There are key lessons in the success of new programs aimed at building community, fostering engagement, and deepening a sense of peoplehood: Lower Barriers , says Pippi Kessler of the Mothers Circle. “We always offer our programs for free, and let them know they don’t have to be a member of anything.” Personalize, says PJ Library’s Marcie Greenfield-Simons. “Each family is unique. Organizations that adopt the concierge model, where outreach to families happens almost one-on-one, will have the biggest impact.” Welcome, advises Arielle Morrison of San Diego’s YAD. "If you don’t help someone new feel welcome, they won’t come back. We have 12 volunteers solely dedicated to newcomers at events." Wait, cautions Jewish Gateway’s Bridget Wynne. “If the mentality is, … Continue Reading
The Russian Players in American Jewish Philanthropy
by Gal Beckerman When hundreds of thousands of Jews began leaving the Soviet Union 20 years ago, American Jews looked at them the way a father beams at his children. Here was a large part of the tribe, almost lost to forced assimilation, now taking their first steps into a Jewish future. That paternalistic feeling only grew, as the immigrants, like all newcomers, needed a lot of help - to get settled, learn a language, navigate the realities of their new lives. A certain relationship was frozen in place, one that has thawed only very slowly over the intervening two decades. Russian Jews were the junior partner - provided for, supported, shepherded. But recently in the United States - where this paternalism was most deeply felt - the relationship has shifted dramatically, and in an area … 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
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
It’s Time to Get Off the Dance Floor
Gary Rosenblatt, in his article “The Push & Pull of Jewish Philanthropy” in this week’s Jewish Week, writes: "Start-ups look to federations and foundations for funding but don’t want to be associated with federations (too old school for them); federations may support the new start-ups as part of their effort to attract younger donors and be innovative, but resent that the start-ups keep their distance; and family foundations may play in both camps but are seen as unpredictable, and maybe too independent. Meanwhile, these three key groups are interdependent as well at times, relying on each other for funds, ideas and/or credibility. And the dance goes on." This delicate dance between federations, family foundations, and start-ups reveals a distressing set of fraught relationships in … Continue Reading
Strange Love of National Organizations (or how I learned to stop worrying and love my local community)
Do not separate yourself from community - Hillel (Avos 2:5) All politics is local – Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neill Quite simply, the GA is a reminder of the gravitational force of national Jewish organizations and the important role they play in connecting us to one another. We often exhort one another to ‘ not recreate the wheel’ in our respective community efforts, but if it wasn’t for networked cadres of national leadership and large conferences like the GA there wouldn’t be opportunities for the mass in-person sharing of new ideas and lessons learned in order to avoid such redundant efforts. Certainly technology has given us all the ability to communicate more quickly (even instantly) and has removed geography as a barrier to the exchange of ideas. But nevertheless, there is no … Continue Reading
The Changing Needs of Our Community
Gary Rosenblatt in The Jewish Week: The Push-And-Pull Within Jewish Philanthropy One of the fascinating dynamics in American Jewish life today involves the complex and evolving relationship among three key groups: the Establishment organizations, symbolized by the federations, the primary engine that drives the organized Jewish community; the family foundations, which have generated great sums of philanthropic money in recent years; and the hundreds of emerging start-ups, or small, independent and youth-driven nonprofit ventures that have become increasingly popular in the last decade, especially among Generations X and Y. A strong but subtle combination of admiration, support and resistance among those groups was just under the surface of a number of discussions - public and private - last … Continue Reading
Innovation, By the Loaf
Last week, at the General Assembly in Washington DC, ROI, PresenTense, Jumpstart, the Center for Leadership Initiatives, Bikkurim and Jewlicious Festival, all official fans of challah, innovation, and Eli Winkelman, sponsored an event in honor of Challah for Hunger’s fifth anniversary. The event drew ROI, Kivun, and Reality Israel alumni as well as Insight Fellows; was hosted by founder Winkelman and volunteers from five Challah for Hunger chapters, and featured a gourmet and diversely flavored challah-tasting. The ROI Community asked Eli, the original "Challahback Girl," to provide some reflections. Innovation, By the Loaf Bagel traditionalists often proclaim, "There is no such thing as a blueberry bagel!" I hope that one day, I'll be blamed for spawning ridiculous challah varieties. … Continue Reading
NewsBits: The Power of Donors, the Voice of a Stakeholder
from Globes: Tel Aviv University donors seek to oust Leora Meridor Many donors have stopped contributing to the university and some governors are considering resignation. Chairman of the board of governors Robert Goldberg has written to Minister of Education and chairman of the Council for Higher Education Gideon Sa'ar, and chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg calling on them to intervene in the "chronic management problems related to the executive council." Goldberg published a petition by the board of governors demanding an urgent debate in the executive council to oust Meridor over her management of the university. So far 120 people worldwide have signed the petition, many of them donors who have given millions of dollars to university. In his … Continue Reading
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