As a nonprofit CEO I’m always thinking about what it takes for an organization to be successful today. Muhammad Ali once said that to be a successful fighter, you need both will and skill, but “the will must be stronger than the skill.” Reflecting upon the last 19 months, it’s become clear to me that JGSI has grown despite the pandemic only because our students, our staff, and our stakeholders want us to succeed.

So now that the Jewish holiday season is behind us, I’m excited to update you on the amazing progress of our Fall 2021 semester so far!

• On campus, our grad student-led clubs are back in person at levels of activity surpassing pre-COVID! Nearly all students must be vaccinated to attend school and many are required to be tested weekly, so our campus programs have been full and students are so happy to be at live events again.

• Off-campus and between campuses, we have been careful to reintroduce live programming in the most responsible way possible in terms of balancing concerns about COVID with unprecedented demand -- with some big wins for the organization overall.
  

Above all, our campus expansion is proving to be a major success with new partners and programs constantly popping up all around North America, and we are so proud of it!

Here are some fast statistics:  

• 112 grad campuses where we provide Jewish community and programming, as of today
• 116 student leaders who attended our Partners Summit this past week, including 40 vaccinated students who flew in to Los Angeles for 2 days of inspiration and leadership training
• 182 events already sponsored since the beginning of the school year
• 1,900 individual, brand-new participants in the last month alone
• 2,050 total attendees at Shabbat/Holiday programs this year
  

Some examples of policies and pivots we have implemented to stay nimble as COVID case rates and guidelines constantly change:

• All participants in live programs are fully vaccinated and attest to that effect
• All in-person programs (besides Shabbats) feature an option to participate virtually for those uncomfortable
• Events are held outdoors whenever possible and require masks indoors
• We relocated our Partners Summit from Miami back to Los Angeles, where cases are fewer and where we have more control over site conditions
• Finally, we cancelled our JELConnect networking events, opting to host large Shabbat dinners in six cities instead. Two reasons for this switch: 1) Guests feel more COVID-safe at the Shabbat dinners where we can better control the crowd according to CDC guidelines, and 2) because it’s a religious function as opposed to just a networking event we feel more of a responsibility to provide this service
  

Our pivoting has paid off: we have held some of our biggest Shabbats in JGSI history with 180 vaccinated students in Los Angeles, 150 in New York, and 65 expected tonight in Chicago! Similar Shabbats are planned for DC next week, San Francisco on Nov. 5, and Philly on Nov. 22!

In terms of fundraising, we started the 2021-22 fiscal year on September 1 by recalibrating our $1.4 million budget to $1.9 million commensurate with our massive (45%) campus expansion over the last year. On that note, we are planning our annual Crowdfunding Campaign for November 16-18 for which we aim to raise $800k -- the most we have ever attempted.

Bottom line: JGSI’s new year has been off to an amazing start and our collective will to build Jewish community and programming for grads around North America has never been stronger! Thank you for being part of this awesome movement.