AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps

Contact Information:
45 West 36th Street, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10018
(212) 545-7759
info@avodah.net
www.avodah.net

Key Personnel:

Executive Director:
Rabbi David Rosenn

Contact Person:
Ilanit Gerblich Kalir, Director of Development
(212) 545-7759 x 303
ilanit@avodah.net

Board Chair:
Elsie Stern

Mission Statement:
AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps' mission is to mobilize and strengthen a new generation of young Jews seeking to change the world and themselves through direct work on poverty issues. Each year AVODAH recruits young Jewish adults from across the U.S. and Canada – and from the full spectrum of Jewish backgrounds – to spend a year working full-time at urban poverty organizations in New York City, Washington, DC, and Chicago. During their year of service, AVODAH Corps members engage in a year-long course of Jewish study, reflection and skills training connected to their work. They also live together, forming vibrant communities of young people committed to integrating and strengthening their commitments to social change and Jewish life.

AVODAH year-long program participants are 21-26 years old. AVODAH also works intensively with Jews in their mid-twenties and early thirties through our Alumni Community, created in 2003 at the request and initiative of our alumni. The Alumni program consolidates and builds upon the gains in Jewish identity and commitment to social responsibility achieved by participants of the year-long program. One-hundred and eighty alumni of AVODAH's year-long program are organizing and participating in social justice activities in cities around the country through AVODAH's alumni community.

Total Annual Organization Budget:
$1,222,000

Primary Funding Sources:
Our current major foundation funders include: The Picower Foundation, The Pinkerton Foundation, The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Blaustein Family Foundation, Dorot Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Arie and Ida Crown Memorial Foundation, UJA-Federation of New York CoJIR, The Maurice Amado Foundation, Circle of Service, The FelPro/Mecklenburger Supporting Fund, Natan, and The Righteous Persons Foundation. In addition to foundation support, AVODAH is funded by generous and dedicated individual donors.

Board of Directors:
Size of Board: 19

Composition:
AVODAH is governed by a national volunteer Board of Directors whose primary tasks are in the areas of long-term planning, fiscal management, and fundraising. The Board is comprised of people of all ages, from across the spectrum of the North American Jewish Community, including AVODAH alumni.

Number of staff: 11

The year your organization was founded and the need your organization was trying to fill:
AVODAH was founded in 1998 to provide a compelling option for young Jews searching for a way to live out Jewish values that makes a difference in the world. The post-college years are a critical time for identity formation. It is also a time of life when the Jewish community has struggled to provide effective opportunities for connection. At precisely the time that young people are making decisions about not only what they want to do but also who they want to be, AVODAH provides an immersive, high-impact encounter with Jewish life and social change that deepens young people's commitments to both.

In addition to lasting impact on our participants, AVODAH also makes significant contributions to the low-income communities in which we work. Organizations serving those communities save an average of $17,500 when they hire an AVODAH Corps member, thereby increasing their capacity to provide critically-needed services to people in poverty.

Elevator Pitch:
AVODAH tackles two issues simultaneously: the plight of poor people in this country's cities and the need for compelling ways to engage young people in Jewish life. AVODAH is the only program of its kind – a year-long service corps that brings recent college graduates from a wide range of Jewish backgrounds to work full-time on urban poverty issues in New York City, Washington, DC. and Chicago. Participants in AVODAH work as legal advocates, case managers, and organizers with individuals and families in low-income neighborhoods. Through their efforts, they have changed the lives of more than 100,000 people in New York City and Washington, DC and saved the organizations for which they worked a total of more than $2 million.

Vision:
We want our alumni to take leadership roles within and beyond the Jewish community and for their leadership to be infused with skills, stamina, and passion. We'd like to see a year of full-time work on poverty issues become the norm for North American Jews, because we've seen how the transformative power of that experience builds leadership, strengthens communities, and creates power for change. For our own organization, we'd like to take what we do to scale by greatly expanding the number of people working full-time on poverty issues each year through AVODAH.

Biggest challenge in achieving that vision:
AVODAH has grown in the past eight years from a single-city, one-program organization to a multi-city service corps and a growing alumni community.

We've been successful at recruiting new sources of funding, but not enough to cover the rise in budget occasioned by our opportunities to grow. Therefore, in the past several years, we have worked hard to raise funds from individual donors as well as foundations. This strategy has helped us to balance the sources of our funding, moving away from the days when 90% of AVODAH's budget was supplied by foundations, toward a much more sustainable 50-60%.

However, because we are still a relatively small organization, the intensity of the effort required to raise funds is a challenge for us. Raising more funds to support our growth will enable us to continue our successful efforts to engage young people in living out their values as Americans and Jews and to take our idea to scale. It will enable us to better concentrate our resources on program development, and to move closer to our aim of mobilizing and strengthening a new generation of young Jews seeking to change the world and themselves work for social change.

How does your organization assess the impact of your program on the community(s) you serve?
AVODAH is a high-intensity program that draws a select number of participants. Focusing significant resources on a building a year-long, high-intensity program is a strategic choice for deeper impact over broader impact. The effectiveness of our program has been demonstrated by outside evaluators and parallels the highly successful immersive methods of Jewish day schools and summer camps. These programs have been shown repeatedly to be the most successful vehicles for education and identity transformation, and we believe that investment in AVODAH produces similar high-impact results.

AVODAH conducts ongoing evaluation with participants to assess our impact. AVODAH conducted its most extensive survey of alumni in early 2005, sending the survey to participants from AVODAH's first six program years (112 alumni) to assess our impact. The results of the survey show that: