About 2-1/2 years ago, Robyn Lieberman attended a panel discussion at a conference of the Jewish Funders Network, envisioning the Jewish community in the year 2020.
A program officer for the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, Lieberman was struck by the fact that the visions of the Jewish community in the future differed strikingly, depending on the ages of those who offered them.
“There were so few people represented there under 40,” Lieberman recalled. Moreover, those who were in their 20s and 30s, she said, had vastly different opinions from those in their 50s.
Together with the Steven Spielberg Righteous Persons Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Haas Fund hired a 25-year-old consultant, Shira Stutman, to travel around the country and talk to young Jewish adults, asking them what they felt was preventing them from achieving their goals within the Jewish community.
“We wanted to understand what’s the gap, and why aren’t they visible at panels like this?” said Lieberman, who is not related to the vice presidential hopeful.
That was the start of the S.F.-based Joshua Venture.
Named after the biblical leader who followed in the footsteps of Moses by entering and establishing a new land, the Joshua Venture is meant to inspire as well as encourage the next Jewish generation. What the Joshua Venture does is offer potential young leaders seed money, resources and advice to enable them to start new projects within the Jewish community. It also enables those between 21 and 35 to work at these projects almost full time for two years.
Stutman discovered there were plenty of young Jews around the country with innovative, entrepreneurial ideas that could benefit the Jewish community, Lieberman said. But many felt they lacked the skills, experience or resources to get started.
“They said they needed resources in the form of money, training, technological assistance and mentorship,” said Brian Gaines, executive director of the Joshua Venture. “They wanted acceptance in the larger Jewish community, as they felt their voices were not being well represented in traditional Jewish organizations. They were looking to create organizations that spoke to them as young Jews.”
Lieberman said the so-called Generation X Jews had a completely different way of thinking from that of prior generations.
“They’ve grown up as Americans and as Jews,” she said. They are less likely to have experienced anti-Semitism or have a strong identification with Israel, and they’ve had no direct experience with the Holocaust.
“Also, they’ve been beneficiaries of a multicultural society,” she said. In addition, they “want to contribute their professional skills,” rather than donate extensive time as volunteers.
Unfortunately, research indicated that “the best and the brightest were not going into the Jewish community because they had better opportunities elsewhere,” Lieberman said.
A number of organizations would like to see that change. In addition to the Haas, Cummings and Spielberg foundations, Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropics, the Nash Family Foundation, an anonymous Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Westwood One Radio Networks Chair Norman Pattiz, all signed on to fund the Joshua Venture.
After an intensive application process, eight candidates under the age of 35 will be chosen from around the country. Fellows will be selected based not only on the originality of their ideas, but on their leadership skills and ability to see it through.
Each fellow will receive $60,000 over two years as seed money, plus health benefits. They will also have access to another $10,000 for specific projects that will aid them along the way. And, they will have to test their fund-raising skills almost immediately, by raising additional sources of income for their projects on their own.
The types of programs will run the gamut; the only commonality is they must have a strong impact on the Jewish community.
Although applications aren’t due until October, Gaines said he’s already heard some ideas of potential fellows. Areas of interest include women, the environment, education, the arts, gay and lesbian and multimedia programs, he said.
“We’re asking people to create, by giving them a blank canvas, and saying, ‘Create something that would interest you and people like yourself, something innovative and different,'” Gaines said. “We will help them focus their idea and make it a reality.”
The fellows will learn, among other skills, how to create a budget, write a business plan, fund-raise, build a board and handle public relations. Each fellow will also be assigned a local mentor in a similar field who will be specially trained.
Gaines said an effort will be made to reach young Jews wherever they are, not only those already working in the organized Jewish community.
“We will go anywhere we can find them,” he said, calling potential entrepreneurs “diamonds in the rough.”
“We’re throwing the gauntlet down and saying bring us your best ideas. And your enthusiasm and brain power. Let us help you focus your ideas and see what becomes of it.”