• Home
  • About
    • About
    • Policies
  • Submissions
    • Op-eds
    • News / Announcements
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

eJewish Philanthropy

Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource

  • News Bits
  • Jewish Education
  • Readers Forum
  • Research
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Best Practice / Shared Future, Shared Resources

Shared Future, Shared Resources

April 28, 2009 By eJP

by Jason Brzoska, Adam Gaynor and Becky Voorwinde

The economic downturn and the Madoff scandal have escalated discussion in the Jewish communal world about collaboration. In fact, the recommendations of the just-released report The Innovation Ecosystem: Emergence of a New Jewish Landscape indicate that organizations want to and should be collaborating and sharing resources. The report says organizations should “collaborate and cooperate to reduce costs.” As organizations who are productively partnering with one another, we found that the initial time and effort put into building relationships between our organizations has truly paid off in saved time and money.

In nature, when resources are scarce, survival instincts kick in. In the Jewish organizational world today, funding, the lifeblood of not-for-profits, is limited. Strategic collaboration with like-minded organizations, while often beneficial in normal times, can be one of the most effective means of stretching our dollars in these lean economic years.

Strategic collaboration goes beyond personal catch-ups and coffee meetings; it is about identifying opportunities to share resources effectively. As small organizations, we can achieve ends beyond our own means through the sharing of both knowledge and infrastructure.

This past Fall, through informal networking, Rebecca Voorwinde, Director of Alumni Engagement for the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel (BYFI), and Adam Gaynor, Acting Executive Director of The Curriculum Initiative (TCI), learned they were both interested in investing in a new database platform. BYFI was able to identity the best platform to use through their initial research, while TCI did the legwork to identity the most knowledgeable and cost effective database consultant. In the end, both organizations saved time and money by choosing the same platform and same consultant.

After MyJewishLearning.com (MJL) opened the doors of its new office in 2008, its leadership realized that MJL was only using its conference room for a couple of hours a week, so it decided to invite other organizations who need such a space but do not have their own. When out-of-town organizations need a home base while working in New York, MJL opens up its offices to allow other professionals an “office away from home.” MJL understands the value of this because, for 6 years, MyJewishLearning.com lived as a largely remote organization in several such shared office spaces, including that of the Bronfman Youth Fellowships’ office in Albany, the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, and the 90 Oak Street communal space in suburban Boston.

MJL and TCI frequently share fundraising and outreach strategies. As young fundraisers, we are learning from our successes, and our failures, all the time. By exchanging information about best practices, successful strategies and research, we are maximizing our ability to raise money, expanding our reach, and in the process creating an informal peer network.

The Jewish people are not a private mailing list. It is in our best interest to share contacts and potential supporters. All three of our organizations have utilized each other’s networks to promote opportunities of relevance to our constituencies. For example, students who participated in TCI’s programs have become Bronfman Youth Fellows because of TCI’s willingness to promote this opportunity to their networks. If an opportunity offered by another organization can benefit our constituencies, we believe it is our obligation to promote it to them.

In addition to financial support, the best way that individual funders and Foundations can assist is by acting as a convener of these relationships. From their unique perch, they have a bird’s eye view of the Jewish communal world, giving them the ability to speak with multiple organizations who are constantly experimenting, and to hear the needs of each organization. Funders can use their higher level perspective to disseminate lessons learned and to make shidduchim for potential resource sharing.

The shift from a closed organizational culture to one that is more open to working together requires a certain level of commitment among individuals, organizations and their supporters. There needs to be sincere follow-up, and a genuine trust between each party engaged in such collaboration.

We are writing as a call to action, both to non-profits and funders. Fostering a collaborative and open culture among Jewish organizations is key to the survival of many organizations during these difficult times. We believe in the power of collaboration to further our individual visions which, though not identical, complement one another and add to the collective well-being of the Jewish community.

Jason Brzoska is Chief Operating Officer of MyJewishLearning.com; Adam Gaynor is Acting Executive Director of The Curriculum Initiative and Rebecca Voorwinde is Director of Alumni Engagement for the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Best Practice, Innovation: The New Jewish Landscape Tagged With: Jumpstart

Click here to Email This Post Email This Post to friends or colleagues!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. gili says

    April 29, 2009 at 12:06 am

    Why Strategic collaboration? How is it different than collaboration? Strategic collaboration sounds like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the paradigm of competition for limited/scarce resources. Or, like the difference between love and seduction.

    Shifting to collaborative organizational culture requires more than a certain level of commitment. You would not be writing this blog posting and call people to action if it it only required a certain level of commitment.

    People, organizations, the community must come together to ensure that we weather this storm. We have common cause to support one another to make the North American Jewish Community better because of this crisis. It is a golden opportunity to shift from the competitive, dog-eat-dog, old paradigm to a new paradigm of co-operation and collaboration.

Primary Sidebar

Join The Conversation

What's the best way to follow important issues affecting the Jewish philanthropic world? Our Daily Update keeps you on top of the latest news, trends and opinions shaping the landscape, providing an invaluable source for inspiration and learning.
Sign Up Now
For Email Marketing you can trust.

Continue The Conversation

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Comments

  • Bruce Powell on An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet
  • Sara Rigler on Announcement: Catherine Reed named CEO of American Friends of Magen David Adom
  • Donna Burkat on The Blessings in 2020’s Losses
  • swindmueller on Where Do We Go From Here?
    Reflections On 2021
    A Jewish Response to These Uncertain Times
  • Alan Henkin on Where Do We Go From Here?
    Reflections On 2021
    A Jewish Response to These Uncertain Times

Most Read Recent Posts

  • What Title for Henrietta Szold?
  • Jewish Agency Accuses Evangelical Contractors of “Numerous Violations” but Denies They Evangelized New Immigrants
  • An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet
  • Why One Zoom Class Has Generated a Following
  • The Blessings in 2020’s Losses

Categories

The Way Back Machine

Footer

What We Do

eJewish Philanthropy highlights news, resources and thought pieces on issues facing our Jewish philanthropic world in order to create dialogue and advance the conversation. Learn more.

Top 40 Philanthropy Blogs, Websites & Influencers in 2020

Copyright © 2021 · eJewish Philanthropy · All Rights Reserved