as the first Orthodox female rabbi. Clearly, within these 2,000 years, women were not able to achieve the level of responsibility, respect, or remuneration of male rabbis because they were simply never given the opportunity to become their counterparts.

However, today, Yeshivat Maharat is the first and only Orthodox seminary in North America to ordain women as clergy. Maharat, an acronym meaning Morah Hilchatit Ruchanut Toranit, is literally translated as “Torah-based, spiritual teacher according to Jewish law.”  Since 2009, Maharat has ordained 26 women. In addition, 31 women currently are enrolled at the institution. While this is small relative to the approximately 1,000 male rabbis affiliated with the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest network of mainstream orthodoxy, Maharat has flourished since its nascent beginnings of three graduates in its inaugural class.

The demand for an institution like this existed for years. Many women were forced to seek educational advancement through other avenues such as the Drisha Institute, seminary learning, and learning within respective home communities.  None of these options, however, delivered that crucial product to those women: a degree that sufficiently elevates their position and stature and provides them with credentials that match their education and experience.

Because of the past dearth of opportunity for advancement for many talented women, Maharat created an accelerated track to provide credentials and ordination to those who already underwent significant training. This program, The Advanced Kollel: Executive Ordination Track of Yeshivat Maharat, is clear in its goal to provide in-service rabbinic ordination to highly talented educators who have already proven themselves in the field of Jewish education, but for societal reasons have not had the ability to advance and achieve full equity with their male colleagues.

The Jim Joseph Foundation recently awarded a grant of $1.1 million over five and a half years to support this program, which has three distinct but related goals for graduates:

• To garner the respect and authority that rabbinic ordination and title conveys.

• To increase earnings so that they are on par with that of their male counterparts.

• To elevate women into top leadership positions.

In certain cases, such as in synagogues, parochial schools, and college campuses, positions were specifically reserved for those with rabbinic ordination. Individuals lacking that specific credential were restricted from meaningful advancement. In cases where institutions created space room for Orthodox women, they had to make specific exceptions, such as inclusion in an all-clergy interfaith council on a college campus or a rabbinic educators program at national organizations. Now, women who find Maharat to be an ideological and cultural fit have a new opportunity to pursue, with a career pathway and no ceiling.

While undoubtedly the advances still needed to achieve equity in this area are too numerous to discuss here, Maharat is a critical start. From the women in its programs, to the institutions in which they will work, to the communities they will lead, and to the young people they will help to engage and educate—our entire community stands to benefit from this welcomed development.

Steven Green is Senior Director, Grants Management and Compliance at the Jim Joseph Foundation

CASJE – The Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education – recently launched a new project supported by the William Davidson Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation for comprehensive research on the pipeline and “career arc”of educators working in Jewish education. This is a welcome development for all who care about supporting Jewish educators and advancing the field in which they work.

From a research and funder perspective, it is worth exploring how and why a project of this substance and level of depth was developed. Have no doubt, laying the groundwork for research of this scope takes time and resources.

We started earlier this year in New York City, in the midst of a snowstorm that would bring 8” of snow by the end of the day. CASJE convened a small group of leaders in the field of Jewish educator preparation. They came together, supported by the William Davidson Foundation, to discuss challenges that the field faces and potential research topics that could address these challenges.

This conversation was facilitated using CASJE’s signature process for a “Problem Formulation Convening (PFC).” It was the first conversation of several that would guide a proposed research agenda for the field to consider. We want to identify best practices and apply research results to make the practice of Jewish education more effective.

One of the most impressive aspects of the day was that participants raised the level of discourse to concentrate on the field as a whole. Not a single person offered opinions solely from the individual and self-serving vantage point of their own organization or program – a sign of true leadership.

Several challenges for the Jewish educator field were highlighted and appreciated. For example:

• educators across the board are not adequately valued in terms of status and recognition, compensation, and development;
• hence, it is difficult to attract and recruit potential quality educators to choose a career as a Jewish educator;
• the field’s high-quality educators are not being retained and adequately developed into education leaders; and
• the field lacks a central system or structure for policy making.

The first three challenges are known and discussed by many in the field and by field leaders. And while the last example may be obvious – yes, there is no governmental or other umbrella agency that holds itself accountable to provide a Jewish education for every Jewish child as is the case for public education – it is a challenge that largely has flown under the radar by those most likely to understand the context and be equipped to propose remedies. It is worth contemplating why this is so. One view is that it is not surprising that Jewish education is diffused, decentralized, and perhaps even chaotic, given that those adjectives apply even more powerfully to the world of general education in the U.S.

Historians and analysts of contemporary American education reform know well that policy setting and implementation are largely activities left to the states and local school districts; and that for all kinds of complicated and fascinating reasons the founders of the American republic eschewed national control of schooling, a stance that has been both a virtue and an impediment.

A second point noted by those at the PFC is that, in the context of Jewish education, private philanthropists essentially are the de-facto policy makers and influencers for the field. A parallel again can be drawn to secular education, a field where philanthropists such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation have invested significant resources to reform the public education system in the U.S. – and also have received substantial positive and negative criticism from this involvement.

This all raises a larger and important set of questions to consider:

• Are Jewish education foundations up to the task of setting policy for the field?
• Is there enough consensus across the relatively small group of funders to provide a meaningful and cohesive set of policy recommendations and investments?
• Are there commonly viewed challenges, solutions, outcomes and measures?

Undoubtedly, the answer to the last question is “no.” Those common structures, understandings, and resources simply do not exist. But even with the current lack of alignment in funders’ vision for Jewish education, one promising effort to promote and support is the application of research to practice.

The field of Jewish education can be similar to the U.S. public education system’s vision for accountability and continual improvement in that much of education research is funded by the government and by philanthropists and is conducted across universities and research firms big and small. This is the critically important role Jewish education philanthropy can play to have a real and positive influence on the field and on the future. Let’s do more of that together.

Stacie Cherner is a Senior Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation. Menachem “Manny” Menchel is the Program Officer for Jewish Education at the William Davidson Foundation.

cross-posted in eJewishPhilanthropy

The Foundation is pleased to share reflections and learnings from its two recent convenings on Leadership Development and Educator Training (below), respectively, both of which stemmed from the Foundation’s first open RFP last year. 

In the last year, the Foundation has conducted an experiment of sorts with professional directors of ten programs focused on training Jewish educators. Stemming from the Foundation’s first open RFP, these ten programs offer compelling, creative, high quality, and dynamic cohort-based professional development experiences for Jewish educators across a diverse spectrum of content and audiences.  As part of the initiative’s Professional Learning Community (PLC), the Foundation convened these directors last month for the first time. Because we realized that success would lie in the synergy of the group, our risk was in not knowing quite what to expect.  What we learned and experienced may be helpful for other funders and participants considering engaging in similar communities and convenings.

The convening agenda developed by Rosov Consulting (who also are collaborating with the PLC to evaluate and provide timely learning about the initiative) provided space to 1) get to know each other and our strengths, 2) review the program participant survey results – what do the data  say about the field and each program, 3) explore and discuss a case study of one program, 4) experience a “Taste of” presentations by four programs, and 5) participate in an improv session led by Second City designed to broaden participants’ creativity in problem-solving.

Throughout these experiences, the Foundation and participants grew more comfortable and more open during our time together. The benefits of being together in-person were palpable. We could be our whole selves, committed to the moment. Contrast this sentiment with how you might be on a conference call; the difference is stark.

Here are some key insights we are thinking about and on which we are reflecting:

• From Reticence to Openness: While participants were understandably somewhat reticent—would this time away from my work and my home be worthwhile?—they all came in with open minds and open hearts. Their approach in this vein was integral to the success of the convening, as it led to more honest and deep conversations and sessions about the work they are doing.
• Diversity Leads to Learnings: The diversity of the individuals created substantial opportunities for learning. Young professionals and veteran professionals can each offer insights and important perspectives to the others. Participants from small organizations and those from large institutions can share experiences to inform the other’s approach. Even the fact that some participants were there more for personal growth, while others wanted to strengthen their professional skills, fostered healthy give-and-take.
• …And More Learnings: The diversity of the programs was quickly identified too – from delivery modes, to target audiences, to the content of the curricula. Even though this diversity may have originally been perceived as a barrier—what can I possibly learn from someone whose program is so different from mine?—it was eventually appreciated as Rosov Consulting brought relevant insights to the fore.
• Commonalities are Powerful Connections: Among this group defined by differences noted above, commonalities among participants took longer to identify. But, this meant that the process of identifying commonalities was a powerful means to strengthen relationships among professionals as they realized their convening colleagues also worked in areas and/or settings such as Israel, day schools, institutional change, millennials, and more.
• Opportunities for Continued Learning: Being together in such an immersive environment enabled the group to quickly identify areas for continued learning, such as how to support participants when they return into their work environments; the challenges of online learning and relationship building; and how different programs think about alumni support. Many convening participants noted the parallels to their own individual work. After all, these program directors form a learning cohort, just as they oversee their program’s learning cohort of educators. The irony was not lost on them that they face some of these same challenges.
• Strengthening the Foundation and Grantees’ Relationship: The Foundation-grantee relationship building was important and energized by being together. As program officers, we were excited to have face to face time with the program directors to get to know them (and they us) both professionally and personally.
• The Right Space: The space of the retreat was unique and set the tone for a few enjoyable days of reflecting, connecting with each other and connecting larger successes and challenges to individual programs, laughing and relaxing.
• Now, We Wait: It was gratifying to hear some lament that a year was too long to wait to see each other in person again.

The PLC is an integral component of the Educator Training initiative—and the convening proved to be an essential part of the PLC thus far. From past experience, the Foundation understands that program directors often work in silos, do not view their work as part of a larger field of Jewish education, and would benefit from more shared learning and networking. We are excited about the promise of the PLC and the outcomes that come from being together, in-person, for consecutive days. Yes, our experiment was worth it. Our goal is for program directors to learn from each other, for the Foundation to learn about future grantmaking, and for the field to learn too.

More to come in years two and three!

Dawne Bear Novicoff is Chief Operating Officer of the Jim Joseph Foundation. Stacie Cherner is Senior Program Officer at the Foundation. Read the piece on the Leadership Development Convening here.

The Foundation is pleased to share reflections and learnings from its two recent convenings on Leadership Development (below) and Educator Training, respectively, both of which stemmed from the Foundation’s first open RFP last year. 

Last month, the Foundation was fortunate to bring together 50 leaders in Jewish education organizations to the Catskills for 48 hours of learning, connecting and reflecting, with the goal to advance our collective thinking about how to run effective Jewish leadership development programs. Participants included CEOs, senior executives and program staff from Jim Joseph Foundation grantee partners; a handful of foundation professionals investing in Jewish leadership development; and a research team from the Center for Creative Leadership to help facilitate and document our time together. Participants included representatives from the Foundation’s 11 grants that resulted from its open-RFP process last year, along with 15 additional grantee partners working in the nebulous space of advancing Jewish leadership.

While we are still reflecting on our time together, and grateful for the opportunity to be with such a diverse group of Jewish leaders, one of the Foundation’s major takeaway is how uniquely positioned we are – as a national funder of Jewish education – to weave together such networks of leaders. As one colleague responded when asked what her/his biggest takeaway from the convening was: It is absolutely the networking, which is absolutely critical for the success of our collective work. Along with network weaving, here are other key takeaways from the convening—from the planning of it, to the issues, topics, and challenges that hit home for participants:

Embracing the Unknown
What would it look like to bring together professionals who run leadership programs to share ideas and best practices, challenges and frustrations? What topics would emerge? What collaborations would develop? We structured the time in a way to bring out open, curious and courageous conversation, with a set of rich topics, networking time, and wellness activities. And we let the participant-leaders facilitate. As someone remarked after:

I think it’s rare to be at a retreat where you don’t outsource the learning— the experts were also the learners, and it was great to see people in their element as facilitators, and then continue the conversations with them in adjacent sessions.

Cultivating Positive Organizational Culture
The sessions around culture, including the role of a CEO in defining that culture, and how leadership programs can influence the larger organizational culture, clearly resonated with participants. A remark that stood out centered on the definition of culture, which is an inherently fuzzy term, but that could be thought of as the “personality” of an organization. So why does this matter, and what does leadership have to do with culture? It starts with modeling what kind of culture you want to have, and what kind of change you’d like to seek. One participant remarked, As leaders, we need to model more vulnerability. It has the opportunity to change the culture of an entire ecosystem. Another response focused on leadership as a process, as opposed to a focus on a single leader, and leadership as culture shaping.

Finding the Right Mix of People
Another key takeaway for the Foundation was the importance of bringing together the right mix of people and organizations. Each grantee-partner was invited to bring two representatives, increasing the institutional knowledge that they were able to bring back to their team. The diversity of people and  nonprofits added to the eclectic nature of the conversations and the spontaneous ideas and connections that were made. As someone said in the post-convening survey,

[The Convening] was a mash up of orgs AND roles, which is rare.

Beware of Burnout
Finally, another interesting takeaway – obvious to many but perhaps not all – is how much burnout is challenging the growth and sustainability of our Jewish education leaders. One small breakout session discussed the idea of sabbaticals as an opportunity to mitigate this risk, whether through a 3-month sabbatical where there is no work email or phone calls; a longer sabbatical focusing on a research question or challenge to be addressed; or some time-frame in the middle to stop doing certain aspects of one’s job while focusing more heavily on others. The free-flowing exchange of ideas – and fears – underscore the comfort in the room.

Looking Ahead
Could we improve the convening and change it up next time? Of course! More open space and peer assist, more time to intentionally network with those we don’t know and learn about each other’s programs, and a heads-up about the lack of wifi and cell service are easy tactical changes. A colleague remarked that it was a pleasure to think about the big questions in Jewish leadership without necessarily having to come up with the answers. Another shared,

The casual nature of the convening combined with the seriousness of purpose was almost magical. I felt comfortable talking about important things with important people in a way that was less hindered by some of the professional trappings that sometimes impede communication.

This sums up beautifully what the Jim Joseph Foundation hoped to create, a place in which ideas, connections, and renewal were cultivated. While it remains to be seen what exactly will come from this, we can count as a success that our friends and partners relished the opportunity to be together in a beautiful setting – notwithstanding the humidity and buggy outdoors – and we look forward to our shared work in the months and years ahead.

Seth Linden and Jeff Tiell are Program Officers at the Jim Joseph Foundation. Read the piece on the Educator Training Convening here.