Wake-Up Call: Your Supporters Expect More
by Katya Andresen Dear Nonprofit Marketing Friends, The biggest thing that needs to change this year is how we think about our donors. We are in the midst of an enormous generational shift that has major implications for our work. The Greatest Generation of older, civic-minded Americans who wrote checks out of a sense of duty and expected little more than a tax receipt in return is passing the torch to a far more demanding series of predecessors. Boomers expect a sense of impact, and younger donors expect engagement and involvement. They are anything but passive. Think of it ...
Putting Jewish Women on the Map
From Emma Lazarus’ poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty, to the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, to Barbra Streisand’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - Jewish women’s history is written on the streets of North America. Just in time for Women’s History Month, the Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) has created On the Map, a new way to collect and explore Jewish women’s history using the powerful combination of crowdsourcing and Google Maps. There is a human impulse to connect with history in a physical way, one that compels us to build monuments that mark the place ...
Supply-Side Judaism
by Elie Kaunfer The Jewish community is expert at anticipating failure, even disaster. Declining affiliation rates, rampant intermarriage, collapsing schools and synagogues - these are the problems that top the communal agenda. Judaism, it is said, is a product that no one wants to buy anymore. The question is then posed: How can we convince people that Judaism is still relevant? But amid all the hand-wringing about failure, we forgot to plan for success. For in truth, our problem now is not one of a shortage of demand, but of supply. Desire to engage with Jewish life is at an all-time high. ...
‘Drifting’ is Not an Option for Jews
by Stephen H. Hoffman I can’t remember any time in reading about Jewish history that we weren’t worried about our future and our survival - our physical survival in Israel and our spiritual survival outside of Israel. Worry seems to be in the Jewish genome. Now the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) has written a report titled “2030: Alternative Futures for the Jewish People.” Whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, there’s plenty to worry about. The study provides an overview of factors that have affected the rise, thriving and decline of civilizations over the millennia. Among them are religion ...
New on eJP
Fundraising in the Current Economic Climate – Is Your Glass Half Empty or Half Full? by David A. Mersky As I travel around the country – and as individuals from around the country come to campus – it has become increasingly clear that, as far as fundraising and development is concerned, we live in interesting times. About a year ago,...
Today, most nonprofits know that maintaining strong, positive brand positioning is as important to their health and well-being as are their activities aimed at keeping donors informed and engaged or their staff members motivated. Yet, like so many things we have to worry about, understanding what it takes to maintain brand excellence is markedly different...
After establishing a Jewish Peoplehood Hub last November , the Jewish Agency now has explicitly embraced the concept of Jewish Peoplehood as its top priority. The question is, just what does peoplehood mean? One answer comes from researcher Steven Cohen, who proposes that “you should be involved in your community, either religiously or socially....
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Using Technology Wisely
Do you have a touch-mobile device – iPhone, iPod touch, Android or Black Berry...
Seven weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, donors have contributed more...
If nonprofits found a silver lining behind the Haiti catastrophe, it was learning...
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Managing Your Nonprofit
Formal Gift Acceptance Policies Help Donors as well as Non-Profits by Robert I....
On January 13, I wrote about a client from New York who was very involved in rights...
In working with one of my clients over the last few weeks an issue was raised about...
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In Case You Missed
Non-Zero Sum: Helping Others And Ourselves by Rabbi Jill Jacobs Should Jews first take care of our own, or first serve the needs of society as a whole? In the course of a meandering and much-discussed article in the latest issue of Commentary magazine, historian Jack Wertheimer of the Jewish Theological Seminary castigates the Jewish social justice...
by Stephen H. Hoffman I can’t remember any time in reading about Jewish history that we weren’t worried about our future and our survival – our physical survival in Israel and our spiritual survival outside of Israel. Worry seems to be in the Jewish genome. Now the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) has written a report titled...
Rarely a day passes without hearing from one of my friends in the Jewish world about a new project in which they have become engaged or an organization for which they are fundraising. The conversation that ensues is often one about shared interests and common concerns. Sometimes the conversations result in my renewed optimism and other times they...
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