MH Chicago's Outreach Efforts

We have been surprised by the number of new people that show up to our Shabbat dinners every time. It seems that people hear about them through our email list, and we have gotten many newcomers to our Shabbats that way. Those are the events where we have the most turnout, probably because Friday nights are when young Jews most want to celebrate their faith, but do not have another space to practice. For events that we hold during the week, like happy hours, we get fewer people. We have discussed why that is, and we believe that people are shyer about coming to smaller events and are also busier in the middle of the week. However, we are developing a solid group of repeat attendees—people who came to one event, such as Shabbat, and have come to lots of other events after. We have found that these people are often new to the city or had been actively looking for a Jewish community, so that when we reached out to them, they felt welcomed and excited to come back again.

While our email list, our Facebook events, and other technological forms of communication have brought us new people, we have found that word of mouth is the most powerful tool for getting people to become a part of Moishe House. People have repeatedly told us that a friend told them about the last house, and they decided to check it out. And the people who we draw in come back with friends who in turn come to another event. Our friends from around Chicago, coworkers, and acquaintances make up a big part of all our events, too, which just reinforces to us how our chatting about our positive experience with the Moishe House can lead to new participants. We are going to try in the coming months to mimic some of the other houses’ expansive Facebook groups, but we will continue to rely on good, old-fashioned people-to-people networks that have, so far, produced the best results.

MHSeattle, 9/5/09: Lesson Learned

Lesson Learned - Please describe an instance where your house has had an issue (e.g. trouble with events, house dynamics, logistics etc.) and discuss how the house resolved the issue, and what was learned.

An issue we've struggled with since the beginning of the year is keeping the fourth room of our house filled. Rebecca, who moved in just before spring, and Nicole Guidry, who arrived at the start of summer, both ended up leaving the house, and we didn't want the turnover to happen a third time.

While both Rebecca and Nicole were and are bright, energetic people with great ideas and a lot to offer a project such as Moishe House Seattle, we may not have done enough to determine how good of a fit they'd be with our house. Rebecca was very busy with her job at a local nonprofit, about which she was passionate, and rightly so. She found herself having to balance the demands of her challenging work life with the not insignificant demands of a committed romantic relationship. A person only has so much energy, and at the end of the day, while Rebecca always contributed what she could to our programming, living here was beginning to burn her out. Nicole, also a busy person and also committed to a relationship, was similarly at a place in her life where she might be better as an event attendee than as a resident-organizer.

Zara, like the other residents of that fourth room, has a lot going on in her life, but she seems to be at a place, emotionally and otherwise, where living at Moishe House Seattle makes sense. Though Masha, Steven, and I don't have crystal balls, we think the third time will be the charm. Zara is excited to join MHS the way we were when we first applied and were accepted, and she seems very committed to finding the right balance in her life between non-Moishe personal activities and Moishe programming and community-building. Her recent return from Israel also makes her an excellent resource on matters Israeli, which our house had to some extent in Steven but obviously has even more of now.

All in all, the lesson learned was to take a little more time in choosing a new resident-organizer, and to really think about whether the person we choose is likely to be in it for at least the semi-long haul. And we think Zara is going to be an excellent fit.