What is Your Purpose?

By Yoram Samets, co-founder Jvillage Network

Lately I have found myself reading about and discussing -- once again -- an all too popular conversation in the Jewish community: the lack of participation and the lack of financial support. This is a topic I can recall hearing about at the dinner table when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s. It was a topic that was driving real results -- the closing of Jewish community organizations throughout the area we lived in.

This conversation has never really disappeared. And today, this issue continues to erode the foundation of Jewish organizational life. We all know the superficial reasons -- the competition from the assimilated world we now live in. Yet I believe there is a more fundamental issue that is the challenge. A challenge that we can turn into an opportunity. An opportunity that I see being realized in some national Jewish organizations and local Jewish organizations. Simply stated the challenge and the opportunity are: To provide clarity of vision and mission. But it requires great passion to deliver successfully.  

What does success look like when an organization has clarity around its vision and mission? Purpose. And Purpose drives participation, engagement, relationships, and ultimately, financial support.

Too often, organizations will spend all their time and effort on developing their vision and mission, then assign it to a banner and go on about their day-to-day lives. The intention is good, but reality requires feet on the street to take a vision and a mission to the level of organizational Purpose. And Purpose requires never ending passion to deliver on success to the organization.

None of this is easy stuff.  It requires that leadership understand that organizational success requires constant work at the strategic level, supported by very focused tactics that are in alignment with the organizational purpose. In the Jewish world, we often equate doing more with accomplishing more -- where in reality, what we need to be doing is less.  And everything we do needs to be deeper in both content and context.

It is here at this critical juncture where our Jewish organizations are failing.  It is here where too many Jewish organizations are out of alignment with their vision and mission. And once out of alignment, the Purpose is diminished.

Now is the time to gather your community’s best and brightest. Now is the time when your leadership is needed most.  As we move through this holiest time of the year, where self-assessment is central to everything we do, ask yourself what is your organization’s Purpose.  

Answer it simply. Is this the same understanding everyone who sits at the leadership table holds?  If so, you are on the right path.  If not, you know the work that needs to be done for the coming years.