News & Blogs Category: From the Foundation Team

As the Jim Joseph Foundation has evolved and matured in its first decade of existence, the professional team has gained invaluable experience. Within the past ten years, both as a means for individual staff to develop professionally and to help meet the Foundation’s strategic goal of contributing tangibly to building the field of Jewish education, Foundation professionals have actively sought opportunities to share insights and lessons learned both at conferences and gatherings. I am pleased to offer a snapshot of this activity below.

At the Jewish Funders Network Conference in April, several members of the Foundation professional team will take part in panel sessions. Senior Program Officer Stacie Cherner will moderate a panel on how to “push evaluation to a new level.” Stacie’s training and experience in evaluation make her a key member of the Jim Joseph Foundation team, working continuously as we do to improve the Foundation’s approach to assessment and to support grantees in generating useful evaluation data and findings.

At this same conference, Foundation Assistant Director Dawne Bear Novicoff will offer a funder perspective on creating strong Jewish early childhood education settings and how those settings can be an entry point for ongoing family engagement in Jewish life. Dawne has been involved with ECE her entire career. She has played a leading role in the Foundation’s growing investment in this area, and she confers regularly with colleagues who are experienced in supporting Jewish early childhood endeavors.

I am looking forward to serving on a JFN pre-conference panel, Scaling Up—Ingredients for Taking Promising Initiatives to the Next Level. I will be joined by David Cygielman of Moishe House, Emily Hall of Olive Grove Consulting, and Aaron Bisman, founder of JDub Records.  This panel conversation will be an open and honest look at capacity building efforts in supporting Jewish education.

Prior to the JFN International Conference, members of the Foundation professional team will be at Foundation for Jewish Camp’s (FJC) Leaders Assembly. FJC has been a significant partner of the Foundation, spanning many years and over multiple grants. At the Assembly, we will have opportunities to share Foundation experiences with other funders, describing for them in detail what investment in FJC’s JWest and Jewish specialty camps incubators has taught us.

One of the Foundation’s founding principles is to share lessons learned in an effort to improve the field of Jewish education and, where possible, the broader philanthropic sector. From inception, the Jim Joseph Foundation has interacted extensively with funders and other organizations in the secular philanthropic space. Program Director Josh Miller recently participated in a panel with Lisa Farber Miller of Rose Community Foundation at the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations Collaboration Conference. Together they discussed the evolution of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative. They shared some anticipated outcomes as the Collaborative continues to implement more community-based Jewish teen initiatives.

While Foundation employees’ status as professionals may not be a norm in the Jewish community, there is no doubt that self-reflection of one’s practices—and sharing of these insights in public settings—helps to make the Foundation program officer a more effective grantmaker.

Next month, I also will offer insights to non-profit organizations in the secular arena, as part of a seminar on The Performance Imperative at a conference hosted by the Sanford Institute of Philanthropy. I previously shared The Performance Imperative in this blog. At this seminar, I will discuss both internal grantee monitoring for organizational improvement and external evaluation of foundation-funded initiatives for increased mission effectiveness. This presentation will occur within the context of the seminar’s focus on the seven pillars of high-performing organizations.

Along with these in-person gatherings, the Foundation continues to post grant evaluations on its website. Over the last few months, we have shared evaluations on the Foundation’s Education Initiative—the $45 million investment to HUC-JIR, JTS, and YU to train more Jewish educators—and on the Jewish teen education initiative in Denver/Boulder. In a few weeks, we will feature a model documentation on a successful early childhood education initiative.

Learning individually, together as a Foundation staff, and with peers are critically important professional pursuits. “Ultimately, learning becomes consequential when it is taken up by a range of social groups and, thus, has meaning beyond the local learning community. This begins to stabilize and create value for practices that have become meaningful to a group of participants and are recognized as meaningful beyond the group” (Vadeboncoeur, A. Jennifer and Murray, Dale. “Imagined Futures in the Present: Minding Learning Opportunities.” Learning In and Across Context: Reimagining Education. NSSE, page 646).

The Jim Joseph Foundation team of grantmaking professionals looks forward to ongoing opportunities to reflect on learning, to share insights learned from that discovery, and to engage with colleagues, grantees, and communal leaders in a collective effort to continuously improve the work we do.

There is a great disparity between the nonprofit organizations that provide services ranging from hunger relief to the arts, and the traditionally slower-to-act philanthropic foundations that fund them. The fastest acting organizations deliver resources immediately to those in need; the more “tortoise”-like foundations engage in diligent planning towards long-term solutions. With this pace spectrum in mind, I think that all parties would benefit by meeting each other midway to work together for longer periods of time leading up to a grant’s proposal and subsequent implementation, creating a more coordinated funder-grantee relationship that enables deeper outcomes.

There are real challenges to operating in this manner, but, as part of my ongoing learning and reflection on our foundation’s work, I have identified certain strategies that could help to overcome those challenges to working in tandem earlier and longer.

Grants that incorporate planning and foresight help achieve a more coordinated approach between funder and grantee, and are more likely to enable development of strategies that address potential challenges. Often, a grantseeker will present a fully fleshed out proposal to a grantmaker’s program officer or Board of Directors. If the grant is awarded, the grantmaker’s involvement only starts at that moment. Accordingly, the grantmaker’s extensive due diligence in order to determine viability, feasibility, and necessity of the undertaking often prolongs implementation of the project.

Increasingly, the Jim Joseph Foundation and potential grantees connect at the idea phase, subsequently developing a grant that incorporates both a planning and implementation phase. To do this requires several factors not always characteristic of traditional grantmaking:

• Longer-term investment – This requires patience from the grantmaker since the grant may not yield many concrete results after a single year spent mostly planning. This year of planning also means that the grantseeker must have confidence and trust in allowing a grantmaker to see how “the sausage is made”—or at least planned. Timing is, of course, relative, but a long-term commitment can help create a more open and fruitful funder-grantee relationship.
• Larger dollar amount – This will account for the support necessary for proper planning, implementation, and assessment all tied together in one grant.  Speed does not mean efficiency. Rather than a race to the finish that yields immediate results, this style of collaborative work requires more patience, both by staff and board members of all parties involved
• Flexibility – In this type of model, flexibility is relevant specifically around programmatic objectives. With more time dedicated to planning, the outputs and outcomes may need to be adjusted because of a greater overall focus on strategy.   If a donor is funding towards goals not yet achieved, it helps to have a shared understanding that program-related objectives and measures of success may change over the course of the planning year.

Of note, the Jim Joseph Foundation board of directors awards grants that are often of four to five years. The foundation’s philanthropic strategy includes assessment or evaluation on the formative level so that there can be a continuous effort towards improvement.

An example of investment that would have benefited from a more significant, coordinated planning phase of the grant came in the early years of Jim Joseph Foundation’s grantmaking. The Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) approached us in 2007 with the theory that western camps receive less attention and support than their east coast peers. We recognized an opportunity to strategically fill this void. With our support, FJC launched the Teen Camper Incentive Initiative (later known as JWest Campership), a subsidy program for first time participants in Jewish overnight summer camps to attend one of 23 camps in the western U.S.  JWest Campership was an opportunity to bring 3,000 new participants into Jewish overnight summer camps and provide requisite training and enhancement for seasonal staffs at those institutions. We were the sole investor in this undertaking through a four-year grant of up to $11.2 million (all Jim Joseph Foundation grants are “up to” to help ensure a grant is implemented as planned). While the initiative included startup time, it was not truly dedicated to planning. The time was more geared towards building the infrastructure of the initiative.

If JWest Campership had been a one or even two-year grant, it most likely would have been deemed a failure by the funder and the grantee, as the grant failed to achieve camper enrollment goals. An independent evaluation in year two of the grant revealed that three obstacles stood in the way of a successful future for these investments. First, the requirements dictated that eligible overnight camps be at least three weeks long. However, school schedules in the western U.S. make a three-week camp commitment difficult for many youth. A second obstacle was the time period for which the financial incentives were offered. They were offered in decreasing amounts for two years, although parents found it more compelling if the same amount of money was spread over three years.  Finally, the goals for retention were taken from similar programs elsewhere in the country, not taking into account income levels and accessibility for west coast families. All of these changes were accounted for in a revised award letter in July 2009, which also included a no-cost extension of two additional years.

The end result of the grant, among other measured outputs and outcomes, was 3,342 first time campers who received JWest incentives (as opposed to a goal of 3,000) and 60% of Jewish campers who self-reported an increase in Jewish involvement in their personal lives.  A key learning from this investment is that even when adapting an existing program, a planning period should be included.  Thankfully, the openness of both the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Foundation for Jewish Camp allowed for the critical mid-course corrections.

But the key lesson is that these corrections might not have been necessary if appropriate time and resources had been dedicated to planning. This lesson informed how subsequent Jim Joseph Foundation grants were structured; perhaps this lesson can be the impetus for other grantmakers and grantseekers to work more closely together for extended periods of time. Both parties—and their grant beneficiaries—will be better positioned for success and long-term, positive outcomes.

As a Jew, I have always had a somewhat confused relationship with New Year’s Day. It is the secular new year, where champagne flutes abound, and the year begins anew. Where folks make proclamations and resolutions about how they plan to change in the coming year. Indeed, there is a brief societal moment of reflection – where we’ve been, what has happened, who has passed on – that then quickly leads into the flurry of January.

As a Jew, however, I find myself saying, didn’t I just do this a few months ago? Of course, the answer is yes, and yet given that we live in a secular, pluralistic society, there is a place in my head and heart to go through this exercise again. To reflect about the power and purpose inherent in the beginning; in the new.

Here at the Jim Joseph Foundation we hold “beginnings” in very high regard. The work that we are privileged to do together with grantee partners is greatly influenced by these beginnings. For many grants, a great amount of work is done before the grant is even awarded. These planning processes are pivotal in providing the necessary soil for an initiative or project to take root. Further, the processes and relationships that are undertaken and built after the grant award can make a pronounced difference in the success of the work over both the short and long-terms through the cultivation of trust between the funder and the grantee.

A great example of the significance of beginnings is the Jim Joseph Foundation’s recent grant to the Jewish Emergent Network (JEN).  Foundation funding will help pilot two cohorts of Rabbinic Fellows (14 total) to participate in a fellowship program – spending two years serving and learning under senior rabbis and executive directors from seven “emergent Jewish communities.” These communities include Los Angeles (IKAR); Chicago (Mishkan); New York (Lab Shul and Romemu); San Francisco (The Kitchen); Seattle (Kavana); and Washington D.C. (Sixth & I). The grant is designed to prepare the Fellows to assume leadership roles as innovative community-builders in all different types of settings—poised to educate, engage and serve an array of target populations, most importantly young adults and families with young children.

To lay the groundwork for this initiative, these communities strategized, strengthened their relationships with each other, and even worked together at times for close to two years before the Foundation invited a grant proposal. During this time, they had a robust dialogue about their vision for the future; often including the Foundation in their discussion: how they would work together to build this emergent Jewish field and engage in a planning process that incorporated the desires and concerns of all member communities.

As the planning processes for the JEN continue in earnest through the spring, the Jim Joseph Foundation continuously looks to establish practices that will positively influence our shared measures of success. This is integrally part of our work and identity as a relational funder. Our practice is nested in building strong and effective relationships with grantee partners. This practice is reflected in working together with the grantee on the award letter to co-create a document with which both parties feel comfortable. This process allows for mutual buy-in and a shared sense of identity in the actual mechanics of the grant.  So, too, for instance is setting up regular check-in calls every 4-6 weeks to look carefully at progress being made with grants implementation. This practice can have lasting implications for the health of the relationship, and thus, the strength of the initiative.

With our secular new year underway, we are reminded of the many types of beginnings – both in life and work – and how those beginnings serve and connect us to the shared success of our work.

2016 is unlike any other year at the Jim Joseph Foundation since I began working with Board Chair Al Levitt and the entire Board of Directors to build the organization that Jim Joseph, z”l, bestowed and envisioned. A schedule that calls for four of the Foundation’s Directors who were at the Board table a decade ago to rotate off the Board is now in effect. Dr. Susan Folkman concludes her dedicated service this first week of 2016. Dr. Folkman will be followed this year by Jerry Somers and Phyllis Cook, respectively (following the Foundation’s second and fourth 2016 Board meetings), each completing multiple terms as a founding Director.

In addition to Directors’ departures, this is my final year as the Foundation’s Executive Director. I am under contract until the end of 2016. But the Foundation’s search for its first ever professional Chief Executive Officer/President is proceeding smoothly, and it is conceivable the new CEO/President could begin onboarding in late spring.

At a time of transition such as this, I know it is critically important to have experienced staff positioned for future success. Fortunately, the current team of Jim Joseph Foundation professionals and our grants management and administrative staff works effectively together. It is a high functioning team, based on excellent results measurably achieved by most of the Foundation’s grantees and a comparatively small staff that implements the Foundation’s grantmaking. Continuity of personnel can be key to maintaining performance during a time of leadership change. I am confident my successor will find these talented professionals and skilled administrative team members to be the bedrock of the Jim Joseph Foundation’s philanthropic effectiveness.

It is a coincidence that as I prepare to work closely with my to-be-named successor that a new CEO Onboarding pilot program will be formally announced this month and launched in April. Funded by the Jim Joseph, Schusterman, and Weinberg Foundations, the CEO Onboarding program will be offered in partnership with Leading Edge (formally known as the Jewish Leadership Pipelines Alliance). At no other time in my 25 years of service to the Jewish community can I recall the level and intensity of focus that is being dedicated to talent-identifying, recruiting, employing, supporting and developing, promoting and retaining skilled individuals to undertake the work our community is compelled and required to do (Leading Edge, incidentally, will be experimenting with a new program of its own, called Leading Places to Work)

While governance, leadership, management and organizational change issues have consumed much of my time these past few months, the Foundation is poised to execute on an exciting slate of grantmaking opportunities in 2016.  The late March Board meeting grant docket is already full of several highly promising initiatives that are in proposal development. The Foundation is pursuing potential new investments in numerous areas of strategic interest, such as community-based teen education; Israel education; and Jewish overnight camping. The Board has asked its professionals to explore philanthropy in support of educational technology and new media, as well as research into Jewish education, broadly construed. We are also contemplating holding a few important convenings in 2016. As a professional team, we look forward to active participation in conferences such as JFN, JPRO, The General Assembly and NRJE. We plan to continue to blog regularly, with all Foundation professionals encouraged to share insights and lessons learned with the field. So, with the New Year just beginning, I have to say that it looks like it will be an eventful 2016 for the Jim Joseph Foundation.

As we approach the end of any year, I customarily take time to reflect on the Foundation’s efforts over the previous twelve months. In 2015, with dedicated grantee partners, the Foundation continued to pursue its vision of “increasing numbers of Jews engaging in Jewish life and learning.” There were landmark new grants; grants that concluded with goals exceeded; and evaluations that both offered key lessons and demonstrated outcomes achieved. 2015 also marked our tenth year of grantmaking, which the Foundation celebrated by honoring our founder and highlighting the important work of grantees and evaluators over the decade.

In this, my final blog of the year, I want to share some exciting developments around the Foundation’s Evaluators’ Consortium, comprised of the small number of highly skilled evaluators and researchers with whom the Foundation works. The Consortium’s efforts most likely are not well known to you. Yet the Consortium’s work is deeply important to the Foundation’s efforts and potentially could to lead to novel results in the measurement and assessment of programs in the field of Jewish education.

As we noted, the initial goal in forming the Evaluators’ Consortium evolved into something bigger: 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. The Consortium’s convening at the Foundation last month charted new territory for the Foundation in this important direction. For a day and a half, we explored how research and evaluation methods in other fields can be applied to the measurement of Jewish learning and growth. Participants and presenters included leading scholars and researchers from both the Jewish and secular education worlds.

We were fortunate to hear from Professor Christian Smith of Notre Dame University. Dr. Smith began the National Study on Youth and Religion in 1999, examining religious formation, identity, and engagement among predominantly (but not exclusively) Christian youth. His analysis of the habits of religious teens and their families—both Jewish and non-Jewish—along with his own evolution as a researcher examining this area were insightful and certainly will inform the Consortium’s future efforts.

Ms. Cinnamon Daniel, Director of Research & Evaluation for Girl Scouts of Northern California, shared the Scouts’ efforts to develop measurable outcomes across the broad array of scouting programs. Ms. Daniel cautioned about collecting too much data, while noting that data utilization over the long run holds genuine promise for improving the Girl Scout experience.

Professor Anne Colby of Stanford discussed her work in moral development of adolescents. She reviewed several research methodologies the Consortium could consider adapting. Professor Tomas Jimenez, also of Stanford, shared his highly regarded research on Mexican American identity, including that community’s own challenges with assimilation.

The presentation laden with the greatest implications for the Foundation was made by Professor Michael Feuer, Dean of the George Washington University (GWU) Graduate School of Education & Human Development, and Dr. Naomi Chudowsky of TrueScore Consulting. With funding received from the Jim Joseph Foundation, GWU currently is developing a common set of long term outcomes and shared metrics to improve the Foundation’s ability to look at programs and outcomes across grantees and over time. Meeting participants were especially excited to learn about Feuer and Chudowsky’s team’s plan to develop an online menu—in consultation with evaluation experts and practitioners—from which grantees can choose to measure their program outcomes. This would inherently mean that organizations would use common language and measures, a critical step for the field.

Frederick M. Hess, resident scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, observes:

The right mix of experts can help identify tensions, incentives and the contours of possible solutions…Expertise has a terrifically useful place [in problem solving], as long as we understand what the experts actually know, which is how to do specific, concrete tasks right.
– Hess, Frederick. “You say ‘expert,’ I say…not so much.” I used to think…And I now I think… Ed. Richard F. Elmore. pg. 79.

With that principle in mind, a diversity of great minds is critical to the Consortium’s evolution and its ability to pursue its ambitious mission. If you would like an in-depth look at this evolution, please see Cindy Reich’s abridged version of her dissertation, which is a case study on the Consortium. It is an informative document for the Foundation and, I believe, the broader field.

The Evaluator Consortium’s efforts are not front and center in the Foundation’s philanthropy. But the Consortium’s contributions to the Jim Joseph Foundation’s efforts to continuously improve its strategic grantmaking are critical.  What began as a collection of researchers and evaluators with an experimental idea of goals evolved in 2015 into a focused, collaborative effort that I believe puts us on the brink of producing highly valuable tools for Jewish education. Evaluators and grantees working closely with Jim Joseph Foundation professionals bring focus and sophistication to the Foundation’s grantmaking.

Wishing you a Happy New Year.

There is a great disparity between the nonprofit organizations that provide services ranging from hunger relief to the arts, and the traditionally slower-to-act philanthropic foundations that fund them. During my time in the nonprofit world, I have grown to appreciate that both sectors have valid reasons for operating at the pace at which they are comfortable. As a ubiquitous example, disease and famine plague populations indigenous to third world countries. The longer we delay sending resources, the more suffering will occur. While on its surface this example seems to be an argument for the “hare” approach—the fastest acting organizations deliver resources immediately to those in need—it also makes a case for the “tortoise” approach, which includes more diligent planning towards long-term solutions.

To be clear, I realize that neither foundations nor nonprofit organizations are monolithic. Some foundations of course act quickly, while some nonprofit organizations are slower moving operations. But, with this broad framework in mind, I think that organizations would benefit by slowing down their rush to the finish, and, conversely, that foundations might consider speeding up in order to “meet” the nonprofit organizations midway. There are real challenges to these adjustments, but, as part of my continued learning as Director of Grants Management and Administration at the Jim Joseph Foundation, I have identified certain strategies that could help to overcome them.

Perhaps one method to achieve a more coordinated approach is to incorporate greater planning into grant making. Typically, a grant seeker will present a fully fleshed out idea to a grantmaker’s Board of Directors, such that the grantmaker becomes involved  only when funding is needed to support the venture. Accordingly, the grantmaker’s extensive due diligence in order to determine viability, feasibility, and necessity of the undertaking often prolongs implementation of the project.

What if, rather than waiting to receive a completed grant proposal, the grantmaker and the grant seeker came together at the idea phase, subsequently developing a grant that incorporated both a planning and implementation phase? This would require several factors not always characteristic of traditional grantmaking:

1. Longer-term investment – This requires patience from the grantmaker since the grant may not yield many concrete results after a single year spent mostly planning. Timing is, of course, relative, but a long-term commitment can help create a more open and fruitful funder-grantee relationship. Of note, the Jim Joseph Foundation Board of Directors awards grants that are often of four to five years.
2. Larger dollar amount – This will account for the support necessary for proper planning, implementation, and assessment all encompassed in one grant.  The Jim Joseph Foundation’s philanthropic strategy includes assessment or evaluation on the formative level so that there can be a continuous effort towards improvement.
3. Flexibility – In this type of model, flexibility is relevant specifically around programmatic objectives.  If a donor is funding towards goals not yet achieved, it helps to have a shared understanding that program-related objectives and measures of success may change over the course of the planning year.

On the other side of the equation, a coordinated approach with an emphasis on planning may also require several factors not always characteristic of grant seekers, including:

1. Inclusion – This pertains to the inclusion of the grantmaker in the decision-making process, rather than waiting for the idea to be brought to fruition.  It involves requesting a strategic investment rather than just a tactical donation. And it requires confidence and trust in allowing a grantmaker to see how “the sausage is made”—or at least planned.
2. Time – In my various professional capacities, including working on behalf of a grant seeker, I came to understand that speed does not mean efficiency. Rather than a race to the finish that yields immediate results, this style of collaborative work requires more grantee patience, both by staff and board members. Perhaps more time than before would also be invested in brainstorming and assessment than in the overall implementation.
3. Adjusted Outcomes – With more time dedicated to planning, the outputs and outcomes may need to be adjusted because of a greater overall focus on strategy.  There has to be an appetite for this if one is to engage in an extensive planning process.

An example of this type of investment came in the early years of Jim Joseph Foundation grantmaking.  In July 2007, the Foundation for Jewish Camp launched the Teen Camper Incentive Initiative (later known as JWest Campership), a subsidy program for first time participants in Jewish overnight summer camps to attend one of 23 camps in 13 states in the western U.S.  The theory was that western camps receive less attention and support than their east coast peers. JWest Campership, therefore, would be an opportunity to bring 3,000 new participants into Jewish overnight summer camps and provide requisite training and enhancement for seasonal staffs at those institutions. The sole investor in this undertaking was the Jim Joseph Foundation through a four-year grant of up to $11.2 million. While the initiative included startup time, it was not truly dedicated to planning. The time was more geared towards building the infrastructure of the initiative.

That said, if JWest Campership had been a one-year grant, it most likely would have been deemed a failure by the funder and the grantee. Why? In 2008, 720 new campers were enrolled and incentivized in JWest Camps, as opposed to 1,000 set forth as the goal.  In 2009, 626 first time campers enrolled, 43% less than the 1,100 camper goal.  The retention rate of 1^st year campers was 58% versus a goal of 80%.

An independent evaluation revealed that three obstacles stood in the way of a successful future for these investments, some of which may have been discovered with even greater time dedicated to planning.  One obstacle was that the requirements dictated that eligible overnight camps be at least three weeks long. While this is a common camp session length in the east and Midwest, this requirement does not account for differences in school schedules in the west making three week sessions an unlikely option for many campers, excluding a large portion of the eligible pool.  A second obstacle was the duration of time for incentives.  They were offered in decreasing amounts for two years, although parents found it more compelling if the same amount of money was spread over three years.  Finally, the goals for retention were taken from similar programs elsewhere in the country, not taking into account income levels and accessibility for west coast families. All of these changes were accounted for in a revised award letter in July 2009, which also included a no-cost extension of two additional years.

The end result of the grant, among other measured outputs and outcomes, was 3,342 first time campers who received JWest incentives (as opposed to a goal of 3,000) and 60% of Jewish campers who self-reported an increase in Jewish involvement in their personal lives.  A key learning from this investment is that even when adapting an existing program, a period of planning should be included.  Thankfully, the openness of both the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Foundation for Jewish Camp allowed for the critical mid-course corrections.

But the key lesson is that these corrections might not have been necessary if appropriate time and resources had been dedicated to planning.  Perhaps this lesson can be the impetus for both grantmakers and grantseekers to work more closely together for extended periods of time. Both parties—and their grant beneficiaries—will be better positioned for success and long-term, positive outcomes.

One of the genuine privileges of working at the Jim Joseph Foundation is the opportunity to see the evolution of Jewish education—from changes that start as ideas and theories, to eventual on-the-ground learning experiences shaping Jewish journeys of our youngest community members. I routinely comment that nothing substitutes for leaving the Foundation’s office, watching talented grantees carry out this important work, and seeing contemporary Jewish education in action. Particularly special moments are when Foundation team members ourselves engage in these learning experiences.

Certainly over the last few years an exciting development in our field has been the growth and increased sophistication of the Jewish Outdoor, Food, and Environmental Education (JOFEE) movement. Along with other funding partners, the Jim Joseph Foundation has studied this field, supported its leaders, and watched as they engage increasing numbers of people in Jewish life.

In fact, months ago, as the Jim Joseph Foundation sought to schedule our fall community service outing, we settled on a JOFEE experience right in our backyard—Urban Adamah, one of four recipients of the Foundation’s recent JOFEE grant.

Our outing earlier this month to Urban Adamah was personally fulfilling and professionally important. Urban Adamah hosts a range of Jewish learning experiences—many centered around working on their farm—for Jews of all ages and from a range of backgrounds. Much of the work of Urban Adamah helps provide about 1,100 lbs. per month of healthy, organically farmed produce to nearby underprivileged communities.

In this context, as the entire Foundation team engaged in volunteer work, the funder-grantee relationship reached a new level of understanding and respect. Led by Urban Adamah’s talented team, we sifted soil and cleared space for new crops. All the while, a few things struck me:

First, we caught just a glimpse in our few hours there of the seamless integration with which Urban Adamah incorporates Jewish learning into these activities. While Urban Adamah offers a range of learning opportunities for various age groups, I appreciated the staff’s ability to naturally and effectively reference Jewish text and laws regarding food, treatment of animals, and the like. It reinforced the J in JOFEE.

Second, Urban Adamah’s Adam Berman started our time there with a blind-folded tour of the site—an exercise in truly using multiple senses as part of a learning experience. A farm lends itself especially well to a tour of this sort. We said the blessing and ate kale directly from the earth. Later, we held out our hands with seed as we waited for chickens to eat—all while blindfolded. Learners in many sites can literally get more in touch with their surroundings by an initial blindfolded tour. What a memorable, resonate way to experience a site and to build a personalized connection to it.

All of our work that afternoon occurred as Urban Adamah Fellows, high schoolers, were on the farm as well continuing their year-long experience. How great it was for our Foundation team to talk a bit with these youth as they neared completion of their program.

Earlier that same week, I was fortunate to interact with an entirely different group of Foundation beneficiaries at the second seminar gathering of Yeshiva University’s 5^th cohort of the Certificate in Experiential Jewish Education Program. When I recall what constituted experiential Jewish education just ten years ago, I am gratified with tangible advancements being made in building the field. Led by Shuki Taylor, YU’s EJE program has trained hundreds of individuals to be leaders and educators with the skills to impart Jewish learning in a multitude of settings.

Meeting with cohort 5 students and playing an active role in their seminar is one process by which the Foundation enacts its relational grantmaking approach. These interactions offer numerous benefits to the funder, the grantee, and the student beneficiaries. As just one example, Allison Rubin, Director of Institutional Advancement at YU, explained how the funder presence there helped the cohort members more deeply understand the growing educational movement of which they are now a part:

We saw Chip’s most recent visit as a powerful educational moment. We believe that as a part of the educative process, leaners must be exposed the ‘behind the scenes’ of what makes their education possible. The human, time, and financial resources that go into making such programs possible are enormous. Exposure to these resources allow learners to understand how design, objectives and outcomes serve as the foundations of the education we offer, while informing their own planning. 

Whether with an emerging field like JOFEE or a more established one like experiential Jewish education, at the Jim Joseph Foundation we believe in substantial engagement both with grantees and the diverse participants they serve. Other Foundation staff members recently shared their experiences interacting directly with grantees and making themselves available to participants and alumni of their programs. It is during these moments—when the Foundation is in the heart of Jewish learning experiences—that we reaffirm the purpose of our efforts and the inestimable value of strong relationships with the organizations and partners with whom we work.

Leaving the confines of the Jim Joseph Foundation offices for an on-the-ground visit with grantees is both an important and genuinely enjoyable part of the job as a program officer. I credit these “site visits” for playing a significant part in my continued growth at the Foundation over the last six months. They have strengthened my relationship with grantees and greatly improved my understanding of a grant program or organization in which the Foundation invested.

Yet, the lessons learned from a site visit are not always immediately obvious or what one might expect. Sometimes this learning occurs in surprising ways and at surprising times. Moreover, what has crystalized for me is the idea that both the formal and informal parts of site visits have profound effects on how foundation staff and grantees interact with each other and approach their work together.

Traveling Between Sites is as Productive as the Site Visit Itself
This summer, on behalf of the Foundation, I visited three camps as part of the Foundation’s Specialty Camp Incubator II grant. Dynamic directors Greg Kellner at 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy and Isaac Mamaysky at Camp Zeke hosted my east coast visit, and Josh Steinharter at JCC Maccabi Sports Camp hosted here in California. Certainly, seeing first-hand the enthusiasm of campers—whether at a “Boker Big Bang” or an all-camp song session—and the dedication of talented camp staff, brings to life the Incubators’ impressive outcomes: 3,000 unique campers for the first cohort of camps, and year-over-year increase in enrollment for the second.

Beyond seeing these immersive camp experiences, Michele Friedman, Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Director of New Camp Initiatives and director of the Specialty Camp Incubator, spent three full days traveling with me by car across five states. This time with Michele ended up being as productive and valuable as visiting the camps themselves.

Michele is a true expert in the field of Jewish camping. While I have a significant understanding of Jewish camping from both my personal and professional experience, one-on-one time with Michele was an unparalleled opportunity to meaningfully enhance my knowledge. She shared stories of decades of successes, challenges, and lessons learned. We talked about the evolution of the field of Jewish camping and what it may need next. Of course, I also grew to know Michele much better—more than I could from any phone call—as I absorbed some of her significant experiences in the field. Our interactions since have been more productive as a direct result of the time we spent together.

Seeing a Database Beyond the Computer
While on the east coast, I also had an opportunity to visit JData, housed at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. JData is the only comprehensive census of Jewish day schools, overnight camps, day camps, part-time schools, and early childhood centers in North America. For those who work in Jewish education, JData sounds impressive. And it is. Yet, at the same time, envisioning the day-to-day work of JData and its strategic approach can be difficult.  Meeting with every member of JData’s small but mighty team changed this equation for me. From strategic conversations with Len Saxe, Director of the Cohen Center, and Amy Sales, Director of JData, to detailed conversations with members of the operations team I grew to better understand the integral role of JData in the context of the Foundation’s strategic philanthropy. JData is the realization of detailed, data gathering and analysis that contributes to one of the Foundation’s three strategic grantmaking priorities of strengthening the field of Jewish education. Funder-grantee relationships, and the field at large, benefit when a grant initiative is understood within the big picture of the Foundation’s overall mission.

Understanding a Grantee’s Important Strategies
The Foundation has awarded multiple grants to the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, supporting various initiatives that train and support some of Jewish education’s most dynamic, skilled leaders. As I began to work with Pardes’s talented team, I quickly learned that Pardes’s open Beit Midrash provides a unique experience, integral to the development of these educators. It also is a defining element of the institution. On Pardes’s website, the open Beit Midrash is described as the place where:

we spend most of our time; it is where we study in an open, embracing and challenging environment. There, we come into direct contact with the text as we wrestle with its meaning for us personally and for our people and the world. Working with our havruta in the Beit Midrash, we sharpen our text skills, acquire content knowledge and deepen our understanding of ourselves as learners and as future educators.

Undoubtedly, this sounds inspiring as a highly effective way to share knowledge and to develop educators. Yet only after I spent time at Pardes in Israel—meeting with various staff, faculty, and students—did I actually understand why the open Beit Midrash was such a defining and important part of Pardes. At a table in the back of the Beit Midrash, meeting with two members of the faculty, I couldn’t help but shift my focus at times to what surrounded me. Every seat was filled with students huddled around Jewish texts, deep in conversation with their peers. I had to strain to hear my own conversation because of the energy and the learning in the room.

What Site Visits Mean for the Big Picture
Monitoring the progress of the Jim Joseph Foundation’s investments is an important part of the professional teams’ work. Complementing phone check-ins and reports with site visits is critical. And sometimes, a professional team member’s “ah-ha moment” about a grant will occur when least expected. The same is true regarding deepening a relationship with a grantee. Who really knows exactly when these important developments will happen? I am fortunate that I have experienced a number of site visits in my short time at the Foundation, and I am better positioned to support Foundation grantees and carry-out future Foundation awards as a result of these face-to-face interactions.

Over the past several years the Jim Joseph Foundation has invested significant time and resources into deepening our understanding of how the Jewish community can better engage teens in effective, compelling Jewish learning experiences. Two essential lessons we have learned are that:

1. Having a meaningful influence on teens in any context starts by taking a genuine interest in what matters most to them.
2. The role of adults is to work with teens, in partnership, to help them to create Jewish learning experiences they seek.

The adolescent years represent an important stage in the development of one’s identity. It is an intense time of discovery and experimentation. For many teens, this stage of life also is stressful and complicated, as they navigate increasing pressures from parents, peers and their communities about what they must do, believe and achieve.

When at its best, the Jewish community has much to offer to help teens face these challenges – supportive community, adult role models, guidance on ways to strive towards a life of meaning, purpose and fulfillment. Conversely, the Jewish community also has much to learn from teens; they offer a unique perspective on how Judaism is relevant today, and they are a window into how future generations will continue to shape it.

But, for teen education and engagement to be a positive experience, Jewish adults must listen carefully and maintain an open mind.

This guiding principle means that Jewish adults who seek to educate teens need to first set aside their adult Jewish agendas and constructs – whether in politics, ideology, or desired attitudes and behaviors. If we have specific lessons to impart to teens, our challenge is to set them aside and begin by earning their trust. Then we can guide our teens towards experiences where we invite them to come to their own conclusions about Jewish topics that we believe are important. The best Jewish educators I have met accomplish this by asking good questions, listening, being their authentic selves, modeling their beliefs and values through their actions, and integrating Jewish content that is meaningful and relevant, all while letting teens lead the way.

When asked about what matters to them, different teens I have met have provided different answers. But some interests and desires that have consistently been referenced include: gaining the core skills and experiences they need to navigate life as a teen; helping prepare for college and a career; learning how to stay healthy, both physically and mentally; having relationships with adults who are willing to listen to them; expressing their creative selves; feeling connected to something bigger than themselves; making a difference in the world.

What can we, as a Jewish community, do to support these teens?

• Encourage our best and brightest to devote their professional and/or volunteer talents towards working with teens. Provide these adults with high quality training in Jewish experiential education and adolescent development. Offer appropriate incentives to ensure that adults who work with teens receive the respect and compensation they deserve.
• Provide many more experiences for teens to step into leadership roles in the Jewish community. This applies not only to programs for teens specifically, but across all of our organizations. Invite teens to have internships, take on board positions, attend and speak at conferences, contribute their voice to writing projects, and help plan and lead new initiatives.
• Support our teen leaders by ensuring that they have adults who are ready to work in partnership with them to help them succeed in their leadership roles. We must remember to see these teens not as ‘leaders of the future’ but rather as ‘leaders of today.’
• Help teens cultivate their own sense of why Judaism matters to them by allowing them to know and understand our own relationships to Judaism. If Judaism is going to be relevant to them as teens, we have to model how and why it is relevant to us as adults.

For any Jewish adults who are apprehensive about this proposed approach, test it out. In my experience, the most enriching part of developing the Jim Joseph Foundation’s teen education and engagement strategy has been the opportunities to learn directly from Jewish teens. They have been some of my greatest teachers. Certainly, these teens have helped me develop a better appreciation for how the Jewish community can best support them and their peers. Beyond that, they have provided my Foundation colleagues and me with new insights about how we can be better Jewish leaders, learners, creators, and supporters of meaningful Jewish life.

Josh Miller is a Senior Program Officer for the Jim Joseph Foundation, which seeks to foster compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for young Jews in the United States.

Source: “Developing Teen Leadership with a Peoplehood Orientation: What Does it Take and Where Do We Start?” The Peoplehood Papers 16, October 2015

Towards the end of the summer, I had the privilege to attend Moishe House’s National Conference and Alumni Leadership Summit at Camp Chi in the Wisconsin Dells. The National Conference brings together more than 200 current Moishe House residents for three days of engaging and interactive learning and social activities. As the name suggests, the Alumni Leadership Summit is a gathering of about 20 former residents of houses looking to continue their involvement in Moishe House and connect with their peers. Truly, the alumni there represented the geographic diversity of Moishe House. Residents hailed from Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Jerusalem, Melbourne, Baltimore, Shanghai, Palo Alto, and Hoboken, among elsewhere.

An interesting and challenging element of Moishe House’s alumni engagement is that many of the more than 630 Moishe House resident alumni live in a city other than where they lived as a Moishe House resident. This factor and others created a constellation of questions that arose at this gathering: from the big picture, “What’s next with this increasing alumni base?” to the pragmatic, “How does Moishe House reach these young alumni in transitioning from Jewish programming to Judaism and Jewish spirituality?”

A highlight of the weekend for me was the opportunity to engage in an informal “Ask the Funder” session over lunch with Moishe House alumni and a few Moishe House staff. As we sat at picnic tables on a pleasant, August summer day, we had an open conversation about grantmaking at the Jim Joseph Foundation and, to some extent, my own professional journey.

Indeed, at the Jim Joseph Foundation, transparency and the value of relationships are paramount. Through site visits such as this Alumni Summit and taking time to meet with individuals, share insights, and listen to others, the Foundation strives to act on the relational grantmaking values in which it deeply believes. Alumni asked a range of questions: “How do you get into grantmaking?” “How does the Jim Joseph Foundation decide what to fund?” “What does success look like for the Jim Joseph Foundation?” This dialogue was the chance to engage with others around questions of mutual interest, to build relationships, and to sharpen my thinking around ways the Foundation could be an even better partner and leader.

These values crystalized even more at a recent professional development experience organized by Northern California Grantmakers of the New Grantmakers Institute. Designed specifically for professionals new to the field, the conference was an opportunity to engage and connect with peers from foundations across Northern California and to learn about best practices in effective philanthropy. Time and again, a theme at the center of conversations and presentations was the significance of relationships. More specifically, we learned that there is a direct connection between genuine funder-grantee partner relationships and the success of shared work on the ground. I take pride — as I know other staff and Board members do, too — in knowing that the Foundation takes to heart this relational focus. We know that without good partners on the ground, the Foundation could not effectively pursue its mission and vision.

The Moishe House “Ask a Funder” session was premised on this understanding. After all, good partnerships don’t simply happen. They are developed, cultivated, and valued. The Foundation is fortunate to have many good partners; Moishe House certainly is one. And the alumni I interacted with on behalf of the Foundation likely are leaders of the Jewish community — today and tomorrow. Part of demonstrating appreciation for their partnership is to engage them in substantive dialogue about Jewish learning and Jewish life. Their visions, their ideas, and their questions deserve nothing less.

As we head into the final months of 2015, the Jim Joseph Foundation prepares to complete its tenth year of grantmaking. During this decade, the Foundation has been fortunate to partner with grantees, an array of talented technical assistance professionals, and like-minded funders. The relationships we have developed made it possible to translate strategic planning in the Board room to on-the-ground initiatives and programs that create and support robust Jewish learning experiences.

We regard ten years of the Foundation’s strategic grantmaking to be a milestone. While the Foundation has drawn little attention to this, earlier this year the Foundation approved preparation of a special package of ten-year anniversary materials to develop and share with the field. I’m honored to unveil those here.

A ten-year retrospective timeline traces the evolution of the Foundation from the death of Jim Joseph, z”l, through the Foundation’s operations today. We have done our best to design this interactive timeline so that its use is engaging, meaningful, and even fun (three traits, incidentally, often found in effective Jewish learning experiences). For those familiar with the Foundation’s philanthropy, you will not be surprised by the major content of the timeline: the work of grantees and their significant projects and outcomes; evaluations from which we have gleaned insights; and the various contributions from thought leaders and experts in the field that have helped to shape our efforts.

The timeline allows one to travel back to 2006 to revisit the important early work done with trusted madrichim. Their valued perspectives informed the Foundation’s formulation of strategic priorities. Moving through the years, the Foundation’s evolution has some defining elements. Many grantees are referenced multiple times at key dates, a sign of the Foundation’s deep relationships with grantees. Successful initiatives are often noted more than once, too, having been adapted by others to further advance Jim Joseph Foundation initiatives. Once the timeline hits the Foundation’s midway point in 2010, third-party evaluations of grants are prevalent, offering rich insights for the field.

In addition to the timeline, I also am excited to share two other materials that help to answer a question I have been asked many times since 2006 (when I began serving as the Foundation’s executive director): “Who was Jim Joseph?” While a brief bio on Jim Joseph is available on the Foundation’s website, in many ways this question remains not fully answered. To this end, the first new item is a short film on Jim’s family history, his professional career, and the legacy he left behind with the Foundation that bears his name. Interviews from his children and business associates offer unique insight into Jim’s values, beliefs, and views on American Jewish life and Israel’s place in it.

The second document of note is a touching memoir written by Jim’s son Joshua, who also is a Foundation Board member. Through interviews with family and Jim’s old friends and associates, Joshua chronicles the family’s history from Eastern Europe to Jim’s life in the U.S. Anyone who has wondered what shaped Jim’s life and drove him to leave such a lasting legacy for the Jewish community should  find both materials informative. They are available on the timeline and our main website (in addition to the links above).

We created this package of ten-year anniversary materials in an effort to tell an interesting story about the Foundation’s first decade. As we close this chapter, we anticipate continued collaboration with philanthropic partners—grantees, funders, and expert consultants alike – in the service of Jewish education and its ongoing improvement.

There is an unprecedented level of attention being given to the value and applicability of assessment tools, particularly in the field of education. Certainly this positive development is in part a result of the vast amounts of data seemingly at our fingertips. Practitioners, target audiences, funders, local organizations and other key stakeholders recognize that there are ways to measure the programs, initiatives, curricula, or any other intervention in question. And while not every situation lends itself to assessment, the Jim Joseph Foundation has a guiding principle that if the results of an assessment will inform that educational opportunity and others, then, yes, assess!

In too many instances for too many institutions, however, deciding to assess is the end of the conversation. Yet, a second, equally important, issue needs to be addressed: which assessment tool (or tools) will yield the most useful results? Not every assessment is high quality, and certain assessments are more effective than others for specific classroom settings or other educational environments. Educators and education leaders often focus—on improving learning outcomes or improving the learning experience. This same mindset should be applied to assessments, as there are always ways to improve how we measure our educational efforts and interventions.

At the Jim Joseph Foundation, we are funding the development of an assessment of teen Jewish learning and growth outcomes. This work is part of our Cross Community Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, which is a platform for shared learning and collaboration among grant making professionals at Jewish foundations and federations. All involved parties plan to invest in (and in many cases already have) community-based Jewish teen education initiatives designed to achieve the group’s shared measures of success (for example, engaging Jewish teens, and achieving sustainability).

The Foundation funds this assessment because, along with our partner communities, we want to glean as many learnings as possible from the Collaborative’s efforts. Which grantmaking strategies are most effective in which communities? What program characteristics lead to better learning and growth outcomes for Jewish teens? These are complex questions that require time and resources to answer.

Developing a set of common outcomes for the initiative itself was no small feat. But under the leadership of The Jewish Education Project, the Collaborative came to agreement on what outcomes the various local initiatives would strive to achieve (i.e., Jewish teens establish strong friendships, and Jewish teens feel a sense of pride about being Jewish, to name just two). The evaluation team then developed a teen survey to measure initiatives against those outcomes through a rigorous process of expert interviews, teen focus groups and pilot testing to ensure the survey questions are measuring the intended construct.

The survey was piloted in three communities this summer. Now the evaluation team is analyzing the survey results, seeking input from key stakeholders and experts, and conducting another round of cognitive testing—all in order to revise the survey items to even more effectively measure the impact of Jewish teen initiatives moving forward. Undoubtedly this is a lengthy process. But by “getting it right,” we will improve our assessment ability in this space, benefitting teens and the entire field.

From the Foundation’s perspective, equipping grantees to assess their programs represents sound use of funder assets and grantee time. We welcome the decision of many grantees to contract with independent evaluation firms to help them develop assessment tools tailored to measure their programs and desired outcomes. A truly valuable resource in these efforts is the Jewish Survey Question Bank (JSQB) (funded in part by the Foundation), which gathers survey questions used across the Jewish education field and categorizes them by topic. This vast collection intends to make it easier and more efficient for schools, organizations and individuals to develop their own surveys to assess their efforts.

As we look to further advance the quality of assessment of Jewish education initiatives, the secular education arena is a good model to reference. There, many longstanding assessment tools exist, designed to be used by a range of education programs. From my past experience in this arena, I am aware of key questions asked before deciding whether to begin an assessment and—if so—which assessment to use. Some useful questions for day schools to keep in mind include:

1) Is the administration of the assessment a burden or relatively easy? For example, some schools have unreliable technology or Internet access, so a web-based assessment tool may be too cumbersome to administer. In other schools, a paper-and-pencil version may be better.

2) Does the timing of the assessment sync with our need for information? For example, some classrooms may benefit from an initial assessment at the beginning of the school year so the results can be used for diagnostic purposes. Other classrooms might benefit more greatly from a mid-course assessment. Either way, both assessments could be informative to the entire school, or even the broader field, and should be leveraged appropriately.

3) Does the assessment measure the learning outcomes we are trying to achieve? Naturally, some assessments are more aligned with the actual curriculum being taught than others. It is well worth the time to review multiple assessment frameworks before selecting the appropriate one.

4) Are the results easy to understand and act upon? Some assessment reports are so complicated and data heavy that it becomes impossible to wade through or to glean best practices. The best reports offer clear findings and essentially lay out a road map of small tweaks or large-scale changes to improve the education experience being measured.

5) What is the value of having comparable data from previous years? While seeking the best assessment tool is always a worthy endeavor, there are real benefits, too, to comparing current results with past results or to a wider pool of respondents. If a program has been assessed a certain way for years, or even decades, the best decision may be to stick with that framework.

Whether in Jewish or secular education, assessment is a best practice—and high quality assessment is an even better practice. From Jewish camping initiatives, to teacher training programs and other grants, we at the Jim Joseph Foundation and its more than three dozen major grantees have used assessment to improve existing efforts and to inform new ones. Its value certainly applies to day schools as well.

Stacie Cherner is a program officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation, which seeks to foster compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for young Jews in the United States. Established in 2006, the Jim Joseph Foundation has awarded more than $350 million in grants to engage, educate, and inspire young Jewish minds to discover the joy of living vibrant Jewish lives. [email protected]

Source: “Holding Yourself to a High Standard of Quality When Using Assessments,” Stacie Cherner, HaYidion The Ravsak Journal, September 24, 2015