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Written by Esther
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Lately there's been a number of projects that are designed to support Jewish projects that are innovative and creative. Bikkurim concentrates on New York-based small non-profit initiatives in the startup stage. The PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism is a six-week summer fellowship program based in Jerusalem that "enables socially-minded entrepreneurs from hi-tech, business, social action, education and the arts to turn their envisioned projects into reality."
But what do small projects really need to get off the ground, and what kind of support should be provided once fledgling projects have found an audience but still need more reinforcement? Nigel Savage, the visionary behind Hazon (itself once a project of Bikkurim), has some ideas, which he recently shared with the Fundermentalist (JTA reporter Jacob Berkman), toward trying to create a shared work space for young Jewish non-profits.
The idea behind the space, which would be called “Makom Chadash,” Hebrew for “New Place,” is that these non-profits could cut overhead costs by moving in under one roof and sharing office infrastructure and support staff; they could also share expenses on fund raising and marketing staff.
“Imagine that there was one funder for all the young Jewish non-profits,” Savage told me earlier this month when we sat down at the CAJE conference. “That funder would say, ‘I think you guys are great, but why am I paying for 17 copiers? Why am I paying for 17 servers and 17 different pieces of accounting software? Not only do I require you to save on the cost side, I also want to see you guys leveraging the front side – cross-promoting, marketing together, staff training together and [working on] development together.’”
Savage is moving on this, but needs more funders to make the project become a reality--six of them at $50,000 each per year. The Fundermentalist notes that "the Chais Family Foundation has signed on as an initial investor, and Savage hopes that the UJA-Federation of New York will become a funder as well. But Savage is under a bit of a time crunch and will have to come up with his six investors in the next two or three months in order to obtain a lease on the space, he said."
What do you think? Is rent/equipment costs the biggest funding problem that innovative projects have? What do you need to make your project a success, and how -- if at all -- does community involvement fit in?
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