By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent
On the night of October 8, Suzan LeVine hopped a redeye to New York to accept an honor that no organization in the area had yet received: entry into the Slingshot 2007-2008 guide of Jewish organizations. The guide, its supporters have judged, consists of 50 Jewish groups that contribute to the most innovative programs available to the North American Jewish community.
The honor, given to the year-old Kavana Cooperative, of which LeVine is lay president, puts Kavana in the company of such organizations as American Jewish World Service, The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and the Foundation for Jewish Camping.
“Kavana is part of a national trend of Jews in their 20s and 30s and early 40s creating new spiritual communities,” said Sharna Goldseker, vice president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies and director of 21/64, a division of the Bronfman Philanthropies that works with family foundations to help guide their transitions to younger generations. She also facilitates the creation of the Slingshot guide. Kavana was chosen, she said, because of its “unique…cooperative model, and [the] partnership between its rabbinic leadership and its volunteer leadership in building community.”
LeVine said she sees Kavana as a “Hillel for grownups,” and noted how “we are almost a pilot for other places in some of the things that we are doing.”
Two similar communities in the guide, Hadar and IKAR, located in New York and Los Angeles respectively, have served as models for Kavana.
“It [is] personalized Judaism in a personalized context,” said LeVine. “How that has really come to life is so special, in helping people in their homes, giving them resources, yet still feeling like they’re a part of a larger community, both here in Kavana in Seattle, and in the world, and feeling like they can plug in and be accepted, no questions asked.”
Kavana did not receive a monetary award from Slingshot, but in this case the recognition could be more important: Slingshot’s guide serves as a list where wealthy philanthropies can direct their giving. An evaluator hired by Slingshot to survey the organizations in the 2006 guide found that 49 percent have received outside funding.
But both LeVine and Goldseker said there’s more than money involved.
“What it does is help better engage us in the national dialogue,” said LeVine, as well as to be at the forefront of what she called “the hypergrowth of these emergent communities.”
From a local angle, she hopes the recognition will start something of a domino effect.
“For a city and region that is so innovatively advanced in the for-profit arena, and in some places in the nonprofit arena, I think that there’s tremendous opportunity for us to translate that to the Jewish space,” she said.
Inclusion in the Slingshot guide makes Kavana eligible to apply for a grant from the Slingshot Fund, which this year, its inaugural year, spread $400,000 to several organizations that made the list both previously and in 2007.
Kavana has received several grants in its short life already, including the local Dan and Stacey Levitan Innovation Award in 2006, a $24,000 grant in March from the Legacy Heritage Foundation, and another in September for $5,000 over two years that came from Synagogue 3000, an institute dedicated to bringing energy to synagogue life across the continent. Kavana’s current annual budget is listed by Slingshot as $121,000.
Kavana launched in July 2006, led by LeVine and Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, who serves as spiritual leader and executive director, as well as a small group of individuals looking to forge a Jewish spiritual direction different from what they had found elsewhere. The original mission, which has thus far been fulfilled, according to LeVine, was “we wanted people to be 365-day-a-year Jews.”
It is “very much in line with what we had initially hoped,” she said.
LeVine used this year’s High Holiday services as an example of how Kavana has been a source of innovation.
“During the Torah reading, we actually stopped after each section and talked about each section,” she said. “It was so cool. That was the thing that was beautiful about our High Holidays. Everybody that was there wanted to be there.”
Other programming includes its weekly Living Room Learning discussions on that week’s Torah portions, and Prep and Practice, a holiday-based learning session for families.
Slingshot began two years ago by members of the Grand Street initiative, a network started by 21/64 for Jews ages 18-28 whose families have long been involved in Jewish philanthropic ventures, and who were either involved in or becoming involved in how that money would be directed in the future. What came of that forum was the Slingshot guide, designed to focus on organizations considered innovative and attractive to Jews in their 20s and 30s.
The Slingshot guide has indeed resonated with organizations nationwide. This year more than 500 applied to be a part of it. Many foundations not associated with the Bronfman Philanthropies use it as a regular reference, Goldseker said.
That’s largely because the guide has a high bar for entry. Twenty-five Jewish organizational professionals from across the country were enlisted to winnow the 500 entrants down to 66 using four criteria: innovation, impact, leadership and organizational effectiveness. Representatives from 21/64 and Grand Street then used additional survey results from those 66 organizations, followed by further due diligence, to create the Top 50.
That Kavana was Slingshot’s first organization from the Northwest has little to do with where it’s located, said Goldseker.
“The final 50 aren’t chosen for their geography; they’re chosen because they meet those four criteria,” she said. “We hope to attract nominations from all over the country, and would be delighted to have more nominees from the Northwest.”