Darim Partners with Jvillage Network

Today is an exciting day for the Jewish tech world, and for Darim Online.  Today we announce that Darim has sold our web site development program to Jvillage Network, and will be partnering with them to continue to offer professional development to all current and future Jvillage Network clients. I want to take this opportunity to share our thinking with you, and invite your questions and responses in a conversation through the comments on this blog.

In 2000 Darim was founded to help advance the Jewish community’s use of internet technologies.  At that time, professionally designed and developed web sites powered by a content management system (CMS) were rare, and Darim set out to establish a new norm in the community on par with what other nonprofits and businesses outside of the Jewish community were offering online.  I’m pleased to say that in 2009, the community has “tipped”, meaning it is commonly accepted that Jewish organizations should have professionally designed and up-to-date sites, and they are, for the most part, willing to pay market rates to achieve this.

In our recent strategic planning efforts, we realized that to continue to drive and support innovation in our community, we need to focus our efforts in other areas, where our work can not only satisfy current demand, but push the needle forward, so to speak.  Accordingly, we’ve been hard at work to find a solution that can provide new and better functionality for our current web site development members, serve additional organizations with a high quality product, and enable Darim to continue to support the community with our professional development, consulting, knowledge sharing and coaching programs.  I’m please to share that we’ve found that solution.

Effective today, Jvillage Network will host and support those organizations which developed web sites with Darim Online.  Concurrently, they are developing a new and robust platform to provide a valuable new product to our community.  The Jvillage Network includes expertise in branding and communications, digital media, and the Jewish community.  Two of their staff previously worked for Darim’s web site development program, and thus know the platform, sites and members well.   It was critically important to us that our partner be knowledgeable about and invested in the Jewish community, and this is an exceptional team.

In addition, Darim will be partnering with Jvillage Network to provide our Learning Network program to all Jvillage Network clients, adding the professional development to complement the tools and services they will provide. It’s a unique and powerful combination, with more services and greater specialization than either of us would be able to provide alone.  We’ll be working closely together, and commit to continuing to support your innovation and success in the 21st century. Darim will continue to provide our professional development and consulting services, including the Learning Networks, and the Social Media Boot Camps which are launching this fall on Long Island (funded by UJA Federation of NY) and in northern New Jersey (funded by a Berrie Innovation Grant).

We invite your input, comments, questions and suggestions as to how we can best serve your needs and interests — please take advantage of the opportunity to share your thoughts via the comments on this blog.  We look forward to continuing to work with all those staff and lay leaders with whom we’ve worked in the past, and beginning new relationships with others.

Thank you,

Lisa Colton, Founder and President, Darim Online