This weekend, I am joined by 150 major donors from around the country at our Major Donor Weekend, and another 50 young leaders attending the Jewish Leadership Institute Seminar. One of the benefits of JNF involvement is our strong sense of family. Coming together this weekend feels like a family reunion.
2019@$1000
Last week we closed 84 gifts of $1,000 or more for just over $400,000. A pretty solid week.
Collectively, since January, our total is 1,384 gifts of $1,000 or more for $13.4 million.
These communities have closed a minimum of 75 gifts of $1,000 or more since January 1:
Greater Los Angeles
Mid-Atlantic
Northern Florida
South Florida
Tri-State(Greater New York)
These communities have closed a minimum of 50 gift units at $1,000 or more:
Arizona
Central New Jersey
Mountain States
Nevada
New England
Northern California
Illinois, Southeast and San Diego are Almost at 50.... Let's close a few more gifts to make it onto the honor roll.
SPRING CAMPAIGN, or… WIN DINNER WITH RUSSELL ROBINSON!!
While some of us may feel that winter may never end, at Jewish National Fund, spring is right around the corner! Our SPRING CAMPAIGN begins in just 5 weeks! PLEASE TAKE A FEW MOMENTS to read through this email entirely, as it will address questions you may have and contains a lot of important information. Thank you for your role in ensuring this campaign is a success!
What is Spring Campaign? Spring Campaign is our critical Q3 campaign targeting our donors at $500 + and JNFuture’s at $360+ who have given in any of the previous 3 fiscal years, but not in FY2019. Knowing that July & August are our slowest months, how we perform during Spring Campaign will forecast how strong our fiscal year will end. This campaign will run May 1-June 24. We have a very ambitious goal in raising $12M through Spring Campaign and I’m confident we can close 75% of our lapsed donors.
Here are some documents with background on the Spring Campaign program:
Because this year’s National Conference is taking place so early on the calendar, September 13-15, we have decided to schedule the annual Campaign Planning Summit for the Monday immediately after the conference on September 16. The Summit will be a one-day meeting from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm and is open to any lay leader serving on a JNF board, committee or task force.
Registration for the Campaign Planning Summit is included on the National Conference registration page. Please be sure to register for the National Conference and on the drop down menu there is a place to indicate you will attend the Campaign Summit. Click here to register for National Conference: jnf.org/nc
LAY LEADER TRAINING SEMINAR
Mark your calendar for the next training seminar, Anatomy of an Effective Board Meeting taking place May 15 at 12 Noon eastern time.
If you missed any of the previous training sessions, you can click below to watch the videos.
History of Zionism and Jewish National Fund (9/13/18)
The Power of the JNF Brand and Brand Management (11/14/18)
JNF Organizational Overview and Financial Structure (1/16/19)
Bruce K. Gould President Elect and Vice President, Campaign
IsraelCast Update
This week’s episode of IsraelCast features Adele Raemer, who articulates the joys and challenges of living in a kibbutz on the border with Gaza. Listen to her fascinating story at jnf.org/israelcast - and don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you tune in!
Travel & Tours Update
Jewish National Fund’s H20 Tour is a unique water focused tour of Israel with exclusive access to leading water technologies and experts. Join us this November - learn more!
Updates from Israel
Autism Awareness
April 2nd marked International Autism Awareness Day, and at Red Mountain Therapeutic Riding Center, the day was marked with good deeds. To promote awareness, they hosted the Women’s Club from Jerusalem, teaching them what is involved in therapeutic horseback riding. A dance ensemble also came to perform and volunteer.
Max Paul Volunteers
This week, the Banot Sheroot (national service), the Max Paul International Volunteers, and volunteers from Alexander Muss High School in Israel spent their second week volunteering at Aleh Negev, brightening the lives of those with special needs.
Special in the IDF
This week we had a special visit at the Home Front Command Special in Uniform base from a delegation from Heroes To Heroes, a program for American veterans with disabilities from all walks of life who are struggling to re-enter civilian life. Judy Isaacson Elias, founder of the Heroes to Heroes foundation wrote, “Always a highlight of the Heroes to Heroes journey, Special in Uniform reminds us that everyone can contribute and everyone matters. Thank you, JNF, for this most important program.”
This week, at the Westchester and Southern Connecticut Board meeting, Caren Hammerman shared the following D’var Torah:
This coming Saturday is known in the Hebrew calendar as Parshat HaChodesh – the weekly portion of the Torah read on the first day of the new month. It will be the first day of the month of Nisan. Although we celebrate the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, typically in late summer, it is actually Nisan that marks the first month of the Jewish year according to the Torah.
The first day of Nisan remains an epochally meaningful day for the Jewish nation. In today’s lingo, you’d say it was game-changing. It was on that day when the people received their first commandment as a nation –to sanctify the New Moon. This ritual has a profound spiritual and historic significance. Rabbinic scholars explain that by virtue of this commandment, God gave the Jewish people mastery over time. From that moment onward, they determined their own calendar with its cycle of customs, rituals and festivals. This signifies more than control over the reckoning of time, the dating of legal documents and all the acts and observances of daily life. It represents the potential for renewal. Through the commandment to sanctify the New Moon, the Jewish people have come to be symbolized by the moon. The metaphor is apt because although the moon wanes, it waxes as well. It stands for hope, for the confidence that there is a future as well as a past. Israel/the Jewish people may seem to be on the brink of disappearance from the tableau of world history, but so does the moon. Yet, the moon returns, as does Israel. Israel, thanks in large part to the work of Jewish National Fund – our work, in fact -- constantly renews its vigor, constantly defies the laws of history that insist it should have long become extinct. From before the creation of the state, Jewish National Fund, projecting a future for the Jewish people, began planting trees in the area then called Palestine in 1901. 260,000,000 trees and 118 years later, Israel is a thriving country with an enviable agriculture consisting of numerous flora in addition to trees. JNF is renewing cities that had been on the verge of waste and oblivion, such as Yerucham and Be’ersheva, and has turned them into attractive, vibrant cultural and business destinations. Acknowledging the life-and-death importance of water, JNF has already built 250 reservoirs in Israel and is currently engaged in studying ways to save money and water while enabling a 25% increase in crop yields. I, personally, am excited that JNF has undertaken an ambitious plan to build the world’s foremost culinary center – a cooking school and a center for the study of food technology and sustainability – all the way up north in Kiryat Shemona These are only a sampling of projects demonstrating JNF’s confidence in – no -- the enabling of, the future of Israel. Thank you, all, for contributing to the creation of that future.
