PresenTense has launched a new partnership with the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). JTS recently received a generous grant from the David and Myers Foundation to create a venture fund enabling fourth year rabbinical students to design and implement innovative outreach projects within the context of their student internships at a variety of New York-based organizations.

JTS has engaged PresenTense as a content and training provider and thought partner in developing this new initiative, which will include four PresenTense seminar modules, mentorship, and hands-on coaching and venture workshopping for participants by PresenTense staff. The formal program will culminate in the spring with Pitch Night, an interactive forum for fellows to share their projects with the broader community. Students are encouraged to continue their projects in the coming year, while new participants will come on board each year of the program.

Through this new partnership, PresenTense and JTS will provide seven rabbinic fellows with an entrepreneur’s toolkit that will enable them to identify opportunities in their host organizations and develop targeted initiatives to address those needs. These tools will position the fellows for leadership roles within the Jewish community upon graduation, complementing the academic and pastoral skills they have honed for the past several years at JTS.

This partnership with JTS is made possible through PresenTense’s PTSchool platform. Designed to bring PresenTense’s entrepreneurial tools and expertise to communal organizations, PTSchool is a conduit for organizations to blend the PresenTense ethos of innovation with in-house initiatives that promote “intrapreneurship” and creativity organization-wide. PTSchool equips professionals with entrepreneurial frameworks and hard skills to apply directly in their professional roles, fostering innovation from within.