I. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this catalogue is to share stories of challenge and success so that we can discover ways to replicate achievements in outreach throughout the Jewish community. We know today that outreach works. By listening to participants in these programs, we will learn how to make it work best.

What is Jewish Outreach?

Jewish outreach encompasses a wide variety of forms. Some outreach focuses on unaffiliated Jewish singles. Other programs target interfaith families with children. There are synagogue-based initiatives that seek to attract unaffiliated Jews to services. And then there are public initiatives that hold events in shopping malls. What distinguishes outreach programs is that they identify and attract individuals outside the scope of the community's radar, including unaffiliated and intermarried Jews, in an effort to welcome them into the community. Outreach brings Judaism to where the people are, without waiting for or expecting them to come looking for Jewish institutions on their own. In so doing, outreach addresses the fundamental challenge of retaining Jewish identity.

What is Successful Jewish Outreach?

In general, a Jewish outreach program can be considered successful if it meets two conditions: if it attracts individuals who have little or no affiliation with the community, and if it produces an increase in Jewish identity within those participants. Using these criteria to evaluate the diverse array of outreach, a group of forward-thinking community endowment funds and Jewish family foundations created the Jewish Connection Partnership in 1998 with the goal of stimulating development of innovative new outreach programs throughout North America.


The Jewish Connection Partnership Grants Program

The Jewish Connection Partnership (JCP) serves as a central address for fund-seekers looking to develop innovative outreach programs throughout North America that attract interfaith families and unaffiliated Jews to greater involvement within the Jewish community. Just as importantly, the JCP collects information about how outreach programs function, to discover what works best and assist the Jewish community in planning effective new programs. The JCP seeks to replicate successful initiatives, and train professionals to implement these initiatives in new communities. Specifically, the grants enable program developers to experiment with innovative models of outreach in their communities. In 2001, six new programs received startup grants, with 16 programs receiving continuing grants. Past JCP grantees have been able to continue their programs through local support, which is a goal of the JCP granting process. And they continue to benefit from professional training programs of JCP/JOI. Considering the relatively recent growth of the field of outreach, we are still learning how to navigate this new and uncharted terrain. By experimenting with original programmatic initiatives and studying their successes and failures, we are developing a more refined and effective approach to welcoming in intermarried and unaffiliated Jews. One trend we have uncovered is that the programs funded by JCP grants can be loosely divided into four categories:

1) Those reaching out specifically to interfaith families (click here);
2) Those providing grassroots Jewish communities for unaffiliated Jews, including the intermarried (click here);
3) Those holding Jewish celebrations, often in the context of "public space" outreach (click here);
4) And those encouraging synagogue participation (click here).

The various JCP grantee programs are in different stages of maturation, and will no doubt continue to evolve as we discover what works best and recognize other trends. Future grantees will also provide other unconventional models. The diversity of the programs reflects the creativity and optimism of the American Jewish community, as well as the demographic and geographic diversity of American Jews. Despite their wide variety, successful programs can teach one another effective methods of attracting unaffiliated and intermarried Jews.


How Do Successful Outreach Programs Succeed?

A major study of the JCP programs revealed five specific stages to successful outreach, which collectively comprise what we call "Steps in the Outreach Sequence." Although many effective outreach programs do not necessarily implement all of these steps, it is helpful to keep the larger picture in mind. Indeed, it often happens that programs that concentrate on a single stage in the cycle are dependent upon, and indeed benefit from, programs concentrating on other stages.

The stages in the cycle of outreach are:
(click on the image to view a detailed graphic of this)

1) Developing Community Support: Community support is an ongoing necessity not only to launch programs, but to sustain them within the wider rubric of Jewish communal life.

2) Finding The People: By definition, unaffiliated Jews - whether intermarried, in-married or single - are not on any list. For a program to engage them, they must be located.

3) Reaching Out, Making Contact: It is critical to make a positive personal connection to bring people back into the community, keeping in mind that many in our target audience may have had negative experiences with Jewish institutions.

4) Providing Services: A flexible range of sustained, substantive Jewish experiences should be tailored to the target group's varying levels of time and commitment.

5) Making the Transition To The Community: Providing a link to the wider Jewish community is essential to help participants become more involved in a range of organized Jewish activities.

--Developing Community Support, Again: This is a constant cycle that begins and ends with community support. Community support is a necessary factor to make many programs a reality, and to make the transfer of people into the established community feasible.