Ravid Kahalani from the band Yemen Blues performs during the Mash Up at TribeFest. Photo by Sam Ketay, JFNA.
Amidst the excitement of the blackjack tables and the whizzing sounds of slot machines, hundreds of familiar faces, wearing Jewish Federation name badges, make their way through smoke-filled casino floors and scurry down the escalators to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. It’s not a scene our parents or grandparents would have experienced at a Federation young adults conference. There is no card calling, no long speeches or formal stuffy dinners. It’s an entirely different atmosphere: a new type of event to engage a new generation of young Jewish leaders in their 20s and 30s. This was the first ever TribeFest conference in Las Vegas last March, sponsored by The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA)—the umbrella organization for over 157 Jewish Federations in the US and Canada.
As opposed to JFNA’s previous young professionals conferences comprised of lectures, breakouts, and legislative advocacy, TribeFest featured sports and arts celebrities and young Jewish innovators from all backgrounds as presenters. Rather than showcases of Federation programs and accomplishments, the 1,300 participants experienced the diversity of innovative Jewish programming available to young Jews, with 46 different groups presenting.
TribeFest was organized by young leaders who are members of JFNA’s National Young Leadership Cabinet program. Cabinet members are selected from Federations throughout the country and work together at the national level. “TribeFest is the biggest new initiative that JFNA is undertaking to appeal to the younger generation,” Brian Katz, JFNA Co-Chair of National Young Leadership, explains. “JFNA recognizes that it can’t be everything to everyone. Other groups have attractive messages and goals, and we are learning to partner with them.” JFNA just announced that TribeFest will be held again in March 2012 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.
TribeFest is part of a profound shift in philosophy at JFNA toward engaging young adults in their 20s and 30s. Now, more than ever, a top priority at JFNA is outreach and engagement to maintain a steady flow of vibrant young Jews into the Federation movement. “JFNA has moved away from leadership development as a single agenda item,” Katz explains. Rather than jumping into leadership development, the new approach focuses on first attracting and engaging potential young leaders—a step in the process that Federations didn’t really have to work hard at in the past.
For decades, Federation had been the central address for supporting the Jewish community. Since 1963, a select group of 300 young professionals (ages 30-45) have been participating in Federation’s National Young Leadership Cabinet program. Each Cabinet member makes a significant philanthropic contribution to their local Federation campaign, totaling nearly $2 million collectively each year.
Yet according to a 2010 JFNA study, the number of donors to the Federations has declined by half over the past 25 years, from roughly 900,000 to 450,000. “The decline is due, in part, to a decision by Federation leaders to focus their attention largely on wooing big donors. But as its pool of donors is getting disproportionately older—some 90 percent of Federation donors are older than 45—officials are especially concerned about reaching out to the young, as those under the age of 45 have been particularly apathetic toward the Federations.” As a result, “only 29 percent of Jews ages 19 to 36 even knew that Federations exist according to a separate study, conducted in 2009” (Jacob Berkman, “Jewish Federations Try a Sin City Adventure to Woo a New Generation of Donors” March 20, 2011, The Chronicle of Philanthropy).
Faced with these sobering numbers, JFNA realized that without the steady flow of new young adults being inspired to become Jewishly involved, the future of Cabinet, and Federation itself, would be bleak.
One move away from focusing solely on those with the highest donor potential to concentrating on the 20-30 age range is the restructuring of its National Young Leadership Department to include a new section devoted to “Young Adult Populations.” This department works in conjunction with programs like Masa, OTZMA, Birthright NEXT, and Moishe House; all Federation-funded programs for the 20-30s population. JFNA’s Director of Young Adult Populations, Tali Ruderman Strom, is thrilled that JFNA is “investing the time, money, and resources needed for this demographic.” Strom outlines JFNA’s new approach to engaging young adults: Step 1: Help them understand why it matters to them to be Jewish; Step 2: Help them understand the power of being connected to the Jewish community; Step 3: Help them recognize that the Federation system offers a most effective and rewarding manner in which to give back.
This approach is essentially a prelude to the more traditional leadership training that Federations have always provided. It’s an elongation of the process, which concentrates on relationship building and connecting GenY’ers to each other and the Jewish community, as the first step in a trajectory to greater involvement.
At the structural level, JFNA’s Young Leadership Cabinet has created a new Young Adult Advisory Committee and is asking those in their 20s-30s themselves for input. “JFNA is taking leadership and outreach and putting them [the Gen Y’ers] in charge of outreach for their own age group,” Katz explains. This paradigm shift at the highest levels of the Federation movement is trickling down to the regional young leadership programs where they exist at Federations across the continent. Young adult programming is open to the involvement of anyone in the proscribed age demographic, whether or not they give to their Federation campaign. While tzedakah will always remain a core mission of Federation, building communities of young Jews networked together through shared interests is just as important.
“JFNA recognizes that it is not necessarily going to see an immediate return on its investment in this age demographic, but strongly believes in the long term it will strengthen our movement,” Strom says. The goal is to engage and challenge these young leaders, motivating them to join together to create a thriving Jewish community reaching well into the future. Jerry Silverman, JFNA President and CEO since 2009, underscored, “A new goal [at JFNA] is to get people involved Jewishly as a priority.” Prior to the inaugural TribeFest, Silverman told Federation Young Adult Directors, “If someone attends TribeFest, goes home, and gets involved with their JCC through their Federation experience, then we will have achieved success and have strengthened the Jewish community.”
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