My email inbox is filled with Rosh Hashanah e-cards from colleagues and friends wishing me a sweet and healthy New Year. Some are quite clever and all very lovely. There are lots of e-greetings using video and animation and a couple that have taken humorous, sharp pokes at the U.S. presidential political scene. I even received a few old-school, snail-mailed holiday greetings. All these wish are nice, albeit not terribly inspiring and leave me feeling flat.
So, Monday morning as I was putting the finishing touches on the noodle kugel, I figured out what was bothering me. It’s that this is a time of reflection and hopefully a chance to focus on doing things better next year. None of the messages I got from Jewish organizations inspired me or offered me anything of substance or value.
Shouldn’t more organizations use what has become a Hallmark greetings moment to go beyond offering me good wishes for the New Year and give me something more authentically connected to the themes of the season? Offer me something I want or care about at this time of year? I got a nice card from UJA-Federation of New York but only found their great High Holiday service listing when I chanced onto their website. How great would it have been to include notice of where to attend services in New York City in their holiday greeting to me.
I didn’t get a greeting from American Jewish World Service but their website offers a great example of how to connect your mission with the New Year. Their homepage (one of a very few) actually messages to the themes of Rosh Hashanah, offering a matching gifts opportunity in honor of the New Year and special, downloadable Rosh Hashanah e-cards. I hope they pushed out these messages alongside their holiday greetings to their supporters.
Most major Jewish organizations’ homepages don’t even reference the High Holidays. Take a look for yourselves and you have to wonder why there is so little connection to this most important “Jewish” moment in the year. We seem to be ignoring our big annual opportunity to touch the Jewish community when they are most inclined to think and act Jewishly. It’s like if the Salvation Army were to ignore Christmas and not put out the Red Kettles!
L’Shana Tova—and if you want to do something important with your New Year celebration, make a gift to AJWS or sign up for a volunteer project and really feel the meaning of the season.
Gail
You can read more from Gail here.
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Gail’s observations about holiday greetings and relevant messaging reflect a lack of interest and trust in using digital, social media tools to add value and build social change in today’s connected age. I applaud her thinking re the enormous communications potential and power of the web to build new constituencies, introduce new ideas, and create tighter bonds among target audiences. To succeed in the coming years, organizations will need to integrate various internet tools with traditional communications strategies, and to think across organizational silos to generate greater awareness and visibility for their missions and visions.
The JESNA website also features a Rosh Hashana message on our home page. (I offer this with some trepidation, since I authored the message.) So too does JTS’s, with a musical selection from the Chancellor to boot. I’m sure there are others. I do agree that a lot of postage gets spent this time of year by Jewish organizations mostly to say, “have a good year.” I believe that JCCA sent only an e-card this year. Maybe that’s the way to go for the future.
Some Jewish organizations need to be careful what messages they include in a holiday greetings card. The card may be a separate spiritual message and not to be confused with a solicitation, when they are often accused of just asking for money. A financial campaign may be running concurrently through a different medium. The cards may also be going to many donors who are already contributing. Also, they need to be careful with regards to including references to free high holiday services, as many recipients may already be paid-up members of a synagogue. The unaffiliated/non-donors are often sent high holidays greetings just by e-mail with links to the website, (featuring free high holiday services), as well as a separate e-mail promoting these services. I hope that explains why some Jewish organizations have to make carefully thought out decisions, on behalf of the entire community.
Good comments all around. Just a couple of follow up points:
1. I still observe that too many Jewish organizations are not leveraging the holiday moment with a broad audience that is in a “teachable moment” or at least an open moment.
2. We still live too much in our own organizational framework and not enough in the user-centric web 2.0 world. Yes,it is complicated. Yes, you have to worry about not offending some people. Yes, you need to worry about who gets what messages.. yes, yes, yes. But smart organizations are not letting these challenges stop them from giving the people what they want. In this case, I suggested that people wanted messages that inspired and brought them closer to the spirit of the New Year. Let’s be confident that we can find ways to do that and get past the perceived and real old school obstacles in our paths.
How much can you inspire one in a greetings card? A Talmudic thought for the day? Community members are often grateful to be remembered by an organization that cares about them. Web 2.0 does serve a valuable purpose and can create enjoyment, innovation and meet certain demographics “where they are at”. Jewish community is also about people, developing personal relationships and real interaction to build community in a meaningful way. We need to be careful to not get too caught up in a medium which is often a solitary “touch”. Even if an organization has smart ideas, there can be a lack of sophisticated resources to tailor to a large community database. Not all can be like Amazon and send people their “favorites” in their preferred way. For example, the database we use cannot identify various list-servs. A person can either “opt-in” or “opt-out”, i.e. they receive all of our targeted e-mail communications, (various newsletters, urgent updates, solicitations and invites), or not at all. I envision this will change in the future though. Marcia is right- it should be a priority to keep up with the times and available technology.