by Helen Chernikoff G-dcast.com is a poster child of the Jewish startup sector, the grass-roots movement that aims to reach the disinterested and unaffiliated by offering new ways - such as record labels, bike rides and online Shabbat services - to connect with Judaism. Over 3,000 educators around the world use G-dcast’s funky parsha-of-the-week videos, which have been viewed over a million times on the web, the group says. Why, then, is G-dcast about to find itself out on the street? “It’s not just my problem,” said Sarah Lefton, founder and director of G-dcast, which has doubled its budget and hired three part-time staff in the past year, but will soon struggle to make rent. “All of the young Jewish organizations in San Francisco have the same problem.” In fact, most young … Continue Reading
Grapevine: Moving from Program-Centric to Customer-Centric
by Sacha Litman A year ago, GrapeVine was a dream that some Jewish leaders saw as a panacea and others argued would never get airborne. The idea was to provide a platform enabling a fundamental shift in the Jewish community from a program-centric to a customer-centric orientation. The goal: to ensure the Jewish community retains every individual or family that ever participates in any of our institutions’ or foundations’ programs rather than lose track of 80 percent of them, who are quickly labeled as “uninvolved.” GrapeVine’s solution requires the use of data aggregation, predictive analytics, and a targeted marketing engine to rival the sophistication of Amazon or Netflix - while on a significantly smaller budget. Twelve months and many long nights later, our intrepid team has … Continue Reading
Visual Thinking: A Challenge for Our Sector
by Emily Comisar If I told you that we could find new expressions of Jewish communal work using this image as our inspiration, you’d probably think I was crazy: That’s right, square plus triangle equals circle. In this case, the triangle (or delta) stands for change, the square for the status quo, and the circle for wherever it is that we’re going - and we’re generally in agreement that where we’re going is not where we are. This equation formed the basis for NTEN’s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) this month, where nearly 2,000 nonprofit technology enthusiasts gathered to discuss everything from social change to Pinterest to Blackbaud’s plans to acquire Convio. If you’re not familiar with NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network) - I can’t recommend their work … Continue Reading
Tikva Records and the American Jet Set
[This post is part of a series updating the award recipient projects of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund.] by Roger Bennett, David Katznelson, Josh Kun and Courtney Holt Since we received the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund grant last year, we at Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation focused on a project that revisited the amazing history of Tikva Records. Tikva Records was founded in 1947 as an independent Jewish record label. For the next 30 years, it would record an eclectic range of Jewish-American songs, including klezmer pop, cantorial singing, Catskills medleys and Israeli folk tunes. Think of it as the Jewish "Motown". The project allowed us to explore a number of ways to touch, educate and entertain people with this project. Josh Kun, one of the Idelsohn founders, spoke with … Continue Reading
Hillel Connect: The Modern Guide to Jewish Life on Campus
[This post is part of a series updating the award recipient projects of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund.] by Matt Braman Hillel has served Jewish college students for almost 90 years. Our success is the result of constantly innovating the way we engage students, and we continue that trend with the development of Hillel Connect, a mobile application aimed at the student campus community that provides an interactive and lively means for Jewish students to stay connected to Jewish life. Because Hillel serves the most technologically advanced audience on the planet - college students - Hillel Connect strives to take advantage of existing social media channels and offer students something familiar, useful and attractive as they seek to engage with Jewish life on campus. Making … Continue Reading
Torah-on-the-Go!
[This post is part of a series updating the award recipient projects of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund.] by Russel Neiss Last year, with the generous support of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund, we began development of PocketTorah, a mobile application and website, with the goal of providing anyone the ability to learn the weekly Torah and Haftarah portion anywhere, at any time, on any mobile device or computer for free. We released our Trope training app a few weeks ago, but today, after 150 hours of coding, 31.7 hours of recorded audio, three pre-alpha releases, and more all-nighters than we'd like to admit, we are happy to announce that the completed version of the app has been uploaded to the Apple Store and Android Marketplace, where they are available for free. In … Continue Reading
#12NTCJews Talk Networks and Nonprofits
by Deborah Fishman I must admit that I don’t go to very many conferences that aren’t “Jewish.” But [in the days just prior to Passover] I was excited to attend the Nonprofit Technology Conference of NTEN (#12NTC). I went to speak at a session in collaboration with the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation, Jim Joseph Foundation, and Darim Online, on networks, technology, and their application to non-profits – and yes, we were speaking about it particularly in a Jewish context. The truth is, with the attendance of over 70 non-profit professionals who are Jewish and/or working for Jewish nonprofits, this session and the social hour that followed had as much as or even more of the usual dose of Jewish geography, schmoozing/networking, and certainly the spirit of Jewish pride. Why … Continue Reading
Moishe House Rocks: Looking Back and Moving Forward
[This is the third in a series updating the award recipient projects of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund.] by David Cygielman When Moishe House and G-DCAST first started brainstorming about a possible collaboration more than a year ago, there was a lot of excitement but not a totally clear direction on what type of project would emerge. We both knew that we wanted to do something that would reach the larger, global community and provide easy and accessible “how to” steps related to Jewish ritual, but we were not sure exactly what it would look like. Sarah Lefton, G-DCAST’s Executive Director and Producer, and members of our Moishe House team had some exciting and extensive brainstorming sessions where we hashed out all the possibilities that could come from this collaboration. … Continue Reading
The G-d Project: Stop Asking Questions and Start Listening For Answers
[This is the second in a new series updating the award recipient projects of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund.] by Patrick Aleph On April 20th, 2011, the creative team at PunkTorah sought to answer the question, "what do the Jewish people really believe about God?" After traveling from Portland, Oregon, to New York City, Los Angeles and the mountains of North Carolina, Minneapolis, Boston, Atlanta and more, and developing over 200 YouTube videos on our website, The G-d Project.org, we have gone from wanting one good answer to having a million great answers. The Jewish people are complicated. In our adventures, we met spiritual agnostics, Hebrew priestesses, humanistic Orthodox rabbis, kabbalist yoga masters, politicians, teachers, actors, musicians, social justice leaders, computer … Continue Reading
Kveller.com: Growing into Toddlerhood
[This is the first in a new series updating the award recipient projects of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund.] by Daniel Septimus Kveller.com launched in September 2010 to provide parents raising Jewish children with Jewish parenting resources, a lively online community and a way to learn about local events and activities for Jewish families. From a purely quantitative perspective, Kveller has significantly exceeded its goals. We had originally hoped to reach 45,000 people per month by December 2011. In fact, during the second half of 2011, Kveller averaged 60,000 unique visitors per month. In December 2011, January 2012 and February 2012, Kveller was visited by more than 75,000 people each month. In March 2012, we will likely reach 90,000 unique visitors for the first time. The … Continue Reading
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