We are extremely pleased to report that the Natan Fund has awarded InterfaithFamily.com a renewal grant for 2012. Natan’s announcement in eJewishPhilanthropy.com explains that Natan is a network of about 80 young philanthropists who pool their charitable resources and collaborate to make grants to emerging Jewish and Israeli nonprofit organizations. Natan received 350 letters of inquiry and made 47 grants to express “Natan members’ unwavering commitment to supporting innovative initiatives that aretransforming 21st-century Jewish life.”

Board chair David Steinhardt says, “Natan continually takes risks on new ideas, new people and new initiatives, while at the same time remaining committed to current grantees that are demonstrating success.” We’re thrilled that the young funders participating in Natan have re-affirmed their confidence in the importance of IFF’s work.

Cindy Sher, Editor of Chicago’s Jewish newspaper JUF News, wrote a great article about InterfaithFamily/Chicago last week, Navigating Jewish living with interfaith families. She interviewed two Chicagoland interfaith couples, features our Love and Religion workshop that started last week and our Raising a Child with Judaism in Your Interfaith Family class that is starting at the end of the month, and highlights that “IFF/Chicago has teamed up with several Chicago-area Jewish organizations on interfaith programming, including PJ Library, the JCC’s Shure Kehilla program, and the Community Foundation for Jewish Education’s Principal Kallah.” We are very pleased with the progress of our InterfaithFamily/Chicago pilot and excited about the opportunities to replicate it in other communities.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

At IFF we are always interested in who our users are, and in what they are looking for and whether they find it with us. We’re especially interested in our impact, and so are our funders and Jewish professionals with whom we seek to work: are we changing the attitudes and behaviors of people in interfaith relationships, and of Jewish leaders?

Every two years we do an online user survey – so far, we haven’t had funding to have an independent consultant do an evaluation for us – and we’re issuing a press release today on our 2011 User Survey Report. The results are very, very positive.

Some key points about our users (referring to site visitors who responded to the survey):
• More than 85% are either intermarried, interdating, the parents of intermarried children, or the children of intermarried parents; 14% are professionals. We’d like to reach more men (currently only 19% of users) and children of intermarried parents (currently just 9%).
• 13% come to the site for help finding a rabbi to officiate or co-officiate at their wedding or other life cycle event – reaffirming the importance of our Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service.
• Over the past year, we’ve been really ramping up our “how-to-do-Jewish” materials, with booklets, videos, audio files, downloadable blessings, articles and more. In 2011 many more users are coming to the site for those materials – 35% came for information about Jewish holidays, for example, compared to just 25% in 2009. I don’t know whether more are coming because we’re offering more, but clearly there is an interest and need for the kinds of materials we’re providing. Almost half are interested in the booklets that we began to offer in 2010.
• Many users are interested in the social networking-related functions that our Network offers – information about local events (45%), listings of local professionals (40%), meeting other interfaith families online (24%). More than 50% of professional users are interested in the kinds of resource materials and trainings that our Resource Center for Program Providers is offering and developing for clergy, synagogues and other organizations.
• Intermarried couples with children at home report that IFF had positive influence on the factors that we believe lead to Jewish choices: knowledge about Jewish life (79%), interest in Jewish life (72%), and comfort participating in Jewish life (59%), as well as feeling welcomed by Jewish communities (54%).
• Intermarried couples with children at home also report that IFF had positive influence on their Jewish choices, including participation in Jewish rituals and life-cycle events (62-69%), deciding to join a synagogue (34% — up from just 24% in 2009), and deciding to send children to Jewish education classes (32% — up from 25% in 2009).
• Jewish professionals report that IFF has helped them to see interfaith families in a more positive light (71%) and to develop welcoming policies and practices (57%).
• Almost one third of users are interested in workshops for new interfaith couples about how to have religion in their lives and in classes on raising children with Judaism in interfaith families and adding value to their lives through Jewish practices – the programs we will be offering in 2012 as part of our InterfaithFamily/Chicago pilot initiative.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

There’s been a lot of interest since we announced InterfaithFamily/Chicago yesterday. We expect to make an announcement in June that we’ve hired a Director and that work will get started as of July 1. In the meantime, here is some more information about the project.

The objectives of IFF/Chicago are:
• People in interfaith relationships are aware of and connected with Chicago Jewish community resources;
• People are aware that the Chicago Jewish community welcomes interfaith families;
• Jewish professionals and organizations are trained to attract, welcome and engage people in interfaith relationships;
• Couples find it easy to find officiating clergy, and officiating clergy stay connected with those couples and help keep them connected to Jewish life and community;
• New couples learn how to talk about and have religion in their lives together, and people in interfaith relationships learn how — and why — to live Jewishly.

The InterfaithFamily.com Network lists Jewish organizations and professionals that welcome and work with people in interfaith relationships, and programs of interest to them. The Network’s social networking functionality allows individuals to become members and connect with other members who live near them or who share similar interests. The InterfaithFamily/Chicago Director will localize and fully utilize the Network’s functionality to inform and connect people by recruiting Jewish organizations and professionals to list themselves and their programs on the Network; recruiting individuals to join the Network and communicating with those who joined to ascertain their interests and needs; and connecting individuals with others who live near them or who have similar interests, including by forming groups on the IFF Network; and, when appropriate, connecting such groups with Chicago professionals who could serve their needs.

On a national level, InterfaithFamily.com sends a bi-weekly email newsletter, publishes personal narratives and “how-to” content and blogs, tweets and posts on Facebook daily, seeks mentions in national Jewish and secular media, and speaks and exhibits at national Jewish gatherings. The IFF/Chicago Director will localize these efforts to raise awareness that the Chicago Jewish community welcomes interfaith families by recruiting subscribers and writers; publicizing information about Chicago Jewish organizations, professionals, programs and events; seeking mentions in the local Jewish and secular press; and participating in local events

Karen Kushner, InterfaithFamily.com’s Chief Education Officer, and Rabbi Lev Ba’esh, the Director of our Resource Center for Jewish Clergy, are experienced inclusivity trainers, working to date with synagogue staff, early childhood educators and clergy. The InterfaithFamily/Chicago Director will coordinate and participate in the offering of trainings for Chicago Jewish professionals and lay leaders, and in connection with the trainings create affinity groups on the Network for those professionals.

InterfaithFamily.com’s Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service assists people in interfaith relationships from all over the country to find rabbis and cantors to officiate at their weddings and other life cycle celebrations. So far in 2011 we are responding to 185 requests for officiants a month; we have over 425 rabbis and cantors on our national referral list. Our goal is to have the InterfaithFamily/Chicago Director become the repository of as complete information as possible on the practices of all of the Chicago community’s Jewish clergy as to officiation at weddings and other life cycle events for interfaith couples and families, and to respond personally to inquiries from couples looking for Jewish clergy to officiate at their weddings and other life cycle events so as to respond to their particular needs and build relationships with them. The Director also will help rabbis stay in touch with couples for whom they officiate and keep them connected to Jewish life and community, again through affinity groups on the Network.

One of the most important kinds of program for interfaith couples is a discussion group or workshop in which new couples (newly married or seriously dating) learn how to talk about and decide how to have religion in their lives. “Love and Religion” is a four-session workshop developed by Dr. Marion Usher and offered for sixteen years at the Washington DC JCC. InterfaithFamily.com has offered Love and Religion – Online! in an online format using a multiple video-conferencing system. We will offer Love and Religion for Chicago-area couples in a hybrid online/in-person format with the first session meeting in person, and the other sessions taking place online. Another of the most important kinds of program for interfaith couples are basic Judaism classes. InterfaithFamily.com offers a great deal of substantive, “how-to-do-Jewish” content, and a great deal of personal narrative content about what it is like for people in interfaith relationships to participate in Jewish life. We are in the process of developing this material into basic Judaism classes that we will also offer in a hybrid online/in-person. The Network’s group functionality will foster participants (and facilitators) staying in touch after the workshops and classes end. The IntefaithFamily/Chicago Director will coordinate and participate in these workshops and classes.

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We welcome input and participation from all elements of the Chicago Jewish community interested in engaging people in interfaith relationships Jewishly, and we welcome inquiries from other interested communities. Until our Chicago Director is in place, please contact me at edc@interfaithfamily.com or 617 581 6805.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

We made a big announcement at InterfaithFamily.com today. In July we will be launching InterfaithFamily/Chicago, a two-year pilot initiative to coordinate and provide a comprehensive set of local programs aimed at engaging Chicago-area interfaith families Jewishly.

This is big on two intertwined levels – programming and funding. In the almost ten years since InterfaithFamily.com was incorporated, the number of programs aimed at engaging interfaith families in Jewish life has declined. Boston, Atlanta and Denver have relatively comprehensive sets of these programs – but pretty much every other community has none, or one or two scattered offerings. Similarly, interest among major funders in the field of engaging interfaith families Jewishly has been level, if not declining. Funders have not been “sold” on the idea that any set of existing programs is replicable on a national scale.

We succeeded in attracting significant new funding — several major funders, including The Crown Family, the Marcus Foundation, and the Jack and Goldie Wolfe Miller Fund, are investing $175,000 a year, for two years. If the venture is successful, we will have created a highly replicable model of programming to engage interfaith families in Jewish life in their local communities. Hopefully, that will attract more funders, especially those who focus on their own local community, and we’ll see more programming.

This has been a long time coming. I’ve railed for years that the Jewish community was missing the boat in not providing programming aimed at engaging interfaith families Jewishly. InterfaithFamily.com has made numerous proposals to fill that gap that until now were not accepted. Back in 2008 a number of funders tried to implement a plan that would result in comprehensive sets of programs in local communities, but then Madoff and the economic downturn hit. Now as our tenth anniversary approaches, we finally have a golden opportunity to reverse decline and return to growth in funding and essential programming for our field.

Over the course of the first year, we plan to:
• Build out the Chicago listings in our existing Network so that local interfaith couples can find each other and welcoming organizations, professionals and programs.
• Personalize our existing Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service and help officiating clergy and the couples they serve stay connected.
• Bring our existing sensitivity trainings to Chicago to improve the welcome that interfaith couples experience from Chicago Jewish organizations and professionals.
• Offer our Love and Religion workshop, developed by Dr. Marion Usher at the Washington DC JCC, to help interfaith couples learn how to share religion in their lives, and we’ll do it in a new hybrid format with some sessions online and some in-person.
• Offer basic Judaism classes, in the hybrid online/in-person format, to help Chicago interfaith couples and families learn how and why to live Jewishly.
• Collaborate with others in the field. No one organization can provide all of the resources and services that a local community’s interfaith couples need. We will continue to publicize and coordinate with programs that are provided by others, or may be in the future.

Now the work begins!

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

It has been quite a week here at InterfaithFamily.com.

As we reported yesterday, scooped by Julie Wiener in a very nice post, InterfaithFamily.com has once again been included in the Slingshot guide to the fifty most innovative Jewish organizations. We are one of only nine organizations that have been in Slingshot in each of the past six years (see list below).

Even better than being included in the guide, InterfaithFamily.com was one of nine organizations (see list below) to receive $40,000 grants from the Slingshot Fund, which pools contributions from young funders and then makes grants to organizations included in the guide.

InterfaithFamily.com has received a Slingshot Fund grant in three out of the four years that grants have been made. This generous funding is very helpful to our ongoing efforts to expand the reach of our helpful information and welcoming message – and it makes a statement that the cause of engaging interfaith families in Jewish life is important to the next generation of Jewish funders.

We are very grateful to Melissa Brown Eisenberg for her words in announcing the grant to IFF. It means a great deal to all of the staff at IFF to hear this kind of praise for our efforts and to be described as “crucial to the future strength and vitality of the Jewish community:”

Since 2001 InterfaithFamily.com has been the destination for individuals, couples, families and their children seeking information on how to make Jewish choices in their everyday lives.  The website itself is a resource for information-seekers on how to live Jewishly, be married Jewishly, celebrate Jewish holidays and raise Jewish children.  The site also connects interfaith families to each other for support, to local organizations that are inclusionary, and advocates for inclusive attitudes, policies and practices in the wider Jewish community.

With the intermarriage rate hovering at around 50%, the sheer number of non-Jewish partners, spouses and interfaith offspring is too large to ignore.  Our generation, the Slingshot generation, salutes the effort by interfaith families to see themselves as part of the Jewish community.  We believe in the significance of the work InterfaithFamily.com does to keep Judaism in the lives of those who could easily not identify as Jewish.  Between its website, referral services and ability to connect people, we see InterfaithFamily.com’s existence as crucial to the future strength and vitality of the Jewish community.

Congratulations to Ed Case and the entire InterfaithFamily.com team on receiving a 2010 Slingshot Fund grant.  Ed, you are certainly one of Slingshot’s Jewish Community Heroes.

Melissa’s last comment was a reference to the second big news of the week – I made it into the top twenty vote getters in the Jewish Federations of North America’s Jewish Community Heroes contest. In fact I ended up at number 18, what I hope will turn out to be an auspicious number. Now a panel of judges picks one winner and four honorees, each of whom gets a grant for his or her non-profit.

We made a concerted effort to get out the vote, and I’m very grateful to the people who responded to the many email and Facebook voting reminders and the big orange pop-up on our home page. I hope it wasn’t too annoying – thank you to all for putting up with it. I didn’t seek the nomination and I’m not interested in personal glory – but it surely would be great if the federation world, at its important annual meeting, got a message from first the voters and then the judges that the cause of engaging interfaith families in Jewish life deserves recognition and priority. That’s what I hope the result of the contest is.

We were invited to submit a one-minute video explaining what an award would mean, and if the JFNA makes that publicly available, we’ll provide a link to it.

The last and perhaps most important development of the week isn’t a grant or an award – it’s the debut on Wednesday night of Love and Religion – Online, our first online group for couples to discuss how they can have religion in their lives. Four pioneering couples have signed up for an online version of a workshop Dr. Marion Usher has offered for 16 years at the Washington DC JCC. We had some technical difficulties to work out, but it was a great session.

It was reassuring and reaffirming to me to see bright, articulate, serious, dating or newly-married young couples thinking about important questions in their lives: whether they will be able to find a Jewish religious community where they will feel comfortable and welcomed, how they will incorporate celebrations of holidays, how the partner who is not Jewish will feel about raising Jewish children, how the Jewish partner will feel at his or her partner’s holiday times and religious services.

I have been involved in interfaith family issues for over forty years now, first personally, then as a lay leader in the Reform movement, then professionally for the past thirteen years. I call the issues that the couples in our online group raised this week “eternal” in the sense that every pair of interfaith partners who are interested in having religion in their lives need to address and resolve these questions. They’re not “eternal” in the sense that they never get resolved, but the issues that came up forty years ago are still coming up today. Every community should offer discussion groups for couples to address these issues, and we are really pleased to make the option available on an online basis.

I feel very honored this week because of the Slingshot listing and grant and making it into the Jewish Community Heroes semi-finals, but what was most gratifying about this week was offering another resource that will help interfaith couples learn about and connect with Jewish life and community. That is what I really love about this work.

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Organizations included in Slingshot for six straight years in addition to IFF: Advancing Women Professionals, Hazon, Ikar, JDub, Jewish Funds for Justice, Jewish Milestones, Reboot, and Sharsheret.

Organizations that received Slingshot fund grants this year in addition to IFF: JDub, Jewish Funds for Justice, Reboot, Encounter, Gateways: Access to Jewish Education, Institute for Curriculum Services, Moishe House, Project Chessed, and Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

If you come to this website, by now you must know that I have been nominated to be the Jewish Community Hero. It would be hard to miss, since when you come to the site a big pop us box asks you to VOTE in large orange letters. I hope that isn’t too annoying.

If you’re one of my 550 closest friends, you’ve been getting regular emails reminding you that you can vote for me every 12 hours. I hope that isn’t too annoying, either.

I’d like to explain why we’re taking the risk of being annoying. The Jewish Federations of North America sponsors this contest. The top twenty vote getters are evaluated by a panel of judges that picks one winner and four honorees. All five are recognized at the JFNA’s annual meeting, called the “General Assembly,” and all five receive grants for their organizations from the JFNA.

The General Assembly is the place where representatives of all of the local federations get together, along with most of the major Jewish family foundations. It is probably the most important Jewish communal gathering of the year. Especially if you are a non-profit looking for recognition and needing funding.

The cause of engaging interfaith families in Jewish life is terribly under-funded. A few years ago I calculated that the Jewish community gave less than one tenth of one percent of all of its communal spending to outreach to interfaith families – the total was less than $3 million for interfaith outreach against total spending of over $3 billion.

The federations at the time were responsible for spending close to $1 billion of that $3 billion. But very few local federations were spending anything for interfaith outreach – Boston and Atlanta being the notable exceptions.

If I can stay among the top 20 vote getters – I’m currently number 14 – and if the panel of judges takes an enlightened approach to what causes are important (in my opinion) and makes me one of the five honorees – then the cause of engaging interfaith families in Jewish life will be highlighted in front of the entire federation world. That kind of recognition could lead to funding from local federations – after all, InterfaithFamily.com serves people in every Jewish community – and help with the family foundations, too.

The grant from the JFNA would just be gravy – I don’t know how big the grants are, but frankly any amount would help.

I’m not looking for personal honor. I didn’t even seek to be nominated, a wonderful colleague at the Boston federation did that on her own. But being an honoree would be an important boost for our cause – so I want that very badly.

The first step is to be in the top 20 – and I figure that the higher I am in the list, the better my chances with the judges. I’d like to be in the top 10.

Right now at number 14 I have 2,120 votes. The person who is number 10 has 3,391 – so I have a long way to go to get into the top 10.

So please vote early – and vote often!

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.