Jews have been debating leadership since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. Now, as established institutions begin to make room for innovative startups in Jewish life, discussions of leadership become more complicated and confusing, starting with what the word itself means. A leader is sometimes thought of as anyone who is highly placed in an organization. A major donor may be called a “lay leader,” suggesting that leadership amounts to having power or influence. A consulting firm that focuses on nonprofits, The Bridgespan Group, issued a report called “The Nonprofit Sector's Leadership Deficit,” which reported that nonprofits “will need to attract and develop some 640,000 new senior managers” over the next decade. They use “leader” to mean “manager.” A news story … Continue Reading
Apply to The PresenTense Summer Institute 2010
Do you have an idea for a social start-up that will engage, leverage and inspire the Jewish community? If so, apply to the PresenTense Summer Institute 2010! During this intensive six-week entrepreneurial boot camp in Jerusalem, you will be equipped with the tools and connections you need to change the world. To launch your venture into the world, fellows are trained in the practical skills of start-up development, attend training seminars and workshops, and receive mentorship and networking opportunities with top-notch professionals in the PresenTense Network. PresenTense is looking for innovators with projects (or ideas) in the following fields: Media Education Collective Action Miscellaneous The Summer Institute Program Includes: Skillbuilding: sessions to teach core … Continue Reading
Clawbacks, Day School Funding and More
from SunSentinel.com: Bankruptcy lawyers to Florida charities: Give Rothstein money back Charities across South Florida got a bitter piece of mail this holiday week: letters demanding the return of money Scott Rothstein gave them. About 30 charities that were recipients of the fallen lawyer's largesse received the letters early this week, warning them to return the money in the next 10 days or be sued. The list of charities wasn't released, but Rothstein has given to... the Jewish Federation of Broward... ... And at Rothstein's spiritual home, a new building off Broward Boulevard whose front proclaimed "The Rothstein Family Downtown Jewish Center Chabad,'' his name has been stripped away. from The Jewish Ledger: Crisis in Jewish Education There is no question that the … Continue Reading
Not Only for Ourselves
an editorial from The Jewish Daily Forward: The story was heart-warming, but instructive in an unexpected way. Jewish families gathered on a Sunday in a warehouse to pack boxes of pasta, canned vegetables and other food supplies and deliver them to needy residents in their region. Parents brought their children to reinforce the message of helping others. A brief dvar Torah was offered, to reinforce another message, that this was not just charity, it was tzedekah, a Jewish expression of communal commitment. One problem: Deep into the story, as it was written in a community newspaper, we learned that when a certain family tried to deliver their boxes to residents of a federation-owned housing project, almost no one was at home to receive them. The fact that the mission was not accomplished, … Continue Reading
Who Are the Experts?
from Wise Philanthropy: Philanthropedia - Some early observations and questions Technology allows and public culture encourages individuals to give to projects based on their own interest and to respond to projects as identified through a growing number of direct giving sites. These models permit a funder or donor with limited means to nevertheless play a key role in supporting a specific project and have reasonable confidence that the money is going directly to that project - without undue bureaucracy or mediation. This also allows such donors to be proactive rather than reactive to solicitations, which we all know can become annoying. However, we also know that this open source funding model has a weakness: where is the assessment of the quality of the project or of the organization? It is … Continue Reading
Lessons from Oprah
Oprah Winfrey, the multimillionaire talk show host, media mogul, publisher, film producer, philanthropist, and general life force announced last week that she is closing down her highly successful daytime talk show in 2011 after 25 years of broadcast syndication. If you follow the Oprah phenomenon at all you can pick up some valuable insights for your nonprofit about how to connect to and keep strong ties with an increasingly fickle and fleeting public. Oprah didn't start out as one of the world's most powerful brands. Poor, black, a victim of childhood abuse, Oprah used the talents she had - intelligence, determination, focus and an affirmative, positive energy - to rise to such a position of extraordinary influence that she is simply referred to as "Oprah" - a single name brand (think … Continue Reading
Trust, Transparency and Ethical Conduct
When it comes to issues of trust, transparency, and ethical conduct, the question for UJA-Federation of New York has never been “Have we done enough?” Instead, they push to answer tougher questions: What more can we do to raise the standard? How can we be more transparent? What measures do we need to take to avoid conflicts of interest? Every decision and every investment needs to be made with full transparency. At the recent General Assembly in Washington, D.C., John Ruskay, UJAFed NY's executive vice president and CEO, spoke on a panel titled “Betrayal, Redemption, and Reward in a Post-Madoff World.” As the panel touched on many of our core themes, John has graciously made his remarks available to us: For me, this session comes down to the question in the forum … Continue Reading
Changes in American Jewish Identities Since 1948: From Norms to Aesthetics
by Dr. Steven M. Cohen Jews Within In the sixty plus years that have elapsed since the founding of the State of Israel, profound changes have taken place in Israel, in American Jews’ relationship with Israel, and in American Jews’ identities. With regard to the latter, two major changes are among the most salient and influential. One is the enormous change in the integration of Jews into the larger American society. As compared with just fifty years ago, today’s Jews have far fewer Jewish spouses, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Not only do most young American Jews have loving relationships with non-Jews, but hundreds of thousands of non-Jews love Jews - a very common circumstance now, and a fairly rare occurrence just a few decades ago. This increasing integration reflects … Continue Reading
The Jewish Agency, the Government and the $12 million
Last week, The Jerusalem Post published a story, Gov’t may fill Jewish Agency’s coffers, that suggested "For the first time, the government is considering becoming a direct funder of the Jewish Agency." The story continued, "According to a government source, the Finance Ministry is preparing to contribute up to $12 million toward the shortfall. While Finance Ministry officials oppose the plan, the order to make the funds available came from the Prime Minister's Office, the source said." Since this confirmed tidbits we've been hearing around Israel for the past month, we both linked to the story and ran a piece the next day on what this might mean in practice. The JTA and many other media publications did the same. eJewish Philanthropy has since learned we were all off-track. Yes, … Continue Reading
The Emerging Russian-Jewish Presence
by Robert Singer The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming… the title of the Jewish Federations of North America GA workshop is a playful take on the American patriot Paul Revere’s legendary midnight warning of the approach of King George’s troops. In the case of this year’s GA, this phrase ends fittingly appropriate: “wait, they are here”. Indeed, the gears at this year’s GA have started to shift dramatically. With Leonid Nevzlin as the international GA chair, Natan Sharansky as the chair of the Jewish Agency and many of the Knesset’s top ministers speaking in Russian as their mother language, we see a definite emergence of Russian-speaking Jews in the global Jewish community. Clearly, this did not happen overnight. The North American Jewish community worked … Continue Reading
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