Jim Joseph Foundation

"While our local partners on the ground continue to cultivate important relationships with an eye on sustainability, we want to share learnings for the benefit of the field at large." Rachel Shamash Schneider, Aaron Saxe, and Josh Miller offer gratitude and insights on “From Kedem to Kadimah: 10 Lessons from 10 years of the Jewish Teen Education & Engagement Funder Collaborative." With the Funder Collaborative now housed at Jewish Federations of North America, there is vast potential for greater reach and deeper engagement of teens, their families, and professionals anywhere in the country.

"We believe our survey instrument and similar tools can be adapted for use by Jewish engagement leaders to gain insight into connectedness, belonging and well-being in support of their program goals and constituent needs. In sharing these, we want to provide the field with a set of validated scales — some new, some adapted — to measure social connectedness, which we see as a key facet of Jewish engagement." Learn more about these tools and the study on Shabbat dinner and social connectedness conducted by CASJE George Washington University - Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education's Dr. Arielle Levites Gage Gorsky.

“Conversations around Israel right now can either tear communities apart or strengthen connections and build mutual understanding," says For the Sake of Argument's Abi Dauber Sterne. "Educational leaders know they must engage in these conversations, and they want to—but doing it constructively and in a healthy manner takes an intentional approach and training.” Learn more about FSA's work and a new evaluation showing its positive outcomes in our latest featured partner.

Seth Linden of Gather Consulting and Gamal J. Palmer of Conscious Builders are scaling their work to offer more opportunities for mid-career Jewish communal professionals to learn, grow, and support one another in trusted cohorts of colleagues. In this piece they share learnings from the past year and discuss ways for other interested funders to co-invest in this initiative, with the opportunity for each funder to identify specific audiences of Jewish professionals who they would like to see benefit from this experience. Funders can join a webinar with Seth and Gamal on September 26th to learn more (registration link in the piece).

Check out new research from Eitan Hersh on the experiences and views of Jewish and non-Jewish students on college campuses, both before and after October 7th, 2023. Key findings cover areas including social ostracization, on-campus engagement levels, demographic info, news consumption habits, and much more.

Funder webinar Sept. 26: Our friends Seth Linden of Gather Consulting and Gamal J. Palmer of Conscious Builders are hosting a webinar for funders to learn about growth and scale opportunities of the cohort-based experiences initiative they've run for the past three years. Now under the working name "Chavurot: Expanding Professional Growth for Communal Leaders," the initiative has been testing cohort models of connection, learning, and leadership development. The webinar will highlight key learnings and opportunities for funders to support, invest in, and engage with this project to bring professional development to their grantees. Register here: https://lnkd.in/gufeS-PQ

The Jewish ECE initiative ElevatEd is drawing on best practices and technologies from the for-profit world to address the field-wide educator crisis in a strategic, scalable way. Check out our latest featured partner below on their plans for the year ahead as they welcome their newest cohort!

As technology transforms how we all live and work, the Jim Joseph Foundation is looking to welcome our first ever "Program Director - Technology Strategy" to our team. Please help spread the word! This person will lead our strategy in this space, identify and pursue possibilities for innovation and collaboration, seize opportunities to lift up the field, support our grantee partners, and aid our Program Officers in their work. More details below.

"Instead of reacting to emergencies and then waiting to 'get back to normal,' we must recognize that we are living in a new normal...We need to embrace VUCA, understanding we will experience different degrees of it at different times, and prepare ourselves to navigate effectively through the most acute VUCA moments." Barry Finestone shares three mindsets the field can adopt to quickly and effectively react to issues and unanticipated developments.

Since October 7th, #Jewishcommunities are experiencing vast challenges, including how their own community members interact with each other. Learn how our latest featured partner, Resetting the Table, is responding to an unprecedented demand to help communities navigate through these tumultuous times and overcome toxic discourse.