September 2007

For an investment-style Foundation such as the Jim Joseph Foundation (JJF), research and evaluation are main stay activities. The former provides data around which hypotheses are formed and grant initiatives ultimately designed. The latter enables the Foundation to assess its achievements and understand how it might improve its philanthropy.

Currently, JJF is involved is several research-related and evaluation type projects. For example, while Brandeis University has completed its JJF-commissioned study of the field of education of young Jews in the United States, it is continuing to sort data it collected into what will become a publicly available resource. JJF Directors recently approved a $600,000 grant that provides funding to support the development of this unique database. Once available in the public domain, we envision the database will be an important resource tool for a variety of users.

JJF will join the Schusterman and Cummings Foundations in funding research into volunteer service programs for Jewish college-age youth. This research will complement a study the United Jewish Communities is sponsoring that examines the relationship of faith to service. The two reports are scheduled to be completed in 2008 and together should help funders gain new insights into how terms of service foster Jewish learning and strengthen Jewish identity.

The JJF Board has also approved a grant that will result in an independent assessment of DeLeT: Day School Leadership through Teaching. Here, too, the product resulting from the Foundation’s grant support should be information that has utility for many different audiences.

A similar kind of document will be generated from a grant the JJF Board awarded to the Los Angeles Bureau of Jewish Education in supporting that community’s March of the Living (MOL) program. A portion of JJF’s funding award will be allocated to a professional who will document the Bureau’s work and MOL participants’ experience. The resulting monograph will be widely distributed.

In making significant grants both to BBYO and the Foundation for Jewish Camping, JJF relied heavily on market research each of these organizations shared as part of the proposal development process. Now, JJF is working cooperatively with these organizations to determine exactly what will be evaluated in these multi-million dollar initiatives as well as how that assessment will occur.

As a precursor to any measurement effort, a theory of change needs to be delineated. Linked to this article is the Theory of Change (and the Theory of Change Companion) BBYO and JJF have developed under the expert guidance of BTW Informing Change, Inc., the evaluation consultant engaged in this initiative. We are eager to receive reactions from our readers to this posting; and we encourage others to alert us if comparable work is accessible via the internet.

Over time, JJF will develop this site to make it both easier and hopefully more enticing to use. In the interim, we do hope you can navigate your way easily enough to material of interest to you.

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