![]() ![]() ![]() JVG is a seed funder and it is imperative that we recognize that the “start-up” phase of an organization can be long. Even at such early stages of their organizational careers, and despite the challenging time during which these projects were launched, these emerging leaders have achieved initial programmatic success and learned to harness the power of media and their social networks. The fact that we may already be familiar with the work of some of the newly named JVG fellows should be celebrated, not criticized. ![]() Spearheading a new Jewish initiative is incredibly difficult at any time, and even more so in the current economic and political climate. Initial support from JVG, Bikkurim, Solelim and the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York, as another example, helped provide the cushion that Sharsheret needed to launch ten national programs supporting and educating thousands of Jewish women and families facing breast cancer with a current budget of nearly $1 million. The combined support of JVG, Bikkurim, Natan, Slingshot and the Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund enabled JDub, for example, to grow to become a $1.2 million dollar not-for-profit organization, influencing hundreds of thousands of young Jews each year through Jewish culture, content and community. ![]() Inherently, there should be overlap in support between JVG, other Jewish incubators and “venture philanthropy” initiatives. Wide financial support is actually a project’s only hope for long-term impact and success. Innovation is not negated when more than one funder nourishes any given project. When we allow our focus to shift from innovation as tool to innovation as endpoint, we lose the true value of innovation altogether. There is no value in “Jewish innovation” itself, but rather in what innovation enables us to do - create meaning and relevance in the world and to meet the otherwise unmet needs of Jews in our communities. Innovation is not a synonym for “new” or “young” or “sexy.” Innovation is the thrust of a new idea into the landscape that enables change. The implication is that the fellowship is not identifying “innovation” merely because it has selected ventures that have already been otherwise supported or celebrated.Īs leaders of independent, young (none of our organizations is more than 12 years old), and “innovative” organizations, we see a game of irrelevant semantics afoot. The headline of The Jewish Week article (“Joshua Venture Betting On Known Quantities” April 16) may suggest to some that JVG is playing it safe with its new cohort of fellows, some of whom have received prior funding or other support for their initiatives from incubators or Jewish philanthropies. This was true of its first two cohorts, supported between 2000-2005, and it is true now, as its newly named 2010 fellows prepare to begin their fellowship term. JVG was founded to help emerging leaders change the Jewish world with their ideas. There was no “innovation ecosystem” to speak of, few incubators interested in helping us grow our ventures, and little confidence that Jewish life could or should blossom outside of existing institutional frameworks. In late 2002, when our Joshua Venture Group (JVG) cohort was announced, the term “Jewish social entrepreneur” did not yet roll easily off the tongue. ![]()
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