Amid what would later be recognized as a “boom” in Jewish nonprofit innovation, Felicia Herman remembers a conversation she had with the founders of Jumpstart — Joshua Avedon and Shawn Landres — at an event for Jewish startup leaders. The event, co-hosted by the Samuel Bronfman Foundation and The Natan Fund (which Herman was then executive director of) took place in the early days of the 2008 economic crisis. The future of the field, then speckled with budding startups, was both exciting and uncertain.

Discussing what things might look like a year from then, Herman recalls, Landres proposed a “quick and dirty” survey of the startups — including both organizations present at the event and many within the broader ecosystem — to establish some sort of baseline.  

“We all imagined that there was this major financial collapse on the horizon, because it was already starting, so we could get a baseline now and then see where they were at, like a year later,” Herman told eJewishPhilanthropy. 

That survey, “The Innovation Ecosystem: Emergence of a New Jewish Landscape,” a field-defining report published by Jumpstart, The Natan Fund and The Samuel Bronfman Foundation, was a jumping-off point for Jumpstart, the research and design lab that — through a combination of data, best practices and fiscal sponsorship — both chronicled and helped catalyze the “boom.” Now, nearly 17 years later, the California-based “thinkubator” will be winding down over the next few months, after concluding its operations on Dec. 31, 2024. 

“We were born in that boom, in some ways, in the reaction to it,” Avedon told eJP. “It always seemed obvious to us that our organization would not go on forever, because we knew that boom wouldn’t last forever.”

From the beginning, research was a core part of the mission for Landres and Avedon, as they worked to bridge gaps between fledgling startups and the philanthropists capable of getting them off the ground. The Jewish Innovation Ecosystem report was one of several surveys conducted by Jumpstart as they worked to better understand a newly emerged and rapidly developing sector in the Jewish world. It also is credited by many for defining the Jewish innovation sector early on, before it became clear to philanthropists that the new and innovative startups were part of a broader trend. “What we were saying was, ‘No, this is actually happening everywhere. It’s not just like a few bright lights, but lots of people everywhere,’” Avedon told eJP. 

“It’s really important sometimes just to name something and to help people understand a phenomenon that’s happening, and they were essential to doing that,” Herman said. 

Over the years, the research expanded, with the organization providing regular surveys of the Jewish nonprofit world, as well as collaborating with Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy on “Connected to Give” reports to analyze giving trends within a variety of religious communities. As the organization shuts down, Jumpstart’s library of publications — specifically, the Jewish Innovation Ecosystem & Jewish Innovation Economy reports —  will remain available at Stanford University’s Berman Archive, according to Landres. The Lilly Family School will house Jumpstart’s national studies of American Jewish and American Religious Giving, including the six “Connected to Give” reports.

Though the original survey looked closely at what was happening in New York, Jumpstart was deeply rooted in Los Angeles. At the American Jewish University, Avedon wrote his thesis about the founding of Ikar — then a dynamic but fledgling progressive religious community, of which he was a founding board member. Landres was his thesis advisor. 

“We were an L.A. organization. And I think the truth is, I think our story might have been different if we’d launched in New York,” Landres said.

The two continued to work together at Synagogue 3000, a network for creative synagogue leaders, where they were exposed to the dynamic spiritual communities popping up across the country. After a few years, it became clear to both Landres and Avedon that the spirit of innovation was not limited to spiritual communities and extended far beyond California. In March 2008, they founded Jumpstart.

“Once we recognized that it was a much wider boom in social entrepreneurialism and reinvention, we decided we wanted to get in the business of supporting what we saw as a revolution in the way the Jewish community was being built,” Avedon said.  “And that’s when we founded Jumpstart.”

On the West Coast, innovation was rapidly becoming the norm. At a time when the Jewish communal space was primarily controlled by legacy organizations, that made a difference. Landres and Avedon were inspired by a growing contingent of young Jews who, feeling otherwise alienated from mainstream institutions, were finding empowerment in creating their own.   

“New York was clearly the center of Jewish life, but New York was the center of legacy organizations,” said Jeffrey R. Solomon, a close confidant of Charles Bronfman, a funder of many Jewish innovation initiatives. “Jumpstart being a part of the infrastructure on the West Coast placed it at the center of changing trends. It provided a healthy perspective that was different.” 

Jumpstart went on to support a number of initiatives through its fiscal sponsorship program, including Sefaria, Haggadot[dot]com, the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, Jewish Free Loan Chicago, Jewish Solar Challenge, JLens Investor Network, Muslim-Jewish Conference, Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom and Tzedek America. 

With Jumpstart’s closure, the fiscal sponsorship program —  which supported emerging nonprofits in the U.S., Israel and Europe for nearly 15 years — is also winding down. According to a statement, all remaining sponsored projects have either moved to new platforms or to their own tax-exempt entities.

According to Landres, new models of fiscal sponsorship, the maturation of many of the nonprofits they studied or helped steward, a hesitance to draw funding away from other organizations and the natural progression and new waves of change within the Jewish communal world contributed to their decision to shutter Jumpstart’s doors. “We’ve always had the sense of Jumpstart, not being an infinite organization,” Landres said. 

According to Avedon, the landscape feels much sturdier than it did when they started. With initiatives like UpStart labs still actively working to steward emerging Jewish initiatives, he feels confident stepping away. “We’re pleased about where things have landed,” Avedon said. “This is a great time to say goodbye.”