I am excited to update you on the remarkable growth and progress JGSI has experienced since the beginning of this academic year!
Thanks to our dedicated supporters, staff, and student volunteers, JGSI once again shattered all previous records in terms of key metrics last semester:
- 130 grad campuses (up 16% from Fall 2021)
- 144 Shabbat/Holiday programs (up 18%)
- 302 student leaders (up 11%)
- 360 total events (up 20%)
- 551 student and alumni donors (up 67%!!!)
- 6,878 individual students (up 44%)
- 10,647 total attendance! (up 49%!)
Here are some highlights so far!
- We welcomed the following new campuses to our JGSI family:
122. DePaul Law | 123. New Jersey Medical School | 124. UMichigan Dentistry | 125. Tufts Veterinary | 126. Pace Law | 127. UNC Medicine | 128. Seattle U Law | 129. UT Houston Health | 130. Harvard Law
In August, JGSI partnered with Taglit-Birthright Israel and Israel Outdoors on the first-ever Birthright Israel mission exclusively for graduate students! A full busload from all over the US spent 11 jam-packed days soaking both up the sun and Israeli culture, and forming lifelong friendships around shared Jewish experiences.
- In September, we flew our student presidents to Chicago for the annual Miller Family Partners Summit for leadership and best practices training. In particular, delegates heard from communal activists including Lonnie Nasatir, president of Jewish United Fund, on how to be effective advocates for the Jewish community during this time of increased antisemitism on campus.
- These student leaders returned back to school inspired, executing 327 campus events! Honorable mention for creativity goes to NYU (“Spooky Shabbat”), Yale (“White Elephant Exchange”), and UVA’s joint Jewish-Muslim symposium on “Religion In the Legal Profession.”
- Keeping with our mission to provide a safe space for Jewish grads to express their identity on campus and fight antisemitism through sharing Jewish culture, our Scott & Ashley Cohen Shabbat & Holiday Series drew 3,472 individual students in Fall 2022 alone, including big inter-campus Shabbats in LA, NY, Chicago, DC, Atlanta, and Philly.
- We relaunched our series of Connect networking mixers for the first time post-COVID, spreading awareness of JGSI’s mission in LA, NY, DC, Chicago, Philly, Toronto, and SF.
- In November, our ScaleUP crowdfunding campaign to scale the organization’s infrastructure hit never-before-seen targets with your help! In just 48 hours we raised over $1 million from a record 747 donors! Notably, 521 student and alumni donors stepped forward to help us raise $218,788 of that total!
- Our annual Redstone Family JELCONs (Jewish Executive Leadership Conferences) in its new hybrid format showcased executives in NY and LA including keynotes from Doug Shulman (Chairman; OneMain Financial), Steve Isakowitz (CEO; Aerospace Corp.), and Modi Wiczyk (Co-Founder; Media Rights Capital)
Fundraising Update: As of February 10, 2023 we have raised $1,270,931 (61%) towards our total 2022-23 goal of $2,100,000, fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2023. If you haven’t yet contributed please consider JGSI in your annual giving!! thejgsi.org/donate
Once again, JGSI has outdone itself – and we couldn’t have done any of it without you! Thank you for making this our best year yet!
