Leaping Into Disruptive Innovation: Considerations for Jewish Non-Profits

??????????Leaping Into Disruptive Innovation: Considerations for Jewish Non-Profits

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As we collectively pivot our organizations to return to a different sense of normalcy post-pandemic, it’s important to recognize that despite all the grief, pain, isolation, and multiple health challenges what we experienced during the pandemic, there are perhaps new strategies and directions that we might never have considered, were there not a pandemic. Nonprofits always need to find ways to innovate.?But perhaps one of the lessons of the pandemic is to go beyond adaptation for organizational survival and consider the importance of what is called disruptive innovation, to come out of the pandemic experience with new pathways to thriving.

In a 2016 analysis of non-profits, there was an identification of distinct differences between organizations that innovate successfully, and those that are struggling to move forward. Innovation can mean different things to different people. But what nonprofits can learn from the for-profit world is the need for a clearer, unambiguous definition-with a clearly articulated purpose, to foster an innovation culture, organizational alignment, and ownership. This analysis defined innovations as things that change either the affordability, accessibility, or effectiveness of practices or tools that are used for treatment, prevention, and care[i] During the pandemic, nonprofits experienced great adaptation and resilience, according to a February 2021 report on non-profits [ii] . In a study of over 300 non-profits, the key findings were:

·????????89% altered their delivery of programs and services

·????????70% experienced a decrease in net income

·????????61% experienced a decline in fees for their programs and services

·????????29% plan to eliminate current programs/services

Arts, culture, and humanities-based non-profits were hurt the most during the pandemic, experiencing over 60% decreases, and perhaps more importantly, were deprived of convening their respective communities for in-person events and programs, that are core to their mission and purpose. Overall, close to 80% of these non-profits experienced a negative impact, and about half believe the impact on individuals and communities to be significant[iii] . The pandemic forced organizations to re-imagine the ways they engage with their clients, members, and constituents, with close to 90% changing their delivery method of programs and services, primarily organizations from the health and education sectors. With the uncertainty of funding sources, while continuing to meet the demand for their services, organizations are looking for new ways to help ensure the viability of their mission. In exploring 3 possible actions to take- consolidation, strategic alliance, or other types of partnerships- 64% of the arts/culture/humanities sectors were the most likely to form an alliance or merge with another non-profit organization.

The pandemic created the necessary environment for adaptation but leading the execution of disruptive innovation in an organization requires a disruptive approach to management itself [iv] . Innovation is the act of turning an idea into a product, and it satisfies a need. Innovation doesn’t necessarily change the status quo; Rather, it helps the existing industry move forward. Disruption, however, offers better value in the same industry, creating a market where there was none, that changes the nature of the industry[v] . Organizations are primarily set up to support their existing business and operations models. Most leaders were trained in management through the lens of predictability and control as values that were valued and rewarded.?But disruptive innovation involves extreme uncertainty, and many managers are not prepared with leading or responding to disruption.

To be a leader of a disruptive mindset, Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist states that a growth mindset must be a prerequisite, for what is termed an exponential mindset [vi] . For example, our brains are linear, but the power of technology is forcing us to see technology doubling every 18 months. A leader needs to understand that you can move an organization from making something better to making something unique and different, which can have exponential impact. This mindset adopts an approach that is an asymmetric opportunity, having unlimited upside, with limited downside[vii] .

Soren Kaplan, a thought leader in the field of disruption, uses the term ‘Leapfrogging’ to describe the leadership issues of leading an organization through disruption, where leaders must embrace ambiguity, live in a world of uncertainty for possibly a long period of time, and confront the critiques of naysayers both inside and outside of their organizations (geekwire.com(2011)/Amazon-Bezos-innovation). Soren developed the LEAPS strategy to help guide leaders through disruption and change[viii] .This acronym stands for: Listen, Explore, Act, Persist, and Seize, which is briefly summarized below:

Listen- Start with yourself, and not the market. Avoid getting bogged down in data. Leaders must determine what they value most, where they can make a difference-both in what they do and how they do it.

Explore- Going outside to stretch the inside. There is as much opportunity as there is risk, requiring a pushing of personal boundaries to stretch their own comfort zones.

Act- Take small simple steps, again and again, and again. Disruptive leadership involves putting a stake in the ground around a specific opportunity, and then taking a series of actions to intentionally challenge assumptions and rapidly change direction as many times as necessary. Leading disruptive innovation requires a mindset of continuous adaptation.

Persist-Take the surprise out of failure. Create “optimistic persistence” in order to combat fear, pessimism, and the tendency to retrench back into an existing business model.

Seize- Make the journey part of the (surprising) destination. The path to disruptive innovation is not always predictable or linear. A surprise event is not something to always avoid and prevent. Recognize the power of surprise.

JCC: A case study

Using the LEAPS model, I am using the Rosen JCC in Orlando, where I am the CEO, as a case study of beginning to apply elements of disruptive innovation at an 8 year “start-up” non-profit, seeking to respond to a rapidly growing community. I intentionally disrupted my own personal and professional life 4 years ago, seeing an opportunity to use my skills to experience having an impact on a community that was ripe for change and growth, because it was not constrained by history, and had only abundant opportunity to embrace.

Listen- I knew in coming into the position as the CEO, that it could be far less stressful to affirm and support what our national JCC’s are strong at: providing quality pre-school and summer programs. But I felt that a business model solely focused on birth to 10 years alone was self-limiting. Prior to my coming to Orlando, the investment in engaging our young families for 6 years had not ignited a philanthropic culture, and I felt it would not improve, unless these same families- along with the new families pouring into the community- had something to come back to the JCC for- if we had more to offer for other stages of the family life cycle. Shutting down the JCC -and all that this entailed- at the onset of COVID only amplified the situational opportunity we needed to seize, to re-introduce ourselves to the community with a bold new vision. We decided to affirm a new direction with the JCC being a ‘Town Square’, serving as a convener for the community, that would diversify its revenue streams by providing new ?programs and services that addressed the issues impacting the family life cycle, that were not duplicative in the community, yet essential to building community.

Looking honestly at ourselves in the mirror, I saw a small, untrained Board that was not philanthropic, comprised mostly of Jewish pre-school parents, which had cocooned itself from the larger community that was rapidly growing right in front of us. We had a small teen program that consistently lost money, and a declining senior program that had aged rapidly, with our senior membership not willing to return to the JCC, post-COVID. ?Seniors who joined our JCC many years ago, known then as a satellite office to the Maitland, Florida JCC 30 miles away, were now much older and frail. Despite checking in on them weekly by phone during COVID, some had sadly died, while the rest would not consider returning to the JCC.

The Town Square concept forced us to ask: What is the mission and vision of this JCC for an emerging community, and how are we truly serving the community in the next 3-5 years? With little marketing, our pre-school and camp programs were growing every year, with so many new families moving into the community and needing childcare and after-school enrichment. We were close to our maximum capacity as a licensed pre-school would permit within our building, so what else could we be doing?

I made the decision to start disruptive change from the top, by changing the Board. Prior to my arrival, the Board focused mainly on micro-managing the pre-school, because they were all parents of the school. I made it clear that we had staff to run the operations of the school and camp, and that the role of the Board was to quickly pivot to begin focusing on the core questions of our meaning and purpose, with a mission to serve the community. Could the JCC be more than a quality pre-school, and in so doing, expand programs and services that serve more people? Could we identify and attract new Board members who had philanthropic capacity and be excited about being a pioneer in building an emerging ?community?

I gave every Board member 3 months before the end of our fiscal year to decide if they wished to continue staying on the Board, subject to them “buying in” to a new vision for the JCC becoming a ‘Town Square’. The Town Square would continue to retain the “J” and affirm our Jewish traditions, but also serve as a convener for the larger, and majority non-Jewish community, offering new programs that enhance individuals and families’ ability to be the best version of themselves at each stage of the family life cycle. Finally, recognizing that we had little diversity on the Board, a condition of expanding the Board was that the JCC truly mirror the community we serve, reflecting the rich diversity of Orlando. The JCC was a cultural institution, and as such, shared values beyond being “just Jewish”. We already were a Jewish minority within our own membership, as the historical Orlando Jewish community was 30 miles away, where the majority of Jewish philanthropy also resided.

Explore: To test the Town Square concept, I decided to generate new data from the outside, that would stretch us inside. I met with over 350 people over 2 years-mostly non-JCC members, Jewish and non-Jewish- to ask the following questions:

1. What was their version of ‘community’ from where they came from?

2.What were they looking for in moving to Orlando?

3. Did they find ‘community’ in arriving in Orlando?

4. What did the “J” in the JCC mean to them?

?The findings from these meetings confirmed the Town Square proof of concept:

Question 1. Over 92% agreement on what ‘community’ means to them and why it’s important: Meeting people with similar values, affirming the shared values of giving back, civic responsibility, and having resources to help people with their lives. Almost everyone expected and wanted a Town Square model that would be a place for convening core programs and services that benefit the entire community.

?Question 2: Weather, lifestyle, job opportunity, and new, affordable housing were the key drivers of re-locating to Orlando, and not a search for ‘community’. Respondents expected programs to already be in place and were continually searching for programs and services that they found were not readily available once they arrived in Orlando.

Question 3: ?65% were not satisfied in finding a version of the community they left. 80% described the need to trade-off ‘community’ for the immediate benefits of lifestyle, weather, housing, and career.

Question 4: The “J” in the JCC was perceived as an-unintended barrier to joining if you were not Jewish, for over 47% of respondents. This was mostly due to not living/working with Jews prior or growing up with Jewish people. The “Y” (a YMCA) and the “J” (a JCC) were not just 2 letters in the alphabet. They meant very different things to people. The self-identified Jewish respondents were happy and proud to have a JCC in town and would choose a JCC over a YMCA 90% of the time for comparable services.

Act: During COVID, we expanded the Board from 7 to 16 Directors, from all faiths, backgrounds ethnicities, and orientations. We started the new fiscal year with leadership that looked more like the community we serve, who saw themselves as community builders, with the role of the JCC to provide the leadership on how to give an emerging and rapidly growing community an identity, infused with the core values of respect, inclusion, tolerance, and helping people and families navigate the challenges they are facing. The Board focus became figuring out what new initiatives make strategic sense to start, and what community partners could we identify and collaborate with, who share the Town Square vision. Each new Board member was recruited and selected for their knowledge of the larger community, who could help identify potential non-profit partners to provide new programs and services to our part of Orlando, as well as identify prospects for fund-raising.

We began the re-branding of the JCC as a ‘Town Square’ by intentionally pivoting from our youthfulness as a pre-school, to launch a program called Brain Fitness Academy, for people of middle to later stages of life, addressing the largest health issue impacting people 65-85: cognitive decline and early onset dementia. We collaborated with the local Y, who was the most prominent institution locally, and we ran the program at the Y for greater visibility, as a Town Square offering. The success of this program has now led to plans to scale the program to additional locations, starting a community support group for caregivers, while igniting a focus on wellness and prevention programs within our JCC Fitness Center. We had found our new senior population, that was younger, more philanthropic, who could become?????“ brand ambassadors” for the JCC being a caring community. Most promising, is that 2 Orlando hospital systems see the potential value of a cognitive decline program for the community and recognize their opportunities for marketing to, and acquiring, new patients in a very competitive, rapidly growing market. We are now having initial conversations about possible scalability which could make the JCC a pioneer in this burgeoning field, with the possibility of providing long-term, sustainable funding. The hospitals recognize that disruption offers better value in an industry, potentially creating a market where there was none. Making something unique and different that could have exponential impact- that is the bar being set.

• During COVID, a first of its kind study of Jewish Orlando conducted by Brandeis, provided a focus on how the JCC could take leadership in responding to some of the studies’ findings, which could have great implications for both the Federation and local agencies in their respective strategic planning. To some on the JCC Board that felt the new Town Square approach might come at the expense of the JCC being more Jewish and serve more Jewish families, there was now energy to also “leap” this year into engaging unaffiliated and inter-faith Jewish families from the estimated 50,000 Jews now living in Orlando. This Fall, we launched a program called, “Makom” (Hebrew for ‘home’) - with the JCC serving as a cultural gateway to Jewish life, with an ambitious first year goal of engaging 100 people from all stages of the family life cycle. The Brandeis study can serve as a major disrupter, enabling the community to examine and respond to the important implications of the data, in potentially transformative ways. Engaging the unaffiliated on their terms is a primary communal objective if Orlando is to become a more vibrant destination and home for Jewish families.

Within the LEAPS model, the “P” of Persistence and the “S” of Seizing are the JCC’s next, ongoing challenges in the continuous process of necessary adaptation and disruption.

Conclusion:

Having a strong national JCC brand to build from is a guide, but not a prescription. Our history is not necessarily our destiny. Each community is different, with different demographics, situations, and opportunities. The biggest difference between traditional managers and disruptors lies in the difference of a single belief about the future. Traditional leaders believe the future can be predicted and create goals and plans to control how things will evolve. Disruptors believe in continuous adaptation, a more flexible planning approach, which determines which small steps will have the greatest impact. Even the ways in which a JCC is a Jewish institution, must be better understood within the larger context of what type of Jews live in your community, and the need for a more inclusive approach to engaging and then educating the next generation of families raising Jewish children, often in interfaith, multi-racial marriages.

While innovation processes can vary widely among nonprofits, the successful ones tend to follow 4 critical steps: They generate ideas, validate the concepts, test, prove, and then scale. The best ideas don’t always come within the organization; rather, they are out in the field, waiting to be looked at. They are often found in the private sector, in entrepreneurial ventures, in health care reports, or university and foundation studies. These studies need nonprofits to test out the validity of an idea, then feasibility, and impact potential. Only the most successful ideas get the committed resources that can feed the scalability needed. Small nonprofits don’t have the staffing, or the focus to explore new revenue sources, that depart from their traditional funding. But nonprofits can provide the ‘proof of concept’ to new approaches, which can then draw down social impact funds and foundation support that tend to have a very high bar on granting funding.

Sometimes businesses and organizations must proactively disrupt, or risk being disrupted.?Disruptive innovation means pushing your own personal boundaries, challenging your own assumptions, and not being afraid to fail. Easier said than done, I know. Believing that “failure is really part of growth and learning” sounds nice, until jobs and careers are on the line when change is the agenda. The biggest disruption however, is the interruption of our own mindsets and behaviors as leaders.

Footnotes:

1.???????Amy Hsuan, Adam Katz, Brenda Thickett, Mark Freedman, BCG, Why Nonprofits Must Innovate, (7/2016)

2.???????BKD.com, (2021)

3.???????BKD Report,(2021), P.18

4.???????Soren Kaplan, Leading Disruptive Innovation, InnovationPoint.com, (2020) P.6

5.???????Ivey Business Journal, (2020).

6.???????Harvard Business Review ,Disruptive Innovation for Social Change, December, (2006)

7.???????Mark Bonchek, How to Create an Exponential Mindset Harvard Business Review, (2016)

8.???????Zachary Caudill, Developing an Exponential Mindset (2021)

9.???????Kaplan,S. Leapfrogging: Harness the Power of Surprise for Business Breakthroughs,Berrett- Kohler, San Francisco), (2012)

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Dr. Reuben Romirowsky is currently the CEO of the Rosen JCC, in Orlando, Fl. following a leadership career in Jewish communal service, within Federations and various social s