darim online

As a participant in the 2012-2013 Jewish Day School Social Media Academy, Solomon Schechter School of Queens (SSSQ) was able to jump onto the social media train with a tremendous amount of support and guidance. Being a beginner in the social media arena (we did not have any social media presence), we found the importance of creating a content calendar to be paramount in establishing, maintaining and expanding our momentum on Facebook, and a valuable quantitative way of measuring our success.

A friend of mine has just begun to tweet.  She was one of those people -- which is very common -- who created an account two years ago, and was feeling very hip and on top of the trends.  And then she never used it.

We sat down last week to build some skills and help her get into meaty conversations in her field.  She was a quick learner, excited and motivated.  And a week later I got the one line email: 

So, what am I actually suppose to be saying on Twitter?

I belonged to a synagogue for twenty years. This year we made the decision not to rejoin. The reason? I was feeling less connected to a place that was putting control over choice. Concretely: Leadership would not permit the Shabbat morning prayer class I had attended for the past eight years to continue on a weekly basis. We could hold the class twice a month, but not every week.

Connected Congregations are synagogues that function as communities in the deepest sense of the word.  They are not about the building, the events, the rabbi.  At least not alone. They are about a group of individuals and families with shared values, practice and goals, who feel a sense of sacred obligation to one another.  It FEELS GOOD to be part of a community like this.

As we've been researching connected congregations, working in networks, being a network weaver, and organizational change, we've learned that becoming a connected congregation is more than a new way of developing programs.  It's more than helping people get to know each other better (and deeper) -- though that's important too.

Editor's note: Allison is the author of Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age, and co-author (with Beth Kanter) of The Networked Nonprofit.  Recently, Allison has been serving as the president of the board at her synagogue, Temple Beth Abraham in Tarrytown, New York. This position has given Allison the opportunity to put her theory into practice, and to examine intimately the potential and challenges of synagogues as networked nonprofit.

Over the past six months Matan, founded 12 years ago, launched the inaugural Matan Institutes for Jewish Educators.  In March, 18 Education Directors came together for two days of intense learning related to Jewish special education; in August, 40 congregational school teachers spent one day with Matan learning how to make their classrooms accessible to all learners. 

This post is part of an ongoing series on developing a social media policy for your organization. To download the Social Media Policy Workbook for Jewish Organizations, click here.

The phrase “social media policy” tends to bring a couple possibilities to mind:  

We are stepping through the threshold of a new age.  Connected, individually empowered, globalized, diverse and personalized.    The technologies of today are far more than digital communication tools – they are transforming society at an increasingly rapid rate, with important implications and opportunities for the Jewish community.

(cross-posted on Beth's Blog)

When The Networked Nonprofit first was published I grabbed a copy for myself, my staff, and my major funders, and further recommended it to the leaders of the Jewish organizations with whom I work. As I read the book, I instantly knew that this was meaty stuff that we’d all need to chew on. Facebook had recently revamped its Groups, and it seemed like the perfect place to take the conversation for a spin.