This Sunday, leading funders, communities and national organizations will gather together at the kickoff launch for the Jewish Journey Connector (JJC) project, a special pre-conference session at the Jewish Funders Network in Philadelphia, PA. We are thrilled to announce that Measuring Success was recently awarded a Jewish New Media Innovation Fund award for the Jewish Journey Connector project. (click here to read more about the fund). We are looking forward to beginning our pilot year working intimately with 2 communities starting next month.


At any one point in time, studies show, only a minority of Jews in the United States (or for that matter, any other faith, ethnic, or ideological group) are affiliated with Jewish community institutions and programs. Over a lifetime, however, the overwhelming majority come in contact with Jewish institutions – a volunteer service program, a bar-mitzvah, a birthright trip, a charitable gift. Although a small minority of highly-empowered individuals will seek out, independently, a full and rich organizational and community life, the vast majority interact only sporadically with organized Jewish life.

We know identity development requires a collective set of experiences over the course of a lifetime, not transactional snippets. Unfortunately, community institutions operate in silos; they do not share information about past participation and interests as individuals move through organizations, life stages, and geographies. Furthermore, individual experiences with an organization are transactional, not “sticky” – meaning many come to one program like the examples listed above and then disappear from the organizational radar screen soon after they appear. While participants may remain on the organization’s email list, most organizations are lucky to get a 15% open rate on those emails.


The Journey Connector is a transformative new initiative which uses data mining and predictive analytics to link the silos of the community. The Journey Connector seeks to connect individuals with program and connection opportunities in a way that is parallel to what Amazon has done in revolutionizing the way customers learn about books and other items of interest. Amazon suggests options you might like based on prior involvement history and friends’ involvements, and offers loyalty rewards points and discount coupons in order to encourage re-use. Individuals will be able to navigate their own journey by getting connected with the right opportunities, programs, and people that meet their interests and life stage at the right point in time. Organizations and foundations are able to place their programs in front of a wider audience of potential target participants than can be accomplished on their own, and perhaps most importantly, each program can track the impact it had on their alumni's long term identity and activity.


Over the coming months, we will be sharing more with you about our pilot project and its progress. In the meantime, if you would like to learn more, please contact jewishjourneyconnector@measuring-success.com or www.measuring-success.com/jewishjourneyconnector.