And now, announcing the 2011-12 cohort!  Drumroll please…

Centropa
Support the work of Centropa’s United States education department and its educators through the use of social media, including curricular resources and professional development.
Team Leader: Lauren Granite, US Education Director

Congregation B’nai Amoona, St. Louis
Create a mission driven vision that takes advantage of social media and other 21^st century technology tools to create strong and meaningful connections with a focus on integrating family education, adult education, and experiential education.
Team Leader: Jennifer Newfeld, Director of Congregational Learning

IKAR, Los Angeles
Create family-based learning activities and interacting with Jewish ideas and values through home-based Judaism that complements students’ face to face learning.
Team Leader: Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal, Director of Education

Jewish Enrichment Center, Chicago
Develop a strategic “networked nonprofit” model of leadership that includes school professionals, parents, and volunteers.
Team Leader: Rebecca Milder, Director

Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, Evanston
Investigate new meanings of community and develop a Shabbat chavurah to support reconnection of the family and expand the ways members connect and communicate Shabbat experiences.
Team Leader: Terri Ginsberg Bernsohn, Religious School Director

Matan
Develop online professional development events for Matan’s Jewish education institutes and support associated communities of learning for leaders and future leaders in Jewish special needs inclusion.
Team Leader: Meredith Polsky, Special Education Coordinator

Temple Beth Abraham, Tarrytown, NY
Create multiple points of community building and engagement for current and potential congregational members with support from social media and personal learning networks.
Team Leader: Pamela Barkley, Director of Education

Temple Judea, Coral Gables, FL
Strengthen communication and engagement with parents and families in a strategic way to build and augment the synagogue’s educational community.
Team Leader: Beth Young, Director of Education

The Weber School, Atlanta
Use social media to provide students with opportunities to develop social and academic relationships with Israeli teenagers with whom they will be visiting during a 5 week Israel component in the middle of the school year.
Team Leader: Rachel Schwartz, Teacher, History and Judaics Departments

University of Washington, Stroum Jewish Studies Program, Seattle
Develop a localized, interactive, and immersive digital ecosystem for Jewish studies students, beginning at the University of Washington and eventually expanding to other universities.
Team Leader: Professor Noam Pianko

These teams  exhibited exceptional enthusiasm, readiness, and vision and we look forward to working with them this year!  We’re thankful to the Covenant Foundation for supporting our work with this cohort.

In addition, as part of this funding, Darim will be presenting a series of webinars over the coming year with a focus on innovation and social media in Jewish education, including guest experts such as David Bryfman.  All Darim Online members are welcome to join these webinars.  Not a member yet?  Sign up here.

Finally, Darim is running a six part webinar series for congregational educators this summer, starting July 5, in conjunction with NATE and JEA.  Learn more and sign up here:  NATE members click here and  JEA members click here

• Are you a creative, curious, risk-taking educator in a Jewish educational setting?
• Do you have a really great idea for using new media / educational technology that you’ve wanted to test out?
• Do you want Darim to be your personal coach and mentor as you plan and launch your project?
• Is your organization ready to think about what it means to achieve your mission in a digital age?
• Are you interested in joining a community of like-minded educators for 9 months of intensive professional development and collaborative learning?

Darim Online is pleased to announce the launch of our Social Media Boot Camp for Educators. This program will support innovative Jewish educators in using social media effectively in their work, and assist their organizations in evolving models for success in the digital age.

The Social Media Boot Camp for Educators program is made possible through a generous grant by The Covenant Foundation.

About the Program

Darim is seeking to mentor up to 10 Jewish educational organizations, represented by 3-5 person teams, that are engaged in innovation and risk taking and which serve North American Jews. These teams will participate in a year long professional development and coaching experience to advance their work.

Program Structure

This Boot Camp cohort will run during the upcoming academic year, September 2011 – May 2012. Boot Camp teams are expected to commit 5-10 hours per month toward related professional development and project implementation (including webinars, coaching, and project development).

The program includes:

• Participation in our series of monthly skill-building webinars which includes Darim’s overall Learning Network for Educators (teachers, directors of education, rabbis, lay leaders, and others interested in Jewish education);
• Private coaching and consulting with Darim consultants to address strategic and tactical goals, and to help design, implement, and refine a technology-supported project. Teams from each organization will meet with a coach approximately twice a month over the academic year, with additional communications as needed;
• Connection with other members of the Social Media Boot Camp, to learn from each others’ experience and projects through an online community and webinar-based sharing;
• Membership to Darim Online and access to its other Learning Network events and resources.

About the Team Driven Model

This program seeks to support educators and their organizations in creating and implementing social media projects that achieve their mission, and serve to mature the organization’s strategy and operations for success in the digital age. To achieve this goal, we believe that it is important for teams to participate in the program. Suggested team composition should include: an educator, senior staff, and lay leadership or other volunteer.

Teams will focus on a particular goal and project which may include innovations in: curricular design, professional development, parent-school engagement, or marketing and communications… just to suggest a few ideas. While the team will focus on one specific project, we expect that the experience of the Boot Camp will pay dividends in many areas of your work. We hope through this experience you will become active participants in shaping the future strategic direction of their organization.

Eligibility and Expectations

Eligibility

Applications are open to educators and their organizations, including but not limited to classroom teachers, education directors, rabbis, and cantors who work with North American Jews. We welcome applications from educators working within traditional institutions as well as those engaged in new models of Jewish education.

Expectations

We are dedicated to your success!

We therefore emphasize that regular participation in the Boot Camp is essential to gaining maximal value out of your experience and is important to the dynamic of the overall Boot Camp community.

Please be sure you and your team are willing to commit to this program. Below are our expectations for a successful experience. We recognize that we are working across multiple time zones and schedules and we are committed to being flexible and accessible within the program’s parameters so that you can derive the most benefit from your participation possible.

• Regular attendance at our series of skill-building webinars, which include education-focused sessions and general skill building sessions. Each member of your team is expected to attend at least 7 webinars over the course of the program, two of which can be downloaded and played instead of attending live;
• Regular participation in team coaching sessions with a Darim coach (approximately twice a month);
• Dedication of at least 3-8 hours per month to develop and launch your project;
• Regular participation in the Boot Camp’s online community;
• Presentation of your work in at least one Sharefest! Webinar;
• Willingness to share and disseminate lessons learned;
• Documentation of your experience in a format that can be shared with the community (e.g.,  a guest blog post on JewPoint0.org or a written case study).

Upon successful participation in this program per the terms above, each team will receive a budget of up to $250 to be used toward your project, subject to approval by Darim. Each team will be required to submit receipts for such purchases (e.g.,  securing a domain name, a private blog, a Flip video camera or other products or licenses).

Applications

Applications for the Social Media Boot Camp for Educators can be found here and are due Monday, May 2, 11:59pm ET. Those chosen to participate in the cohort will be announced in late May.

Apply here!

A copy of the application form is available here to preview. We recommend that you prepare your responses in advance and cut and paste the text into the application form, since you will be required to complete the application in one sitting (but give us a shout if you run into trouble).

Important Dates

The Boot Camp runs during the 2011-2012 academic year (September 2011 -May 2012).

Please note: Although the program officially kicks off Fall 2011, we recognize that some participants may wish to begin their planning earlier; we are open to providing coaching on a limited basis to participants over the summer.

March 14, 2011 – Application open
May 2, 2011 – Applications due by 11:59pm ET
Late May 2011 – Announcement of Social Media Boot Camp for Educators cohort
June 2011 – early coaching option for Boot Campers;
September 2011– Cohort Kick-Off, regular coaching schedule and webinars begin;
May 2012 – Final Boot Camp for Educators Sharefest!: to present work to the community; cohort concludes.

Note About the Darim Online Learning Network for Educators

Applicants accepted into the Social Media Boot Camp for Educators will receive a free 1 year membership to Darim (June 2011 – May 2012). Membership includes participation in our series of Learning Network and Educator Learning Network webinars, access to online resources, and the participation in any related Jewish educator activities that are open to our general Darim community. Click here for additional information on Darim membership.

Applicants and others interested in learning more about concepts, tools, and strategies for integrating new media for Jewish learning are invited to become members of Darim Online. Current membership in the Darim Online Learning Network is not required for application to the program. Applicants who become members now and are then selected for the program will have their membership dues refunded. Darim offers membership categories for individuals and for organizations (the latter entitles staff and lay leaders of your organization to participate).

Questions? Please contact us at learningnetwork@darimonline.org

Thank you to The Covenant Foundation for a generous grant to make this program possible.

Getting ready but not quite there yet? Thanks to The Covenant Foundation, we’ll be running another cohort in 2012-2013.  Sign up here to be notified when those applications are available.

While I’m quite excited about the projects that have been awarded funding, I’m even more excited about the broader impact that this fund has had on established organizations, entrepreneurs, and funders alike.  Having worked to advance the Jewish community’s use of digital media for over 10 years now (wow, that went fast), I can see that even the announcement of the Fund changed the conversations among staff and lay leaders throughout the Jewish community.  While a social media and mobile strategy might have been pushed to the bottom of the agenda over and over again, the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund forced them to put it at the top of the agenda, and to think about it strategically, not just tactically.  Regardless of whether or not these ideas were funded today, providing an incentive, structure and time line I’m sure has deepened and advanced the work of many applicants.

It’s also important to note that the criteria used to evaluate the proposals has an impact beyond the short term decision making about fund allocation.  For example, one requirement was that the projects would be able to launch or achieve results within 12 months.  While in some cases this felt like a really compressed time line, the reality is that we are all in a permanent beta mode — we have to throw ideas against the wall, assess their effectiveness, and continue to refine over time.  If you’re spending more than a year putting it together, either the idea wasn’t sufficiently thought out to begin with, or you’re not prepared to develop in an agile and iterative process.

The fund also set a priority on innovation – though the term was fairly broadly defined. In many cases, I think the made applicants really think beyond the obvious.  I was impressed by how many applications viewed their mission through a new lens as they developed their applications.  While the technology employed may not have been so “innovative” and new, the ways that they were thinking about their work clearly were.  Kol hakavod to those that busted through the walls of their buildings, put the freedom of exploration in the hands of their users, and researched technologies, platforms and models outside of their immediate sphere of influence, or even their comfort zones.

There are many more lessons to be learned from the applicant pool, process, and over time, the outcomes of the projects funded.  Regardless of who receives a check, this Fund was a tremendous gift to our community.  I hope that those who used the opportunity to think in new and deeper and riskier ways will still find inspiration and value from the process, and will resolve to continue to take action on these ideas by incorporating these costs into their operating budget where appropriate, writing other grants, and seeking the support of other funders – foundations and individuals – who also recognize that these tools, ideas and approaches are critical to our communal future.

Are you an applicant to the #JNMIF who didn’t get your project funded this round?  How are you going to proceed with this work?  What non-financial assistance do you need?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

In recent years a number of creative, and largely independent, social entrepreneurs in the Jewish community have taken matters into their own hands, building and launching interesting applications on a shoestring, sometimes at night while holding down a full time job to pay the bills.  But in general, the organizations, their audiences, the designers and programmers, and the funders haven’t been speaking the same language. Some people are preaching open source and others and pressing CDroms.  Where do we go from here?

Three of the nation’s largest Jewish foundations – the Righteous Persons Foundation, the Jim Joseph Foundation, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation – have announced the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund to help energize the community to focus on the need for new media innovations, and to help bring them to life.  While a pool of $500,000 injects important dollars to jumpstart new and support developing projects, I think this fund — and the role of three prominent foundations — is a critically important statement to the community.  This is not optional anymore.  This is our present, and our future, and there is no time to waste.  I know a lot of people with some very creative ideas, and this is a tremendous opportunity for us to recognize the talents that exist within the Jewish community, and to take advantage.

The fund intends to support interactive, digital efforts that are creative and impactful, and which and engage with Jews and Judaism in ways that promote moremeaningful and vibrant Jewish life in the 21st century.  The Fund will support individuals, 501c3 non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and for-profit businesses. Collaborative projects are welcomed and encouraged.

All the details and the application form are here. Deadline is November 22, 2010. Funding decisions will be made in February, 2011.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a webinar hosted by Darim Online on the strategic use of Facebook (FB) for non-profits. We were invited by Caren Levine, who is a part of our Kehilliyot Community of Practice. Darim Online specializes in internet strategies for Jewish organizations and their communities, and the webinar was part of the organization’s “Social Media Boot Camp.” The host, technology maven Avi Kaplan (on twitter @meshugavi), provided valuable insights into using FB’s tools. Besides laying out the great strategic use of FB groups, analytics, pages, and friend lists, Avi also talked about using FB for “causes,” something he knows a lot about from his deep work with the 3-year old nonprofit, Epic Change.

Intrigued by Epic Change’s mission to “amplify the voices and impact of grassroots change-makers and social entrepreneurs,” we set up a web meeting with him the following week via WebEx . What we discovered was the organization’s innovative use of technology and social media to create and spread change through the powerful combination of social media tools and age-old storytelling.

Epic Change has been focusing on a project in Arusha, Tanzania—the support of the Shepherds Junior School. Co-founders of Epic Change, Sanjay Patel and Stacey Monk, an IT project manager and a management consultant respectively, created the nonprofit organization after a life-changing trip volunteering in Africa in 2007. The project supports the work of the school’s founder, Mama Lucy Kamptoni, who they describe as a “savvy and passionate local woman.” Epic Change made initial loans to the school and then helped them find creative ways to pay back the loan, such as a school performance and selling hand-made crafts.

In addition, the organization has facilitated finding partners to raise money for the school, such as the May 2009 $10,000 grant from Ideablob, which funded the school’s first technology lab. In October 2009, the fifth graders became the first #TwitterKids of Tanzania when they partnered with LacProject, part of a social media curriculum. The story of one of the local students whose life has been impacted can be found here. One particularly successful partnership was with Silicon Valley Tweet Up, where they raised over $2,000. You can read more about their success in getting this community’s story out there through blogging themselves, forming partnerships, and empowering the locals with the technology to give voice to their own perspective (and “tweet” their thanks) by visiting Epic Change’s news page.

We at Knowledge Communities were honored to talk with Epic Change and learn about their extraordinary work. This organization is a leading example in building community around an important cause and using the tools of storytelling and social media to raise funds to support grassroots change-makers that are in need of resources in order to continue their work.  We are also thankful to our Kehilliyot Community of Practice and the sharing and generosity that members show towards one another, thereby allowing us all to gain more insight into good work and how it is getting done around the globe.

Kudos to the Lippman Kanfer Institute at JESNA for launching their JE3 project, Technology and Jewish Education: A Revolution in the Making!  [Full disclosure: your friends over here at Darim were involved in its development]

The project revolves around the question: “What does it means to ‘do’ Jewish education in a 21st century digital world?” The JE3 site features a core narrative that explores various aspects of the integration of technology-facilitated: visions of Jewish learning, the transformation of learning and teaching, examples from the field, concerns and challenges.   Along with this context-setting narrative, the site provides a platform for articles from leading Jewish educators.

Want to get in on the conversation? Read, reflect, respond… submit materials, add comments to articles,  tweet using the hashtag #jed21…. C’mon over….!

Social media isn’t just about new widgets and gadgets like Twitter and Facebook. It’s about a rapidly evolving culture, and a fundamental shift in communications, community building and decision making. To succeed in the 21st century, you need to know what this is all about, and how you can align your work in this new era.

The Social Media Boot Camp will kick off with a full day intensive on December 10th, and then provide a webinar series in 2010, as well as private coaching and consulting as your organization designs and implements a social media project.   We encourage you to form a team of 3-5 people (staff and lay leadership/volunteers are welcome), and think about what your goals are.  We’ll help you determine what social media tools and approaches best fit your needs, and teach you how to use them.

Applications are now available online! Answer a few questions, list your team members, and throw your hat into the ring.  It’s thousands of dollars worth of consulting and training, and you’re only responsible for chipping in $500 – the Berrie Innovation Grant pays for all other expenses.

Learn more about the program and sign up here.

The program represents a new area of focus for Darim, taking the lessons learned from The Darim Online Learning Network, and applying it to a longer term and deeper experience for organizations ready to think deeply and take action. Darim is now accepting inquiries from Jewish organizations in northern New Jersey, and shortly will be announcing guidelines, details and posting an online application. Participating organizations will take part in live events, attend skill building webinars, and receive private coaching and consulting as they develop and implement projects throughout the year.

The Berrie Innovation Grants, which were announced in the New Jersey Jewish Standard this past week, were awarded to organizations which are creating innovative programs that help transform the Jewish community. Last fall, the Russell Berrie Foundation entrusted the group of 43 members of the Berrie Fellows Network (the Fellows Network, part of the Berrie Fellows Leadership Program coordinated by UJA Federation of New Jersey, is an intensive education and leadership program, funded by the Russell Berrie Foundation that combines leadership and Jewish learning). With $100,000 for the purpose of supporting innovation in northern New Jersey’s Jewish community. The guidelines the Fellows came up with were straightforward — recipients had to demonstrate out of the box thinking for programs that would be both innovative and transformative; and they needed to have a positive impact on the Jewish community. After a 6 month process reviewing over 100 applications, the Network has chosen four organizations to receive the grants: Darim Online, The Curriculum Initiative, Mechon Hadar, and The Jewish Outreach Institute.

Angelica Berrie, President of the Russell Berrie Foundation, commented that, “The Russell Berrie Fellows were selected as leaders with the potential to meet the needs of our community in the 21st Century. We wanted to spur the Fellows to re-imagine what our community can be, and gave them the financial resources to make change happen. With the BIG process the Fellows have shown a commitment to innovation and to inclusiveness, we are eager to see their continuing involvement as champions of the programs they have selected.”

According to Laura Freeman, BIG Project co-chair with David Rosenblatt, “…each organization represents innovative programming in a different area of Jewish life in northern New Jersey.” Added Rosenblatt, “Each met our criteria and most importantly was reviewed for their ability to execute and build sustainable programs.”

Darim is excited to launch our Social Media Boot Camp pilots in northern New Jersey, funded by this “BIG” grant, and on Long Island, funded by UJA Federation of New York, and look forward to expanding the program into other communities in the near future. If you have questions about bringing a Boot Camp to your community, please contact us. Do you represent a Jewish organization in northern New Jersey? Learn more about our “BIG” Boot Camp here.

We believe that the young, and often small, nonprofits that have emerged in the past decade, and the very de-centralization they reflect, are here to stay.  We believe that this interconnected network of smaller, niche-based organizations reflects the organizational transformation now under way in American culture: a revolution in the way that people connect, organize and affiliate, brought about by technological advancements that have dramatically shaped our ways of looking at the world. That revolution already has utterly transformed so much of our lives — the way we shop, network, share information, learn and teach. We don’t believe there’s any going back.

I completely agree with their observations. In addition to encouraging you to read the new report, The Innovation Ecosystem, that they developed with JumpStart, I want to reinforce their de-centralized vision, and encouage us to questions our assumptions and the status quo of how we go about doing our business.  The top down models that have worked in the past are no longer the only solution.  Self-motivated, creative and empowered individuals and groups now have the ability to self-organize, creating the programs and organizations that embody the bottom-up culture that is so attractive.

Investments in innovative organizations are important, because we do need to evolve our Jewish community to continue to be relevant to its participants.  Furthermore, we need to invest in helping more traditional organizations also make this shift to realign themselves with a rapidly changing paradigm. The “revolution” which Felicia and Dana refer to is in fact a tectonic shift, largely empowered by social media, that we cannot ignore.  So where to begin?  While the strategic questions may feel overwhelming and insurrmountable, dipping our toes in the water to begin to understand the evolving culture and the potential of the technology tools is a fruitful (and dare I say FUN) place to start.

Often I hear staff say “but where are we going to find the time to do this social media stuff? I don’t have even 10 minutes a day to spare.”  While that may be true, we are spending a tremendous amount of time and energy (and dollars) in our “business as usual” routine, the products of which may or may not be the most efficient and effective way to achieve our goals and mission.

Take for example the synagogue newsletter.  This 12 or 24 page monthly publication takes thousands of dollars per year in paper, labels and stamps, plus who know how many hours to write, edit, layout, photocopy, stamp and send 500, 1000, or 1500 copies each month.  Can you tell me how many people read it cover to cover? What’s the most popular column?  How many throw it in the recycling without even a glance? Even those who do read it cover to cover — what’s the impact on their participation, education, engagement, identity or support?

Now, can we borrow just 10 minutes a day from the team of people who put countless hours into that newsletter?  I’ll help you measure the return on your 10 minutes. My guess is you’ll find it worthwhile.

There is no looking back.  So we might as well start looking forward.  How do you spend your 10 minutes of social media per day? What are the outcomes?

We have found that many congregations think what they’re doing isn’t so special — until they start to tell others about it, and eyes light up.  It doesn’t even have to be fancy techie stuff.  When Temple Israel Center really started sharing their web stats (a report to the board to show value, a report to staff to show their writing is really being read, and a report to members to illustrate how many people find the web site content valuable), it changed the conversation about the use of the web site in their congregation. And once they shared the practice with others via the Darim Online Learning Network, many other congregations adopted the valuable practice.

Are you doing anything with social networking?  Online video or podcasting?  Distance learning for adult education? Blogging?  Have you restructured your e-newsletter recently?   What products or services have you found most helpful?  What’s been key to moving your work forward (adding staff, recruting volunteers, getting a budget, etc.)?

Consider it my Hanukkah present. Take 3 minutes and tell me your story.