American Jewish Philanthropy Needs to Go Above and Beyond

We are in the immediate wake of the most significant Jewish event of our lifetime. Jews all over the world will mark time as everything before October 7th, 2023, vs. everything after October 7th, 2023.

Still in the sheer horror of the moment, Jewish philanthropy–individual donors and foundations alike–are supporting Israel to an unprecedented degree. This is exactly what we should be doing, and it is not the only thing we should be doing.

Our actions in this moment will have a lasting impact, for better or worse, on the American Jewish community. Right now, the Jewish philanthropic community must have a “yes, and” approach toward funding. Yes, we absolutely need to support Israel and Israelis. We need to contribute mightily to the multitude of needs Israel has—for the orphans, the evacuees, the businesses whose employees are now on the front lines, the mental health of the traumatized. All of these causes need our philanthropic support. Yes, give.

And the American Jewish community needs to stay intact; unless philanthropy steps up in the U.S. as well, there is a genuine chance much of the organizational structure we have spent generations building will be stretched to the limits. The structure is holding for now. But I am looking more long-term over months and perhaps years as this war continues. There are very real risks that could break our community.

During Covid, the ENTIRE world was affected. In this instance, Jews are uniquely affected. The need for increased philanthropy in this moment is great. We must address key areas:

  • Increased security, safety, and mental health support for Jewish organizations’ staff and participants.
  • Staffing shortages at organizations that depend on employees living in Israel; this includes the Israel offices of American organizations, and Israeli workers who help sustain Jewish experiences here (i.e. Jewish overnight camps rely heavily on Israeli counselors and staff, and recruitment for these positions ordinarily occurs in November and December).
  • Staffing shortages here in North America as professionals say “enough” of emergencies and the mass stress they bring
  • Effective responses to requests from Jewish organizational leaders, educators, curriculum content developers, parents, youth, and young adults who need to communicate and educate about what is happening and how to talk and teach about it.
  • Disruptions to educational programs that involve travel to/from Israel.
  • Fundraising needs for organizations whose philanthropic supporters are diverting resources to the much-needed aid and assistance for Israel.

These needs are both immediate and will remain for some longer period of time. Our synagogues, day schools, JCCs, social services, our people and our institutions, are the beating heart of Jewish life outside of Israel. Now more than ever, we must give and give generously to cement their existence, so that they may cement ours. If we don’t, we risk losing a generation of North American Jews due to fear, shrinking Jewish engagement offerings, and lack of Jewish professionals equipped with resources and training to do their job effectively.

So, continue or start giving to Israel.

And continue or start giving to the North American Jewish community.

This is a moment to dig deeper than we ever have for Jewish related philanthropy, and we need to give more than ever by a large factor. The time is now. The need is urgent.

This may mean giving less to other worthy causes (e.g., hospitals, museums) that are not in dire need or in a crisis. Instead, direct that money to needs in Israel, to your local Jewish day school, JCC, Jewish camp, and Jewish student organizations. There are countless other very worthy Jewish options from which to choose. 

In this moment of despair, I remain intentionally hopeful. Hatikvah, literally “The Hope,” defines the Jewish people and the story of Israel.  Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, z”l, juxtaposes “optimism” with “hope” as a call to action:

Optimism and hope are not the same. Optimism is the belief that the world is changing for the better; hope is the belief that, together, we can make the world better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It needs no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to hope.

We must continue to hope. Each of us can be Jewish philanthropists to actively make our situation better. We, the Jewish people, need all hands-on deck, and we need each other for the long haul. Generations from now, I see a thriving North American Jewish community, along with a thriving Israel. Both of those will come to fruition, but only if we hope and act.

Barry Finestone is President and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation

originally published in eJewish Philanthropy. Banner illustration by Anastasia Usenko/Getty Images.

My Non-Jewish Perspective Working at a Jewish Foundation

We’re pleased to share reflections written before October 7th from the Foundation’s operations associate, Amanda Leal.

I told myself in July of 2022 that I would find a job that helps serve a greater purpose.

I had worked in the semiconductor manufacturing industry for a couple years, as my first “big girl job.” I acquired incredible experience and worked with people of all different backgrounds, ethnicities, and skills. I scrubbed the floors of a manufacturing floor in order to “5S” the place to create a more productive workspace. I loved it. It was fun and dynamic, but at the end of the day I felt like I did very little to better the world. Just a cog in the machine…you know all the sayings. I decided to begin a job search to work for a nonprofit organization that makes a difference to people’s live—even if I would not directly be hands-on in that work.

I was stoked to find out I had an interview for this “Jewish foundation.” Then after one interview… and another one.. and another one…I got the job! I felt incredibly happy and proud; my hard work had paid off, I prayed/manifested, and it happened. I admit, I was incredibly ignorant to Jewish culture and practice, but I knew that the Jim Joseph Foundation made a difference in the education of youth, and I loved that alone. Interestingly (or maybe not), I am a Christian and was incredibly honored that I would be able to catch on to little things here and there. However, beyond that, I did not completely understand what I was walking into. I guess that’s what happens when you grow up in Central California and as a Christian where church is your whole world. You just don’t meet Jewish people, or even know such a community exists in your own backyard.

In fact, as I told family and friends back home about my new job, I was met with interesting comments from Christians and from self-identifying progressive, young left-leaning people. One interaction: When my parents shared with friends at church that their daughter would be working for Jewish foundation, one person exclaimed that I could be a “beacon of light” at the foundation and help convert every Jewish person there to Christianity. This statement never fails to make me laugh. Another person asked, “Why do Jews need a foundation?” Now listen, I went into this ignorant but not that ignorant. The fact that someone would ask that question truly threw me for a loop. Yet, as I  answered the question, I realized I had a pretty surface level response. I recognized that I needed to acquire more knowledge to answer this question to the best of my ability.

It’s been almost a year since I joined the Foundation team and I can answer this question in so many ways. I see how Jewish learning encompasses such a wide range of experiences and opportunities that help young people throughout life. I see how Jewish values inform actions to help others and to improve communities. I see the efforts being made to better welcome BIPOC Jews, LGBTQ+ Jews, and more marginalized communities into Jewish life. The way I think about it in my worldview is this: Some children feel forced by parents to go to their religion’s place of worship. I would have felt so much safer and more loved if I had the same kinds of safe spaces I see the Foundation’s grantee-partners create. I have friends on friends who would have been saved from a lot of misery and could still benefit from those safe spaces, at their big age. It’s all so important, and the journey of “learning how to human,” as I like to say so eloquently, is tough.

I also appreciate the culture of the Foundation, in which all members of the professional team are encouraged to learn about Jewish culture. As I learn more, I also have more questions. Thankfully, the Foundation enables any team member to participate in the Jewish Learning Collaborative, which is one-on-one personalized Jewish learning. I jumped at this opportunity and was thrilled to meet my teacher, Rabbi Dusty Klass. Dusty grew up in an interfaith home with one Catholic parent and one Jewish parent. In wanting to feel seen, I chose Dusty because of the interfaith background, and hoped that she would be open-minded when it came to my inquiries.

Dusty has made clear to me that no question is off limits (something I absolutely adore about Judaism) and provides beautiful responses that lead to about a thousand more questions. Some of the questions I have asked: “Under Judaism, how do we feel about the LGBTQ+ community?” (this was a major item I looked into prior to accepting the job) “How are young adults so involved in the Jewish community?” “What do y’all believe about the afterlife?” “What does Judaism/Jewish text say about periods?” Sometimes a question will lead to another question right out of left field. It is so fun and informative and endless. Most importantly, the JLC makes my learning possible and connects me even more to the work and beneficiaries of the Foundation.

Now, that was a ramble about many things and I hope at the very least, you are not offended by how ignorant I was and still continue to be. I am still learning! Bear with me. As my first year at the Foundation wraps up, I feel incredibly thankful. I feel blessed to feel embraced by my colleagues, and also to be learning about a community that I previously knew nothing about.  I am blessed to have coworkers that are patient with me while I pronounce Hebrew words or attempt to drum up excitement for a Jewish based meditation. And most importantly and not at all corny, I feel blessed to continue learning day by day.

Amanda Leal is an Operations Associate at the Jim Joseph Foundation.

 

 

 

 

 

Build Grant Evaluation Summary

The Jim Joseph Foundation is committed to fostering compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for young Jews, their families, and their friends. To enhance this work, the Foundation developed Build Grants to invest in the capacity of Jewish education organizations to dramatically scale their programming to reach larger and more diverse audiences.

The Foundation’s Build Grants include two targeted capacity building strategies. The first, Capacity Build Grants, provides short-term resources to stand-out Jewish organizations for specific interventions that enhance their ability to grow over time. Organizations use these resources for business and strategic planning, infrastructure and operational support, or measurement and program evaluation. The Capacity Build Grants that the Foundation offers are a steppingstone to the second area of support, the Scaling Build Grants. Scaling Build Grants are focused explicitly on organizational growth, providing larger one-time, multiyear investments meant to expand the organization’s reach, increase their effectiveness, and strengthen their ability to generate revenue and sustain an expanded budget. The Foundation is interested in deepening its understanding of its Build grantees’ successes and challenges to further iterate on the Build Grants structure and strategies. To glean insights, the subsequent questions guided the evaluation:

● What was the grantee experience?
● What were some of the key impacts of the Foundation’s Build Grants?
● What were some of the core challenges of the Foundation’s Build Grants?
● What lesson can we learn to improve the grantee experience and grant impact?

The evaluation outlines major themes on the structure, impacts, and challenges of Build Grants to date.

Build Grant Evaluation Summary, Third Plateau, June 30, 2023

 

Beyond A Jewish Library: Findings From A 2023 Survey of Users in North America

Launched in 2013, Sefaria is a free, living library of Jewish texts and their interconnections, in Hebrew and in translation and a global leader in enabling Jewish learning and teaching in an open and participatory way. In 2022, Sefaria reached a total of five million users, with a monthly average of 598,000 users. Half (51%) of these users are in the United States (48%) and Canada (3%), and this report focuses on this North American subset of Sefaria’s users.

In 2022, Sefaria completed a five-year strategic plan which set forth ambitious goals of further expanding its reach, including “develop[ing] a universally accessible digital library experience [and] power[ing] new pathways to digital Torah beyond the library.” As it sets forth toward these goals, Sefaria has partnered with Rosov Consulting to conduct a survey of its users in order to better understand:

1. Who are Sefaria’s users in 2023? Where do they live? How do they identify? How proficient are Sefaria’s users in Jewish text study, and how many of them are relative newcomers to Jewish text study?

In addition to the evident benefit of easier access to Jewish texts online, what other benefits do users derive from engaging with the Sefaria content, especially when it comes to their comfort and confidence participating in Jewish life more broadly?

2. What attributes (of the users and of their experience with Sefaria) may contribute to or correlate with
these outcomes?

This report relays the findings from a 2023 survey of Sefaria users and offers some suggestions as to how these findings could inform ways in which Sefaria could proceed toward its ambitious strategic plan.

The report begins with a broad overview of all Sefaria’s users in North America (United States and Canada) and their demographic profile; it then narrows down on a large subset of the users and describes Sefaria’s impact on a user subset of particular interest: young North American users (ages 18-44) excluding Jewish educators.

Beyond A Jewish Library: Findings From A 2023 Survey of Users in North America, August 2023, Rosov Consulting

 

Branch Out: The Benefits of Regional Staff and Centers

Over the last few years, many grantee-partners of the Jim Joseph Foundation have created or expanded regional operations. The rationale for, and approach to, this work varies from one organization to the next. And in some cases the staff lead this regional work from home; in other instances the organizations have a regional office—a hub of sorts. Regardless of these differences, these organizations, along with the Foundation, recognize the multiple benefits of this regional structure. Given the costs associated with this, we also understand why organizations might be hesitant to build out their work in this way. That in mind, we asked some grantee-partners to share why they operate in this way, challenges they have faced (and hopefully overcome) and positive outcomes they experience. Responses include themes around organizational nimbleness, deeper collaborations, donor cultivation, customized programming and pilot projects, and much more. Here’s what grantee-partners shared:

Hadar Institute – Designed to Meet Demand

When Hadar opens a new regional office, it’s because there is both broader demand for our style and approach to learning and a critical mass of people who share our vision and are asking us to invest in their city. One of our main goals is to collaborate, not compete, with the institutions that are already there. We spend months speaking to people on the ground— experts in the local community and organizational leaders, so we can be additive to the Jewish community. One of the challenges of regional expansion is that by nature it is a small team, often only one person, and they end up being a mini-start up in the context of a larger organization. That is why we look for candidates with entrepreneurial energy.

We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from communities where we’ve opened regional offices. Our directors are educators/rabbis, which allows for learning to happen throughout the year. Unsurprisingly, people feel a closer connection to Hadar when there is a local presence, and they end up participating in a broader array of Hadar’s offerings, beyond their local programs. They are also more likely to invest in the organization when the organization invests in them. And of course, our regional directors can forge deeper relationships with people since they are a real part of these communities and not swooping in as visitors. This approach has helped Hadar be a successful convener and community-builder across the country.
– R. Elie Kaunfer, President and CEO, Hadar Institute

Moving Traditions – Aligned with a Vision for Greater Reach

As Moving Traditions seeks to double the number of Jewish youth we engage in our programs by 2025, it made sense to think bigger. We are no longer targeting key cities – we’re targeting North America.  Having regional directors working from home offices throughout the United States enables us to build community and relationships, to better serve our partners, and to introduce more teens and parents alike to Moving Traditions’ suite of programs. For instance, we now have a Southern Director who is helping bring our programs to places like Florida and Texas where Jewish teens—particularly LGBTQ+ teens—could really use the circles of support that our programs provide.
– Shuli Karkowsky, CEO Moving Traditions

Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) – Enabling Innovation and Quick Mobilizations 

Our regional strategy has been an important element in our ability to remain nimble, understand and address needs of local camps, and accelerate innovation through different pilots in different regions. FJC’s West Coast region, for example, has been working collectively with California camps to explore options for property insurance, for which the premiums have skyrocketed. In the Southeast, we have piloted a partnership with Hillel to help camps recruit/retain counselors and to help Hillels identify and afford much-needed additional year-round staff members. Our regional offices in LA and Chicago played a critical role in engaging local funding support in response to the pandemic. Finally, we could not have secured the sponsorships necessary to produce our record-setting Leaders Assembly in December in Atlanta without our regional focus in the Southeast.
– Jeremy J. Fingerman, CEO, FJC

Hillel’s Campus Support Directors, a program funded by The Marcus Foundation – Building a Culture of Collaboration

Our organization is set up to assist Hillel’s 1,200 professionals in the field to maximize their impact on the lives of Jewish students on college campuses. As just one example, for the past 5 years, we’ve introduced a model in the state of Florida to support those campuses and students more effectively and efficiently. The seven Florida Hillels have developed a unique and effective model to work together to support each other and collaborate on key projects. Focusing on the Florida Hillels’ executive directors and their relationships, we created a culture of collaboration where these Hillels regularly share information related to fundraising and advancement, craft joint reporting on multiple Federation grants, and share staff training, onboarding, and information about prospective students.

I convene these executive directors every three weeks to discuss topics that range from creating sustainability through endowment and legacy campaigns, to the specifics of staff supervision. Although the campuses and the Hillels themselves are quite different, because of the coordination and support from Hillel International and the close working relationships they have built, these Florida Hillel executive directors describe this group as their most important cohort of colleagues.  Over the past few years, we have run in-state and travel programs for students at all Florida campuses, brought board chairs and executive directors together to share lessons learned and explore collaborations, and confronted antisemitism across campuses in a coordinated, strategic way.
– Debbie Pine, Campus Support Director at Hillel International

Jews of Color Initiative – A Physical Office Still Offers Benefits

Opening a Jews of Color Initiative (JoCI) office in New York solidified our footprint in a region with a large Jews of Color (JoC) presence and has woven us into local culture, communities, and events. Our New York Hub has proven to be an impactful pilot for JoC in the region and for JoCI organizationally. One challenge is that regionally-specific offices and programs can limit who we serve. For example, our Incubator was restricted to those in the Greater New York area, though we saw many instances where the program could benefit leaders outside of the region. An additional challenge of securing physical office space is the current workforce trend toward more work-from-home and hybrid workplace environments. While our offices weren’t always used, they did create a valuable physical address for co-working teams, programs, and community engagement. We also evaluated location options with great diligence, ultimately selecting a Manhattan location that is easily commutable from various NYC boroughs, though not specific to the residencies of JoC.
– Riki Robinson, Program Director of the New York Hub of the Jews of Color Initiative

Keshet – Targeting Populations in Need of Support

Keshet’s strategy for geographic expansion focuses on states with significant Jewish populations and anti-LGBTQ+ political climates. We opened an office in Florida two years ago and in Texas earlier this summer, resulting in an outpouring of energy and interest to get involved with Keshet. At a time of unprecedented legal assaults on LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender youth, local leaders are eager to send the message that in the Jewish community, our LGBTQ+ community members are seen, loved, and cherished.
– Idit Klein, President and CEO, Keshet

Repair the World – Moving From a Local to a Regional Structure

In 2022, Repair moved into a regional programmatic and development structure to provide greater support and accountability across our Repair communities, as well as create cost savings to ensure we use funding and support strategically. We hired regional directors who provide executive leadership, coaching, and organizational guidance to a group of Repair communities, and regional development directors, who hold relationships with the local lay and professional leadership to focus on sustaining local giving and bringing new individual and institutional partners to support our communities.

We’ve learned from our peers and seen over the past year that the regional model strengthens consistency across our programming, fosters increased collaboration across communities in the same region, and provides more opportunities for staff and fellows to come together to learn and connect. The added support also frees up local leadership to focus on the service and Jewish learning programming, since much of the fundraising responsibility and some relationship building has been transferred to the regional team.

To set up this model for success, we ensured the hiring process for the regional roles tested which candidates could demonstrate a clear ability to learn new landscapes quickly and build relationships in a remote environment. We have also committed to building local advisory councils of lay leaders in each community to support Repair’s local programs. A year into the rollout of this model, we have seen qualitative and quantitative evidence that the model is on a pathway to success, and know that the added support for strong connections between programming and development is key to this success.
– Kate O’Bannon, Chief Strategy Officer, Repair the World

The common link in all these examples is that each organization saw a reason, aligned with its mission and audience engagement goals, to deploy a regional approach. Careful planning and hiring were instrumental in making these ventures successful. Certainly other aspects were part of the “how” as well. We are happy to connect  any people interested in learning more about a specific regional model to the appropriate organization highlighted here (reach out to [email protected]). By sharing best practices and insights, more organizations will be able to bring meaningful Jewish learning and engagement experiences to people around the country.

ElevatEd: A New Initiative to Transform Early Childhood Jewish Education

Early childhood Jewish education (ECJE) is critical for developing minds, engaging young Jewish families, and ensuring the Jewish community’s health today and in the future. For ECJE to succeed, the field needs to urgently address the shortage of early childhood educators, while also resourcing and supporting them throughout their careers. ElevatEd, a groundbreaking  collaborative initiative from  JCC Association of North America, Jewish Federations of North America, and the Union for Reform Judaism, aims to transform ECJE with a far-reaching strategy to attract, train, and support more educators in the field. In the new initiative, known formerly as Project-412, these three prominent Jewish organizations will collaborate with funders, practitioners, educators, and community leaders to address the critical educator shortage and work to expand the field of early childhood Jewish education in North America.

ECJE director and teacher at the ElevatEd educator reception in Houston, Sept 6.

In total, the JCC Movement and Reform Movement operate 475 early childhood centers serving more than 65,000 young children and their families across the country. Tens of thousands more remain on long waiting lists or simply choose not to even try due to the shortage of educators. The three-year ElevatEd pilot will focus on 14 pioneer communities across 14 states, with a goal of recruiting, training, and credentialing up to 30 educators in each community, amounting to more than 400 emerging early childhood educators in total. ElevatEd launched in the summer of 2023 with five initial communities: Boston, Massachusetts; Denver-Boulder, Colorado; East Bay, California; Houston, Texas; and Long Island, New York. With these new educators, ElevatEd hopes to leverage ECJE as a driver of deeper and longer-term family engagement in meaningful Jewish life. The educators will work in JCCs, synagogues across all denominations, and a diverse collection of other Jewish educational settings that reflect the unique demographic makeup of their area.

 

CJP is incredibly proud to join several other Federations in supporting ElevatEd on a local level. In Boston, we believe that a focus on families with young children has the potential to transform our communities and a critical component of this work is support for early childhood education and educators. Together with our early childhood education partners, we are working to identify and tackle challenges and make the most of important opportunities such as this one. We are tremendously excited about ElevatEd’s new approach to boosting early childhood Jewish education and look forward to all of the benefits it will bring young families and our community.
– Marc Baker, President and CEO of Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP), Boston’s Jewish Federation

With the new school year underway, participating emerging educators in cohort one will soon start their year of learning, 18 months of mentorship support, and will receive funds to support their work toward a credential in early childhood education. Equally important, mid-career educators in each ElevatEd school also receive a stipend and will participate in a research-based mentor training program in partnership with the Jewish New Teacher Project to support the emerging educators in their schools.

The second cohort of communities will launch in early 2024 and help cement the long-term model for improving ECJE and making it more widely available. Each pioneer community will pair their own funding alongside a substantial initial investment from philanthropic foundations, which will build a long-term financial model for improvement and growth.  To provide the foundation for the year of learning, ElevatEd is partnering with nationally recognized educational experts, Teaching Beyond the Square and the K’ilu Company, for the general and Judaic studies framework for emerging educators, respectively. 

We need a national strategy to address systemic challenges in the early childhood Jewish landscape, which is why we are excited to launch ElevatEd, a groundbreaking partnership to address these issues on a national scale in the Jewish community.
– Sasha Kopp, senior director of education and engagement, ElevatEd

ElevatEd teacher reception in Houston, Sept. 6

The launch of ElevatED is an ambitious and timely development for ECJE that reflects the urgent, large-scale needs of the field. Early childhood Jewish educators are integral to thriving Jewish life–they nurture children, families, and their Jewish communities. With this expansive effort to recruit, train, credential, and mentor ECJE educators, more families will have opportunities to engage in Jewish communal life.

This collaborative approach among national partners, national and local funders, and key stakeholders in each local community also reflects a powerful, shared vision of meaningful ECJE accessible to all. To shed light on the program’s impact, Rosov Consulting will measure its outcomes. Through iteration and experimentation, ElevatEd plans to use this pilot phase to become a long-term model for the growth of ECJE and for powerful ECJE experiences led by talented educators.

 

ElevatEd is a pilot initiative funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, and the Samuels Family Foundation, as well as from local Federations, foundations, and local philanthropists in each pioneer community. Visit elevatedtogether.org for more information.

Top picture: Representatives from Houston’s JCC, Federation, and the URJ at ElevatEd’s first retreat Sept. 6 discussed how to leverage the time that families spend in ECJE to connect them deeply with the greater Houston Jewish community for lifelong engagement and learning.

How Funders Can Advance Safety, Respect and Equity in Jewish Spaces

In January 2018, in the midst of a global movement against sexual violence, harassment and discrimination, Jewish foundations, organizations and expert practitioners came together to form what is known today as SRE (Safety Respect Equity) Network. The goal was ambitious: to create a community-led movement to address gender-based harassment and discrimination, and to support Jewish workplaces that are safe, respectful and equitable for all.

Earlier this summer, nearly 200 community leaders celebrated five years of this work at SRE Network’s convening in New York. As a community, we came together to acknowledge what we have accomplished and how far we’ve come.

Since 2018, SRE Network has grown to 165 member organizations committed to this work; has defined standards to characterize safety, respect and equity in Jewish communal life; and has invested more than $5 million across 40 initiatives that help train staff to advance healthy workplaces, champion gender equity, support survivors of abuse in Jewish workplaces and other settings, and more. The network has also provided leadership, research, training, connections and resources within and across Jewish communities.

As victim advocate Guila Benchimol, who was key in guiding the launch of SRE Network, shared, “This year’s convening was a lesson in celebrating progress while continuing to strive for success.”

Now, as we look toward the next five years, it is clear that funders have a critical role to play in prioritizing and advancing efforts to build safe, respectful and equitable Jewish workplaces, JCCs, camps, synagogues and other communal spaces. We were pleased to reconnect with a broad group of new and established partners at this year’s convening, including colleagues from The Russell Berrie Foundation, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, The Mayberg Foundation, Jewish Funders Network, and more. As funders, we have an opportunity to set benchmarks of excellence in a range of areas such as paid leave, diversity in leadership, equal pay and recruiting and retaining top talent.

To lay the groundwork for the success we want to achieve, here are three ways funders can help drive this critical work today and for the long term:

Lead by example. Funders can join SRE Network and commit to being active participants in creating healthier and stronger Jewish communal organizations. This not only means providing funding but also doing the work within our own organizations. Internally, we can examine how we advance safety, respect and equity in our organizations and how we support our grantees to do the same. At the convening, several of our human resources and operations staff learned alongside Jewish communal organizations. Only when we hold ourselves accountable to doing this work can we ask grantees to do the same.

Put the needs and experiences of those harmed by abuse in Jewish settings front and center. This means assuming the presence of survivors in communities and organizations we support. We can adapt funding practices by asking if and how survivors are considered and consulted in the development of grantee programs and strategies. One session during the recent SRE convening featured survivors and people affected by abuse in various Jewish settings who shared their stories and discussed the public response they received. By understanding the short- and long-term impacts of harm, and by asking thoughtful questions and integrating survivors’ perspectives, organizations can be more intentional about supporting survivors in both their programming and hiring.

Commit to continuous learning to support long-term change. Funders should pay close attention to what is, or is not, working well. One way we can do that is by holding ourselves and our grantees accountable to participating in surveys, such as Leading Edge’s Employee Experience Survey and SRE’s Standards Self-Assessment. These help us understand and improve organizational culture, including opportunities to create greater workplace safety and stronger employee engagement. In addition, we can work with organizations to learn from and deepen work that is already underway. For example, the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) launched a multiyear process for implementing the SRE standards, including adding its first-ever employee handbook; developing reporting and response procedures for workplace abuse such as an ombudsperson program; and strengthening its policies overall. We see this as one of many examples that point to progress and provide models that organizations can learn from and implement.

As supporters of SRE Network, we can and should acknowledge the strides we’ve made while recognizing that our community is not done growing. Much more work remains to achieve the ambitious goal we set in 2018. We share a vision for greater safety, respect and equity within Jewish communities, where people can live and work free from abuse and be treated fairly and with dignity. The more that funders commit to this work, the more amplified our impact will be. For survivors. For our community. For our society.

Dawne Bear Novicoff is the chief operating officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation; Jon Hornstein is the program director at The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation; and Rebecca Shafron is the program officer for U.S. Jewish grantmaking at Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.

originally published in eJewish Philanthropy, photo courtesy of Getty Images

Haggadot.com becomes Recustom, letting you control all of life’s rituals

New, merged organization looks to bring a DIY approach to not just holidays but every lifecycle event

In the beginning, there was the Maxwell House Haggadah, a cultural touchstone for generations of Jewish families throughout much of the last century. Though iconic, that guide to the Passover Seder – primarily meant to teach American Jews that coffee beans were kosher for Passover – was also barebones and rigid, lacking in individuality. In came Haggadot.com, allowing for infinite customization and personalization. “The Minimalist Haggadah” and the “Schitt’s Creek Haggadah” and, of course, “The Chat GPT Haggadah Supplement” were born.

Now, the outfit that brought us those alternative iterations of the retelling of the Passover story is merging with its sister websites to become Recustom. The new brand, in a bid to expand the notion of ritual, is looking to bring do-it-yourself content to the modern plagues of climate change and political polarization, as well as rituals tied to gender, identity and even retirement.

“We’re in a time of deep uncertainty, we need rituals to connect us, but we’re not just going to do rituals that don’t feel authentic,” Eileen Levinson, founder and executive director of Recustom, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “We all need to connect, and we believe that Judaism has a toolkit for connection and meaning making. People just need help using it.”

The tagline for Recustom is, “Where intention meets play,” Levinson said, because “we embrace playfulness. Even the most serious moments can let us find something that’s a little bit different, and we can balance joy with seriousness.”

Whereas Levinson’s original sites – first launched with Haggadot.com and later including High Holidays at Home and Custom & Craft – offered a DIY approach to Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Shabbat, the new site, which is aimed at both Jews and those who are curious about Jews and Judaism, will feature rituals across the lifecycle.

“We’re thinking about all the places where people have been unseen,” Levinson said, giving examples of milestones such as, “doing IVF for same sex couples to have a baby… Rituals for gender transitions, taking on your new name and your new identity. People are living longer and wanting to still be engaged Jewishly. Their Jewish life is not just about raising their kids or being with their grandkids, but potentially having a new ‘b-mitzvah’ ceremony or rituals for retiring or when they move out of the home that they’ve raised their family in for 30 years.”

Currently, the three older sites are still running, with plans for Haggadot.com to stay active at least through next Passover. Some of the rituals on the new site are linked to the old domains, while other rituals just say “coming soon.”

Custom & Craft, the design lab that created all three sites, has a long tradition of teaming with other nonprofits and organizations in the Jewish community to create content targeting diverse demographics. Current partnerships include Jewtina and OneTable, which is helping create volunteer cohorts to envision new ways to remix traditions.

“We feel like this opportunity would be great for us to partner with an organization that has a very similar vibe to what we have, believes in DIY, believes in connectivity around peer engagement,” Amy Bebchick, chief program officer at OneTable, an organization that has helped fund and plan over 100,000 Shabbat dinners, told eJP.

This year, OneTable expects to engage 65,000 unique individuals in Shabbat dinners, and Bebchick believes the partnership with Recustom will serve as a bridge. “For some people that have been One Tabling with us for a while, or Shabbating with us for a while, it may be that they’re ready for what’s next for them. They’re ready to explore the next Jewish ritual.”

Recustom plans to license its mix-and-match technology to congregations and organizations that can create interactive ritual templates that they can embed on their main sites. Levinson describes the initiative as “like a WordPress, or even Slack, for Jewish ritual making,” and plans to launch it in late 2024. The templates will be able to be customized to change pronouns, insert family names, pictures, poetry and videos.

Funding for Recustom comes from the Jim Joseph Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, through the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund.

Their first step towards this goal is a partnership with two organizations, the Conservative movement’s rabbinic arm, the Rabbinical Assembly, and its Cantors Assembly, which are collaborating to create what Rabbi Joshua Heller, the senior rabbi at Congregation B’nai Torah in Sandy Springs, Ga., and a senior editor on the project, described via email as a “new kind of Rabbi’s/Cantor’s manual for our over 2,000 Conservative/Masorti clergy around the world.”

Heller said this new manual is meant to make clerical life easier. “With the old printed manual, we could offer one or two versions of a given ceremony or a handful of optional additional readings,” he said. “Rabbis would have a book filled with slips of paper and have [to] adapt the printed language, remembering where to fill in names in each place and adjust grammar and pronouns as they went. Now we can have a rabbi start with a template and have incredible flexibility to choose the liturgical alternatives that are most appropriate for the specific people they are serving.”

Rabbi Mordechai Rackover, director of publications and digital engagement at the Rabbinical Assembly, told eJP that the organization had a dream to create “a product that is adaptable to changing social and religious conditions in the U.S. and across the globe” and Recustom was the team that could “translate our vision.”

Currently, Levinson and the Custom & Craft team are focused on preparing content for the High Holidays, with the goal to have a full ritual library launched by January 2024. They hope to reach 2 million annual users by 2025, up from the 650,000 users who accessed Custom & Craft sites in 2011.

As the site grows its offerings, Recustom aims to connect more with Jews of color and younger Jews. “We have a strong audience that is over 55 because we’ve been doing a lot of work in the aging area,” Levinson said. “We’re over-representative in the queer Jewish communities… We’re less than 10% Orthodox. We just did a survey of our users in the winter, and it was much more ranging Reform, Conservative, just Jewish, Reconstructionist, Renewal, and so pretty diverse as far as everyone who’s not super-Orthodox.”

Although Levinson hopes the site is welcoming to all, she said. “Our brand is about reimagining, rethinking, [and] that obviously means that there’s more work into the how do we reimagine, rather than how do we keep things the same. Our intention is definitely not to throw out anything in Judaism but it definitely is about making it fit for you.”

published in eJewish Philanthropy

In Partnership: How A New Program Makes Jewish Learning Meaningful for Parents Today

To Do:

  • Foster substantive and meaningful connections among parents.
  • Learn Torah that speaks to pressing questions of our time.
  • Empower parents with the same language and tools for Torah learning and relationship- building that their children are learning in school.
  • Enable parents to give themselves the gift of Torah learning with a flexible structure that respects their busy lives.

It is a gratifying thing to pursue a program of meaningful Jewish learning that checks all the boxes. This was the experience of a pilot program that emerged organically from Pedagogy of Partnership’s (PoP) longtime partnerships with two Jewish day schools. For years, PoP, Powered by Hadar, has been working with teachers and leaders from Boston’s Jewish Community Day School and Schechter Boston to root PoP’s havruta[1] -based method of “learning Jewishly” to meet their schools’ respective and unique visions for their students and faculty. Particularly after the disruption of covid, the time was ripe for weaving back together the many connections and relationships that make day school communities special: relationships among parents, connection of parents to the heart of their children’s Jewish learning experience, and a shared relationship to Torah for all members of the community.

The pilot program brought PoP’s orientation and tools for havruta learning together with Hadar’s Project Zug (PZ) course, To Share or Not to Share: The Torah of Social Media, and the personalized invitation and havruta matchmaking ability of each school’s educational leadership. Together, we formed the how, what, who, and where of this learning opportunity for the parents of each community. We hope that sharing this model is helpful to others designing programs meant to build relationships through Torah learning.

The basic structure of the program was simple. The schools sent out an invitation to parents to sign up for a four session havruta learning experience bookended by an in-person communal PoP introduction to havruta learning at the beginning, and a PoP siyum, closing celebration, at the end. Parents could choose to be matched with someone new or sign up with a friend, spouse, or someone they have always wanted to get to know better. After the group introductory session, each havruta pair arranged to meet together at a time, frequency, and location that worked for them as they charted their own course through the PZ learning materials.

In the opening session, we oriented parents to a shared understanding of havruta learning by introducing them to select PoP frameworks including, “The Havruta Triangle.”

Image of Partnership Learning Triangle

Parents energetically unpacked the implications of this relational conception of Jewish learning by considering what it means for the text to be a partner; what it looks like to enter into a balanced give-and-take with another person and a text, and what dispositions we might need to call upon to enter into this kind of learning. Parents named such dispositions as “openness,” “curiosity,” “empathy,” “listening,” and “humility” as core attitudes that would animate this triangle in action.

A highlight of this discussion came from the parents’ children themselves!  Each school made a video of their students, who learn through PoP at school, reflecting on the very questions we asked parents to consider about the nature of havruta learning. The students offered practical advice for how to make the most of one’s learning. Parents were enchanted and took to heart their children’s sound advice:

You don’t always have to agree with [your havruta partner] and sometimes it is better if you disagree. If you disagree with your partner, you can end up learning more than you would have if you agreed.
– Seventh Grade PoP student

 

You should be caring and help each other. You should learn something, you should teach something…
– Third Grade PoP student

 

Adults studying in havruta should remember to look at the text a lot more than they think they need to
– Seventh Grade PoP student

 

You need to focus on what you are reading and understand it…actually understanding what does the text say but also making sure that you respect your partner.
– Third Grade PoP student

With this orienting framework, parents started to form their own havruta relationships with a “havruta warm-up” exercise to identify strengths and skills they could each bring to their learning. With a sense of shared purpose, tools, and compelling questions about the text itself, parents were ready to go on to study the rich course materials on their own until we gathered again a couple of months later to celebrate and share learning and reflections.

The content that parents studied together in the The Torah of Social Media PZ course, curated by Yitzhak Bronstein, constitutes a complex and multi-layered compilation of traditional Jewish sources that raise and address critical questions about how we talk about one another and to one another. Amplified exponentially by the onset of social media, ancient considerations about what constitutes gossip, how we balance the prohibition against gossip with the responsibilities to rebuke wrong-doing and also to judge one’s fellow favorably, reverberate in our present-day lives with heightened significance and consequence.

Parents commented on how the sources presented them with new ideas or extended how they thought about the unintended harms of talking or writing about others, such as the idea that gossip not only harms the object of gossip but the teller and the receiver of that gossip [Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot 7:1,3]. Many parents shared stories about how their learning had an immediate impact on how they navigate everyday decisions about speech and sharing information.

The Power of Havruta to Build Relationships
Reflecting on their havruta experience as a whole, parents expressed deep gratitude for the meaningful and substance-rich connections they formed with their partners. Some commented on having made a brand-new connection with a fellow parent with whom they share much in common—and others shared that their new connections were refreshing precisely because of what they did not have in common! A parent with young children matched with a parent of older children appreciated the ways they could learn from one another and see themselves on a developmental pathway held by their respective journeys through the school. Participants reported having experienced firsthand what it is to get to know another person through the study of Torah—where the text serves as a mediator inviting two people to meet in conversation in a way they would not have otherwise.

Parents also reported that the PoP frameworks provided shared language and routines, and thereby helped to bring together those parents who were new to havruta learning with parents who have a lot of experience. One parent shared with us that she had always admired those who studied in havruta, and she prioritized a Jewish education for her own children to learn to develop those skills, but she had been too intimidated to try it herself until this pilot program. Having been paired with a very learned and experienced partner she was even more nervous until they sat down together, and using the PoP learning routine, created a flow of lively and fascinating Torah discussion. Both partners came away enriched with Torah and shared their appreciations for one another at the close of the course. In both school communities the siyum celebrations ended with a resounding request for more learning.

The PoP-PZ-School partnership pilot happily checked a lot of boxes from a programmatic standpoint. More important, however, is the uplift, connection, and Torah-insights that participants within this program framework were able to create on their own for one another by bringing themselves to their havruta learning with openness, curiosity, humility and desire to learn. Parents were able to demonstrate for themselves the PoP idea that, “If all the havruta partners work together, we will come to learning and insights that we would not have come to on our own, in the same way, or with a different set of partners” (Cook & Kent, 2018. Exploring the Partnership Stance).

Allison Cook and Dr. Orit Kent and the Founders and Co-Directors of Pedagogy of Partnership, Powered by Hadar. PoP offers trainings, coaching, and resources for Jewish educators, school leaders, adults and families. To hear from PoP students directly about the power of learning in havruta, click here!

[1] Havruta refers to the traditional Jewish social learning practice in which two learners study texts together as a pair. The term havruta can also refer to one’s study partner, as in, “I am learning with my havruta.”

JIMENA: Expanding its Role as an Educational Leader

As the leading voice for Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, JIMENA is expanding its role as a thought leader and resource hub for the Jewish community and the field of Jewish education. While JIMENA has always worked to educate alongside its advocacy efforts, today the organization is in the midst of a strategic plan designed to deepen and grow its role in this critical area so that Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews and their histories are more fully included in American Jewish life.

JIMENA’s newest resource, Distinctions: A Sephardi and Mizrahi Journal, addresses contemporary Jewish concerns through a classical Sephardi and Mizrahi lens. The online quarterly publication offers fresh and impactful content that elevates the perspectives and raises the profile of Sephardi and Mizrahi people and communities. Distinctions’ inaugural Summer 2023 issue focuses on antisemitism, with a special introduction by Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, as well as a featured story by Sharon Nazarian, who has worked on international affairs as a senior vice president for the Anti-Defamation League. Each issue of Distinctions will be framed around a theme of communal interest to Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. 

Distinctions is designed to push our community forward, to uncover people and perspectives on issues that for too long have been ignored. JIMENA believes that to genuinely change internal Jewish narratives and attitudes — and to become more inclusive and respectful of Sephardi and Mizrahi people and communities — we need this new platform.
– Ty Alhadeff, JIMENA’s director of education and director of JIMENA’s Sephardic Leadership Institute

JIMENA’s growth as an educational leader and expert is timely and fills a previous void in the field. To help advance the White House’s recently released U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, JIMENA curated a collection of lesson plans and educational units on antisemitism and Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, all of which are available at no cost to state departments of education, school districts, and individual schools.

These resources will help students understand the many ways antisemitism manifests and the diversity of Jews impacted by it. We were privileged to be a part of the development of the National Strategy. Now we need to play a role in its implementation. It is our hope to raise the funding to produce more lessons on Nazi camps in North Africa, the Farhud in Iraq, Convivencia as a model to fight antisemitism and bigotry of all forms, and other country-by-country lessons.
– Sarah Levin, executive director of JIMENA

JIMENA also has undertaken major efforts to help New York and Los Angeles Jewish Day Schools better integrate Sephardic and Mizrahi students, culture, and content. The projects began recently with an assessment of Day Schools in those cities to determine what types of interventions school administrators and educators need to create more inclusive classrooms. The assessments’ findings will enable JIMENA to design the right training for Jewish educators and administrators.

Over the next few years, as JIMENA grows, so too will its leadership development programs and knowledge-base it can share with the field. In particular, JIMENA commissioned a research team under the direction of Dr. Mijal Bitton to conduct the first-ever demographic study of Sephardic Jewish Americans. The research is designed to help inform professionals, educators, leaders and scholars about who Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in America are and recommendations for their representation and inclusion in Jewish life, among other key outcomes.  

Learn more at jimena.org. The Jim Joseph Foundation is a supporter of JIMENA.

Amid Record Levels of Inflation, Funders Can Do More to Meet Charities’ Needs

As two funder representatives in the nonprofit sector, we have seen the negative impact of high inflation in recent years on the charitable organizations we hold dear. Thankfully, funders are stepping up to help grantees manage rising costs. But more needs to be done—especially as people are getting used to inflation.

In 2021, inflation rate rose above 4 percent for the first time since 1990. In a Gallup poll last fall, nearly one in five respondents said that inflation was the country’s most important problem. Now, only 10 percent of respondents feel that way. Yet, grantee organizations in various issue areas continue to grapple with the negative effects of inflation on their budget. Immersive travel programs, for example, face increased airfare and other travel expenses. Overnight camps face rising tuition costs of 6 to 8 percent. Jewish community centers face increased program and maintenance costs.

At the same time that social service agencies are experiencing increased demands at their food banks and shelters, the cost to provide these services has increased significantly. Inflationary pressures are driving the costs of basic food items up by 14 to 16 percent from last year, according to David G. Greenfield, CEO of Met Council, which runs an emergency kosher food network that feeds more than 325,000 of the neediest New Yorkers.

Nonprofits face additional challenges, including difficulty fundraising, surge in salary/benefits costs, rising borrowing costs, and increased economic uncertainty and risk of recession. Each challenge has a consequence. Salary increases coupled with shortfalls in fundraising mean reduced program budgets and fewer people being served. A rise in travel costs means that in-person experiences for staff and participants happen less frequently or become virtual gatherings. Increased uncertainty, which has possibly the most detrimental impact, means that grantee organizations are stifled in their abilities to dream big and plan with confidence.

As we face rising inflation, while also still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic, organizations need more dollars, more operational flexibility, and more time to get things done. How can philanthropy help in these areas?

Increase the grant amounts and expand how we give. Several major funders have increased grantmaking to existing grantee partners. Prominent examples include the Woodcock Foundation, which increased 2022 grants both retroactively and proactively by 10 percent, and the Aviv Foundation, which increased 2022 payments by 4 percent. We have seen variations of this model from many other funders, extending grant periods by multiple years and increasing grant amounts by double-digit percentages. There has also been an increase in mission-related investments (MRIs) and program-related investments (PRIs), most notably the Ford Foundation committing $1 billion of its endowment to MRIs, with an initial focus on affordable housing initiatives.

Award larger, longer-term general operating grants. Multiyear grants can mitigate against inflation, especially when inflation-conscious multiyear grantmakers build in inflation-adjusted payments in future years to account for ongoing cost increases. Since the Jim Joseph Foundation’s inception in 2006, the ethos has been about larger grants over a longer period. Moreover, by giving longer time horizons to grantee partners, we put less pressure on them to ask for dollars year after year. Instead, they are empowered to think strategically about their work and have space to experiment and fail forward.

Find ways to make time an ally. In challenging moments, time becomes increasingly valuable. Funders can help grantees free up time to pursue their work more effectively. Make the grant application and reporting process less cumbersome, for example. If there is an item in either process that is a “nice to have” rather than a need, consider eliminating it as a requirement. If a phone call can replace a report, offer that option. In addition, if an organization lacks the bandwidth to utilize a program grant, consider adjusting it to general operating support. This allows an organization to utilize time as they see fit.

Lower expectations and create more realistic benchmarks. As we emerge from the global pandemic, we must acknowledge that the world around us has changed, and maintaining the same programmatic and organizational benchmarks that were used in 2019 is not useful to anyone involved. Funders need to appreciate and accept that in an environment with high inflation, future outcomes are likely to decline each year if organizational budgets remain at the same level as in previous years. Set achievable goals that are set collaboratively and not prescriptively, so that everyone has the same understanding of what success looks like.

Talk openly with charities about rising costs. Charities would do well to openly share with their donor base how inflation has increased their operating costs—and ask funders and grantmakers to consider increasing their annual donations to cover this widening gap. After a disaster, whether natural or man-made, time and time again, generous fundholders at the Jewish Communal Fund in New York step up and meet these needs. Inflation is as much a crisis for charities as a natural disaster because they both have lasting consequences and take increased resources to respond appropriately—and it is important for charities to communicate with their donors about their needs amid inflationary pressures.

In addition to communicating honestly with funders, we offer the following recommendations for our grantee partners as they navigate this new normal: Do not assume all funders are feeling the impact of inflation equally, engage in scenario planning, request non-financial assistance, retain talent, and diversify revenue streams, funders, and investments.

There is no single way to guide our nonprofit partners to success. An important starting point for grantmakers and funders is to engage in conversations with grantee partners to better understand how inflation impacts their work and what they need to maintain and elevate their efforts.

Rachel Schnoll is CEO of the Jewish Communal Fund. Steven Green is a senior program officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation.

originally published in Philanthropy News Digest

Creating Effective Mid-Career Cohort-Based Professional Development Experiences for Jewish Communal Professionals

As the Jim Joseph Foundation works toward developing “dynamic, pioneering leaders and educators,” the Foundation wants to learn about the most effective professional development experiences. To this end, about a year and a half ago, the Foundation launched an initiative to test new models of connection, learning, and leadership development in cohort settings for mid-career professionals within the Jewish community. The Foundation hired Heather Wolfson, along with Seth Linden and Gamal J. Palmer, to help guide this work (Rachel Brodie, z’’l, was also a key partner in the first phase of this work). Together, we have been testing cohort models to understand what makes these experiences so powerful and which design elements contribute to their success: increasing retention and supporting career growth and feelings of connectedness and belonging. Our ultimate aim is to understand how we might greatly expand and democratize–to make accessible and more affordable–the “cohort-based professional development experiences in the Jewish communal ecosystem, to support and nourish the Jewish educators and leaders who are the backbone of Jewish communal life.” 

The Foundation also wanted these cohort-based professional development offerings to be different from other experiences that exist. With that in mind, the cohort members in this initiative self-organize around who is in the group and the content they discuss. Unlike more selective professional development programs with fewer participants, this initiative envisions a scalable model over several years with thousands of participants benefiting because they help co-design and co-create the experiences that are both enriching and cost-efficient. In this model, the Foundation provides administrative support and financial resources, and a framework for deciding the purpose, participants and content. The groups can bring in a facilitator or outside speakers without the additional burden of scheduling and leading the PD themselves.

After supporting twelve cohorts for different targeted audiences, we want to share key learnings from our experience and from independent evaluation conducted by Tobin Belzer, PhD. These learnings might help others who are running or are considering running cohort programs to develop future leaders. To facilitate our learning with this early round of experimentation, the initial cohorts served professionals representing a wide range of roles and interests. A few examples include event planners who are responsible for the execution of large-scale convenings for Jewish nonprofits, BIPOC professionals who lead DEI efforts within Jewish organizations, and practitioners of cohort-based experiences.

Here’s what we learned:

People crave low pressure connections and micro-communities.
We launched this initiative coming out of the height of the pandemic. People desperately want connections to other people with whom they share professional and personal experiences. Our cohort sessions were fairly informal, which reflected the desires of the groups. We had some guest speakers, shared facilitation and leadership roles, and plenty of time simply for talking and reflecting. This low pressure tenor can be accomplished both in-person and virtually; people appreciated that sessions consistently adhered to this structure. While many often view the mental health crisis affecting young adults and teens, feelings of isolation and anxiety are prevalent among all demographics—especially those professionals supporting young adults and teens. These cohorts were, as the initiative’s first documentation report details, “supportive containers.” One participant shared, “This group made me feel more confident in my position—I now have a place to better understand industry norms, brainstorm, network and bring back real data to my organization.” Having a micro-community of peers to share challenges and successes strengthens feelings of connectedness, which is one factor in sustaining positive mental health.

People want to feel seen, heard, and valued. These micro-investments do that.
Many nonprofit professionals feel they lack professional development opportunities and room for growth at their organizations. Only a select few are in the prestigious fellowship programs that are designed to help professionals learn new skills and build their networks. When we launched the initiative, aside from the first cohorts that the Foundation identified, we solicited proposals from professionals in the field of Jewish education to ask what leadership development cohorts they wanted to design and participate in. We hosted a webinar for 50+ people, and fielded nearly 20 applications for the five cohorts that we chose to participate with us in this early phase of learning. Being asked what learning experiences they would find most impactful and helpful, and with whom—and then seeing that take shape in a cohort-based experience—was a powerful validation of their work and worth. As one participant shared during the evaluation process, “I really appreciated having the support, knowledge and guidance of my colleagues.”

People seek a range of modalities to access learning.
The settings and ways in which learning occurs should be dynamic and reflect learning for the whole person. People expect nothing less. Our first cohorts are now thinking about how they will continue learning together with guest speakers and retreats. Other modalities we have offered or facilitated include self-care, wellness activities, and book exchanges among cohort members. We found that people want both guidance and autonomy; they want to be empowered to lead and teach in certain areas. Cohort members have also selected conferences that they want to attend with each other. The modalities should be varied and enable people to find the learning opportunities that best suit them. 

The number of cohort members matters.
This is key. After different scenarios and some trial and error, we found that having too many people in a cohort poses challenges and makes it more difficult for the group to really bond and feel connected. Somewhere between six and twelve people seems optimal. However, you also need to account for cohort members who do not attend every session. If you accept 15 people, ten might show up regularly. Setting attendance parameters in advance can help to avoid this issue. Also, depending on the number of people, in-person or virtual offers different benefits and challenges—from scheduling conflicts to sharing information.

Cohort-based programs should have clear goals and outcomes.
Program participants want to know the purpose behind the programs in which they participate, including the long-term goals and desired outcomes. The Foundation, for example, launched this to “nourish” each participant, but the long-term goal is to increase the efficacy and retention of professionals in the Jewish nonprofit sector. The evaluation shows that this experience expanded the participants’ understanding of the Jewish organizational landscape and helped them recognize there is a place for themselves in the Jewish communal sector beyond their current position.

Throughout the program, cohort members asked us good, pointed questions about why we were running this initiative. The latest evaluation shows their desire to have clear answers to these questions. Their time is valuable and they wanted to know being in this program was time well spent—both regarding what they would learn and the bigger-picture aspiration of this endeavor.  

We know there is still much to learn about the recruitment, structure, content, modalities, and more of these cohort programs. We also express gratitude to the participants and all other professionals who submitted proposals. They were, and are, part of this learning journey. Moving forward, we will continue to support existing groups, explore working with network organizations as partners, and develop plans to go beyond this pilot phase, making this opportunity available to more Jewish professionals across the field.

More background information and learnings from the Cohort-Based Professional Development Experiences Initiative can be found in the initial October 2022 documentation report by Rosov Consulting and the May 2023 Phase II evaluation report by Dr. Tobin Belzer.

Heather Wolfson leads Maven Leadership Consulting, Seth Linden leads Gather Consulting, and Gamal J. Palmer leads Conscious Builders. Jenna Hanauer is a Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation.