Jewnovations joins the Jumpstart platform to become the global Jewish innovation database
Los Angeles (May 6, 2013) — Jumpstart, the global research & design laboratory for Jewish innovation, announced today that it has partnered with Rimona Consulting, creators of the Jewish startup wiki-map Jewnovations and the leading Jewish crowdfunding platform, Jewcer. Jewnovations has become a Jumpstart program and will be integrated with its existing resources for social entrepreneurs and funders of Jewish innovation. Rimona Consulting will make its crowdfunding expertise available to all of Jumpstart’s fiscally sponsored projects through the Jewcer platform, amplifying their ability to leverage broad-based support for their work.
Launched in 2012, Jewnovations is the first-ever global map of new Jewish initiatives, built on a GoogleMaps API that allows project leaders and their constituents to create partnerships, share resources, and exchange information. Jumpstart’s acquisition of Jewnovations fulfills its longstanding aim, with the support of a Jewish Peoplehood Innovation Grant from the NADAV Foundation, to establish an online clearinghouse of new Jewish organizations, projects, and initiatives in order to facilitate increased investment, collaboration, and community-building throughout the sector.
Irina Nevzlin Kogan, who led the creation of the Nadav Foundation Peoplehood Innovation Grant program, commented, “We invested in the innovation database because we believe creative Jewish leaders around the world should know and learn from one another. Our shared peoplehood and individual communities are strengthened by such relationships. The collaboration between Rimona Consulting and Jumpstart brings the idea to a new level. In particular, the Jewcer funding platform is a much-needed tool that can generate real benefits for users. I look forward to seeing what the partnership yields.”
Jumpstart has engaged Rimona to develop the next generation of the Jewnovations platform in order to give funders of Jewish innovation an easy-to-use interface for doing research on potential grantees and an understanding of what is happening in the sector as a whole and, more broadly, to provide the Jewish nonprofit world with a repository for organizations that are doing innovative work, developing next-generation best practices and transforming how Jewish community is built in the 21st century.
Wharton Professor Kevin Werbach, co-author of For The Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business and co-creator of the world’s first course on gamification at the University of Pennsylvania, noted that the social innovation world has yet to take full advantage of gamification. “Jumpstart could help put the Jewish community ahead of the curve” with this partnership, he said. “There’s great potential in platforms that leverage crowdsourcing and gamification beyond contests, points, badges, and leaderboards.”
The partnership brings together the entrepreneurial creativity of Rimona founders Dr. Amir Give’on & Naomi Leight with the market-defining expertise of Jumpstart founders Joshua Avedon & Shawn Landres and will amplify each organization’s capacity to increase the visibility of and funding for new Jewish initiatives around the world.
“The great insight that Amir and Naomi bring is that effective crowdraising is a method of engagement, not just funding.” said Jumpstart co-founder Joshua Avedon. “Their value-add is teaching people how to harness the power of social networks for good, whether that happens on Jewnovations, Jewcer, or any other platform for connecting people and resources.”
Jumpstart, which recently celebrated its fifth birthday, has helped define and document the “innovation ecosystem” of Jewish communal life, a global network of new initiatives that are transforming how Jewish community is created and sustained in the 21st century. Known for its research, advocacy, and success in catalyzing new ways of thinking, Jumpstart continues to advance the cause of creative social entrepreneurship and innovative philanthropy within and beyond the Jewish community.
Dr. Give’on added, “We cannot think of a better place for Jewnovations to fulfill its global potential. Naomi and I are inspired, motivated, and excited by Jumpstart’s work and Joshua & Shawn’s leadership, and we look forward to collaborating with them to achieve even greater impact together.”
About Jumpstart
Jumpstart is a research & design laboratory that the Jerusalem Post says has “changed the global conversation about Jewish innovation.” Jumpstart inspires and equips visionary leaders and philanthropic supporters of Jewish and interreligious causes around the globe, offering them the knowledge, relationships, and hands-on assistance they need to achieve measurable impact, build stronger communities, and transform the world. Jumpstart’s reports, among them The Jewish Innovation Ecosystem (2009), The Innovation Economy (2011), and the just-released LA 2013: the Jewish future – only sooner, are highly regarded roadmaps for the emerging landscape of 21st century Jewish life. Through Jumpstart’s fiscal sponsorship platforms, more than $400,000 have been made available to new and growing Jewish and multifaith startups in North America, Europe, and Israel. Learn more at jewishjumpstart.org.
About Rimona Consulting and Jewcer.com
Rimona Consulting is dedicated to harnessing the power of people. Its mission is to provide non-profit organizations, social benefit corporations as well as non-governmental and governmental organizations with the strategic planning, community-building, social media, crowdsourcing, messaging and communication tools to advance their objectives. Led by Dr. Amir Give’on and Naomi Leight, Rimona helps its clients develop, strengthen and connect with their affinity groups and networks to enhance their local and global impact. Amir and Naomi are the co-founders of Jewcer.com, an education and crowdfunding platform that provides individualized support for projects, ideas and causes seeking to benefit the global Jewish community and Israel. Jewcer has helped more than 40 Jewish initiatives raise more than $230,000, in amounts ranging from $1,000 to $55,000. Backed by its mentorship-based training program—recently awarded a Natan/NEXT Grant for Social Entrepreneurs—Jewcer’s challenge campaigns have an 80% success rate. In addition to Jewcer, Amir founded Jewnovations and JewsDo.com, an ecosystem for job opportunities in the Jewish world. Learn more at rimonaconsulting.com.