Leadership Deficit Revisited: Time to Wake Up

I’ve been reading lately about an anticipated shortage of leaders to serve in executive roles in the philanthropic and nonprofit sector in the coming years. Bridgespan’s Thomas Tierney published a compelling article on this in Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) back in 2006. “Today, many nonprofit organizations struggle to attract and retain the talented senior executives they need to convert dollars into social impact,” Tierney wrote powerfully.
Bridgespan's Thomas Tierney

Bridgespan’s Thomas Tierney

Despite the 2008/2009 recession’s jarring impact on our sector, we seem to have recovered okay and are back on track now, complacently whistling our way down the primrose path, paying little regard to this potentially derailing issue. The nonprofit organizations we fund, operate or are employed by need to be impactful vehicles for good. Without well trained, well-motivated, skilled leaders, our sector’s reason for existence is at risk. Read More

JEIC 2nd Round Announcements

Today we held the final review session for Letters of Inquiry to the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC). In this, our third, year of the Challenge we saw a collection of applicants that was the very best yet. Those advancing to Round Two will be notified this weekend. Congratulations to all applicants — this year’s was the best group of LOIs we’ve seen yet — you made our job very difficult. I wish we could fund and work with all of you. Please check your email in the coming days to see whether your LOI has been accepted to the next round. For those advancing, jeic-logo1we look forward to seeing your full proposals and meeting you in your interviews. To those who did not, please keep trying. You are on the right track and we see you all as our partners in building a bright future for our children and our children’s children. Yasher Koach and Shabbat Shalom to all. Todd

Funding Innovation in Jewish Day Schools

It seems in the world of philanthropy every five years or so a new buzzword or phrase overtakes charitable foundations and other institutional and private funders. During the span of my career we’ve been through efficiency, effectiveness, strategic philanthropy, venture philanthropy, and impact, to name a few. As these concepts build on each other they travel in turn through the nonprofit ravsak logoand philanthropic sector as magic bullet of the day. As in many fields, trends in philanthropy tend to follow a similar trajectory from insightful and powerful to hackneyed and meaningless. The tragedy of this, of course, is that we often underutilize the philanthropic sector’s best ideas in practice even as we overuse them in rhetoric. Read More