By: Lisa Colton
There are three pillars required for advancing a networked strategy and maturing a school’s use of social media: strategy, tactics and culture.
While you can work on one or the other, the glass ceiling will always remain low if you neglect the others. Thus, as I reviewed the dozens of excellent applications for the 2012-13 Jewish Day School Academy these past few weeks, I was paying close attention to each school’s ability to fully engage in this intense and powerful experience and to take advantage of the opportunity. Over the next nine months, these 20 schools will build and flex their social media muscles through training, experimentation, sharing and culture change.
While social media has been heralded as the latest and greatest new marketing and community building tool over the past several years and many have jumped on the bandwagon, few organizations are really leveraging these tools for building relationships and strengthening networks. Those organizations that are using social media to mature their social culture and adapt their work for a networked age are seeing much more than a rise in ‘likes’ on their Facebook Page. They are engaging new audiences, networking with other organizations, empowering new leaders, and listening carefully to their constituencies. They are revising job descriptions and titles of their staff, letting go of time-consuming tasks that, while traditional functions of their staff, failed to really return results that were mission-centric.
It is our hope that, as these 20 schools matriculate through the Jewish Day School Social Media Academy, they will not only advance their own schools, but will become pioneers for the field as a whole. Joining the nine schools that graduated from the first Academy last year, they will chart a path of maturation that other schools can use as a map for their own work. They will develop projects that can serve as models to be adapted for other schools. They will test new tools – like social fundraising platforms – that others can observe and learn from. And they will develop social media policies that can serve as resources and inspiration for others.
The cohort chosen represents a diverse group of Jewish day schools from across the country seeking to mature their operations and take important risks to move themselves and their communities forward. Some are just beginning their social media journey. Others have been developing their work for some time, and are seeking to take their work to the next level. The group includes schools in major cities and small communities; large, mature schools and young start ups; Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and community schools.
We intend to share much of the journey with you, so please come along for the ride. All representatives from Jewish day schools are welcome to participate in our 10-part webinar series at no cost thanks to support from The AVI CHAI Foundation. You can sign up here. You can expect to see blog posts here on the AVI CHAI blog and on Darim’s blog, JewPoint0, showcasing the schools’ work and their learning process. You can also join our Facebook Group, where day school leaders interested in social media and networked strategies are discussing important issues, sharing case studies, and asking questions.
And now, announcing the 2012-13 cohort of the Jewish Day School Social Media Academy. Drum roll, please…
Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, Baltimore, MD
www.bethtfiloh.com/school
Team Leader: Joan Feldman
Brandeis Hillel Day School, San Francisco, CA
www.bhds.org
Team Leader: Sonia Daccarett
Carmel Academy, Greenwich, CT
www.carmelacademy.com
Team Leader: Nora Anderson
Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Rockville, MD
www.cesjds.org
Team Leader: Kimberly Dudash
Charlotte Jewish Day School, Charlotte, NC
www.cjdschool.org
Team Leader: Gale Osborne
Denver Academy of Torah, Denver, CO
www.datcampus.org
Team Leader: Kathy Bashari
Gann Academy, Waltham, MA
www.gannacademy.org
Team Leader: Laura Ayer
Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy, Beverly Hills, CA
www.hillelhebrew.org
Team Leader: Lisa Arnold
Jewish Community High School of the Bay, San Francisco, CA
www.jchsofthebay.org
Team Leader: Maura Feingold
Lander~Grinspoon Academy, The Solomon Schechter School of the Pioneer Valley, Northampton, MA
www.lgaschechter.org
Team Leader: Linda Minoff
Milwaukee Jewish Day School, Milwaukee, WI
www.mjds.org
Team Leader: David Hercenberg
Robert M. Beren Academy, Houston, TX
www.berenacademy.org
Team Leader: Samantha Steinberg
San Diego Jewish Academy, San Diego, CA
www.sdja.com
Team Leader: Joshua Nunn
Scheck Hillel Community School, Miami, FL
www.ehillel.org
Team Leader: Tara Solomiany
Shulamith School for Girls of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY
http://ShulamithofBrooklyn.com
Team Leader: Tova Ovits
Solomon Schechter School of Queens, Flushing, NY
www.sssq.org
Team Leader: Ariela Silberman
Stanford Eisenberg Knoxville Jewish Day School, Knoxville, TN
www.kjds.org
Team Leader: Miriam Wilhelm
Temple Beth Am Day School, Pinecrest, FL
www.tbam.org/dayschool
Team Leader: Cari Altman
Westchester Day School, Mamaroneck, NY
www.westchesterday.org
Team Leader: Daniel Shor
Yeshivat Ha’Atid, Bergenfield, NJ
www.yeshivatheatid.org
Team Leader: Tamar Snyder
Lisa Colton is the Founder and President of Darim Online. Darim Online is a nonprofit dedicated to helping the Jewish community thrive in the connected age, and is producing the Jewish Day School Social Media Academy.
AVI CHAI concluded its general grant making on December 31, 2019.