Top Three Lists for Outreach
In your house's experience, what have been the most effective ways to bring people to Moishe House events?
1. Free Food
2. Word of Mouth
3. Publication in Newspaper
What role has technology played in this (e.g. facebook, website, calendars)?
1. Email List and Sharing our Monthly Calendar of Events with those on the email list
2. Facebook Group
3. Calling the Connectors before events (those that have the vast networks of contacts)
How will your house continue to bring in new faces?
1. We're going to continue spreading the word
2. Check out other organizations in town (with the idea that we meet, make connections, and identify synergies)
3. We're going to keep hosting awesome events that attract the attention of 20-somethings in Denver!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Promotional Potion-The Personal Touch
When I think to what brings people to our house, an out of the way, dimly lit, hard to find shabby mansion where some street signs are not even visible to find the place, I would have to say it's the one on one personal invite, communication that is as human as possible. There's our mailing list which does next to nil as far as bringing people in, and there's facebook which does an excellent job in putting an image in peoples mind so they're a little less timid about coming. But both of this technological blasts are so impersonal. Most of the responses I get from the mass emails are "please take me off your list, I've moved to a different part of the country." What actually brings people to our house is the one on one personal invite. Often, I'll be down on Lakeshore Avenue, one of the most charming streets of Oakland right by our house, and run into people I went to school with or recently met. Inviting them on the spot puts a personal touch on their connection to the house. People want to feel special, like there the only one being invited, while at the same time knowing there's a crowd of people waiting for them when they get there.
-Before an event I like to compile a short list of the people I met that month and make a personal call to those who are in the area. It seems so simple but it has such a good response, especially when compared to email. People who I just met want to come to my house because I'm welcoming them into my home for the first time. "Plus," I tell them, "there will be lamb."
-Also, as a 7+ house there's always another event right around the corner, which is why i do block invites. A block invite is simply having the next event in your back pocket ready for when the person your inviting inevitably says they already have plans. Invite them for the next event or the event after that. Once you have them on the phone or in person you want to lock them in for a date they can commit to. A date with destiny...
Joshua Walters, MH Oakland
-Before an event I like to compile a short list of the people I met that month and make a personal call to those who are in the area. It seems so simple but it has such a good response, especially when compared to email. People who I just met want to come to my house because I'm welcoming them into my home for the first time. "Plus," I tell them, "there will be lamb."
-Also, as a 7+ house there's always another event right around the corner, which is why i do block invites. A block invite is simply having the next event in your back pocket ready for when the person your inviting inevitably says they already have plans. Invite them for the next event or the event after that. Once you have them on the phone or in person you want to lock them in for a date they can commit to. A date with destiny...
Joshua Walters, MH Oakland
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.
Friday, December 4, 2009
MHBeijing December blog
In Beijing, the internet is obviously a trickier tool to utilize fully. The most notable wrench in the system was when Facebook was blocked earlier this year. We had, and still have, a pretty large Moishe House Beijing Facebook group, with people constantly requesting to join, and all of our events (aside from smaller shabbat dinners) were posted as Facebook events.
At the end of this summer, with so much programming coming up with the High Holidays, we regrouped and discussed how to address the fact that the Facebook hiatus was feeling permanent. We decided to create a Googlegroup listserve, and by now this is our primary means of internet communication with our regulars. The list has over 70 people, and the best part is that housemates and other people use it to share articles and other events (like a regular participant's art opening). I think ultimately the Googlegroup is a more successful combined discussion/notification tool than Facebook for our community, especially but not only because of Great Firewall issues.
As far as bringing in new faces, MHBeijing is an expat entity, so there is always new blood flowing through our community veins. Often through word of mouth, or meeting newcomers at the egalitarian minyan, people find their way to our house. Also, I think the far-flung factor works in our favor to attract attention from people outside of Beijing. I am the contact person on the Moishe House website, and I get several emails a month from people who are going to move to China, or just passing through, or even have a curious question about our somewhat surprising existence. We almost always get a mention in any article about Moishe House, whether it's written in England or New Jersey. The interest in China keeps us on many people's radars.
At the end of this summer, with so much programming coming up with the High Holidays, we regrouped and discussed how to address the fact that the Facebook hiatus was feeling permanent. We decided to create a Googlegroup listserve, and by now this is our primary means of internet communication with our regulars. The list has over 70 people, and the best part is that housemates and other people use it to share articles and other events (like a regular participant's art opening). I think ultimately the Googlegroup is a more successful combined discussion/notification tool than Facebook for our community, especially but not only because of Great Firewall issues.
As far as bringing in new faces, MHBeijing is an expat entity, so there is always new blood flowing through our community veins. Often through word of mouth, or meeting newcomers at the egalitarian minyan, people find their way to our house. Also, I think the far-flung factor works in our favor to attract attention from people outside of Beijing. I am the contact person on the Moishe House website, and I get several emails a month from people who are going to move to China, or just passing through, or even have a curious question about our somewhat surprising existence. We almost always get a mention in any article about Moishe House, whether it's written in England or New Jersey. The interest in China keeps us on many people's radars.
Moishe House is Co-Sponsoring Inside The Activist Studio
This Year, Moishe House is proud to be a National Co-Sponsor of Inside the Activist's Studio!
The who, what, where, when is below. But Moishe House is thankful to our friends at Avodah-AJWS for inviting us to Co-Sponsor this event. We encourage everyone to go!
The who, what, where, when is below. But Moishe House is thankful to our friends at Avodah-AJWS for inviting us to Co-Sponsor this event. We encourage everyone to go!
Inside the Activists’ Studio
Sunday, December 6th
Join us to learn from and be energized by local Jewish change-makers and to celebrate the multitude of ways we are collectively working to create a more just and equitable world.
PANEL DISCUSSION WITH:
Carinne Luck – Deputy field director, JStreet / independent food activist
Alan Lungen – Attorney and Darfuri refugee advocate
Avi Rosenthalis – JFREJ member organizer on housing justice / Rude Mechanical Orchestra
SKILLS SHARE WORKSHOPS WITH:
Suzanne Grossman – Career coach, LYJ – Love Your Job
Alison Hirsch – Assistant Political Director of East Coast and Federal Programs, SEIU 32BJ
Isaac Luria – Campaigns Director, JStreet
Alissa Wise – Program Director, Ma’ayan
…and others still TBA!
Reception with dinner and spoken word performances will follow.
Emceed and with special performances by Daniel “Fritz” Hershel Silber-Baker, award winning slam poet and Brooklyn-based community activist.
Date: Sunday, December 6th
Time: 4pm-9pm, registration at 3:30pm
Place: Congregation Beth Elohim at 274 Garfield Place, in Park Slope, Brooklyn
Cost: Sliding scale, $8 - $18 (nobody will be turned away for lack of funds)
For more information and to register, visit http://whoinspiresyou.
Hosted by the AJWS-AVODAH Partnership and our partners:
Jewschool.com, the New Israel Fund’s New Generations, Uri L’Tzedek, and the Young Leaders of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Co-sponsored by:
Adamah, Bronfman Youth Fellowships, Congregation Beth Elohim / Brooklyn Jews, B’nai Jeshurun, Hazon, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Moishe House, Teva Learning Center, Zeek, and others TBA.
Sunday, December 6th
Join us to learn from and be energized by local Jewish change-makers and to celebrate the multitude of ways we are collectively working to create a more just and equitable world.
PANEL DISCUSSION WITH:
Carinne Luck – Deputy field director, JStreet / independent food activist
Alan Lungen – Attorney and Darfuri refugee advocate
Avi Rosenthalis – JFREJ member organizer on housing justice / Rude Mechanical Orchestra
SKILLS SHARE WORKSHOPS WITH:
Suzanne Grossman – Career coach, LYJ – Love Your Job
Alison Hirsch – Assistant Political Director of East Coast and Federal Programs, SEIU 32BJ
Isaac Luria – Campaigns Director, JStreet
Alissa Wise – Program Director, Ma’ayan
…and others still TBA!
Reception with dinner and spoken word performances will follow.
Emceed and with special performances by Daniel “Fritz” Hershel Silber-Baker, award winning slam poet and Brooklyn-based community activist.
Date: Sunday, December 6th
Time: 4pm-9pm, registration at 3:30pm
Place: Congregation Beth Elohim at 274 Garfield Place, in Park Slope, Brooklyn
Cost: Sliding scale, $8 - $18 (nobody will be turned away for lack of funds)
For more information and to register, visit http://whoinspiresyou.
Hosted by the AJWS-AVODAH Partnership and our partners:
Jewschool.com, the New Israel Fund’s New Generations, Uri L’Tzedek, and the Young Leaders of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Co-sponsored by:
Adamah, Bronfman Youth Fellowships, Congregation Beth Elohim / Brooklyn Jews, B’nai Jeshurun, Hazon, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Moishe House, Teva Learning Center, Zeek, and others TBA.
Moishe House SF: Outreach BLOG
Up until recently, events at our house were packed to capacity. Not that our house is empty now, but, things for sure have mellowed out a bit. For most of the last year (since I've lived here at least!) to be honest we didn't focus much on outreach. It happened spontaneously and organically -- one of us residents would be going about our normal daily lives and hangin' with our friends, would meet someone new, would be chatting about our lives, what we do, where we live. Inevitably living in MH would come up. We, being naturally amped and stoked on what we do, would rave and gush about our gorgeous house, our packed events, how fun it all is, and this new 'friend' would wanna come on by. We'd throw them on our email list, invite them to an upcoming shabbat, and that'd be it.
Lately though, I think we've reached a certain saturation point with our friends, and our friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. And some of the folks who have been coming for a year are getting busy with other things, are moving on, are less excited than when they initially came by the house. I think this sort of ebb and flow is natural in a crew of people our age. So, outreach is something we've actually been talking about a bit lately. How will we get new faces? How can we make sure our programming is fresh enough that people who have been coming for years still want to come back?
In working to ramp up outreach, a big thing we have been focusing on is getting one or two new housemates. One of our roommates is moving out, and we are using this as an opportunity to ensure we bring someone in who has a distinctly different connection to the larger San Francisco Jewish community than those of us currently in the house. We also have a small 'guest room' that we are considering filling with a full time roommate as well. We are really excited to be interviewing some folks for the room(s?) that we don't know at all, and don't have tons of mutual friends with. Of course we like living with friends, but that won't help bring new people in to moishe house events. We are emphasizing in our search that although we think it's great if we can help a new resident get plugged in to a Jewish scene in SF, we'd much prefer someone who already has a solid crew of Jewish friends that they'd love to share our programming with and invite in to our community. Also, since at our house we all sway to the slightly older side of 20-30 (26, 27, and 28) we've talked about purposely bringing in someone new that's 24 or 25... so that we don't have all of our own friends aging out, and so that we can make sure our house is also welcoming and non-intimidating for the more recent college grad types. So, that's one thing on the near horizon that we are hoping well help boost numbers and increase our ability to reach out to more people.
Also, we have been following up on our mass emailings with personalized emails and outreach to our own friends. Each of us does this in our own way, but for example... let's say on Thursday we have a barbacue and movie night... perhaps it was a week or two ago the mass email went out. So, during the few days leading up to the event, I might shoot an email to a few friends I think would be particularly interested, whenever we sign on to our MH gmail account we'd make sure our status message on gchat says something about the event, we definitely have it online on our calendar, and one or two of us might also throw it up as a status message on our personal facebook accounts. We each also text a few friends. It's a big mix of communication methods and different technology.
At the end of the day though, it's personal contact that is the best for outreach. Whether that's chatting someone up at a party, or sitting and connecting with someone new who shows up for one of our shabbats. That's the way to go. Having outgoing, social housemates, who are involved in other outside pursuits that connect them to others has worked as a way to spread the word. Think about how many people we each reach -- between work friends, sports team friends, high school friends, college friends, grad school friends, people we volunteer with and more!
Lately though, I think we've reached a certain saturation point with our friends, and our friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. And some of the folks who have been coming for a year are getting busy with other things, are moving on, are less excited than when they initially came by the house. I think this sort of ebb and flow is natural in a crew of people our age. So, outreach is something we've actually been talking about a bit lately. How will we get new faces? How can we make sure our programming is fresh enough that people who have been coming for years still want to come back?
In working to ramp up outreach, a big thing we have been focusing on is getting one or two new housemates. One of our roommates is moving out, and we are using this as an opportunity to ensure we bring someone in who has a distinctly different connection to the larger San Francisco Jewish community than those of us currently in the house. We also have a small 'guest room' that we are considering filling with a full time roommate as well. We are really excited to be interviewing some folks for the room(s?) that we don't know at all, and don't have tons of mutual friends with. Of course we like living with friends, but that won't help bring new people in to moishe house events. We are emphasizing in our search that although we think it's great if we can help a new resident get plugged in to a Jewish scene in SF, we'd much prefer someone who already has a solid crew of Jewish friends that they'd love to share our programming with and invite in to our community. Also, since at our house we all sway to the slightly older side of 20-30 (26, 27, and 28) we've talked about purposely bringing in someone new that's 24 or 25... so that we don't have all of our own friends aging out, and so that we can make sure our house is also welcoming and non-intimidating for the more recent college grad types. So, that's one thing on the near horizon that we are hoping well help boost numbers and increase our ability to reach out to more people.
Also, we have been following up on our mass emailings with personalized emails and outreach to our own friends. Each of us does this in our own way, but for example... let's say on Thursday we have a barbacue and movie night... perhaps it was a week or two ago the mass email went out. So, during the few days leading up to the event, I might shoot an email to a few friends I think would be particularly interested, whenever we sign on to our MH gmail account we'd make sure our status message on gchat says something about the event, we definitely have it online on our calendar, and one or two of us might also throw it up as a status message on our personal facebook accounts. We each also text a few friends. It's a big mix of communication methods and different technology.
At the end of the day though, it's personal contact that is the best for outreach. Whether that's chatting someone up at a party, or sitting and connecting with someone new who shows up for one of our shabbats. That's the way to go. Having outgoing, social housemates, who are involved in other outside pursuits that connect them to others has worked as a way to spread the word. Think about how many people we each reach -- between work friends, sports team friends, high school friends, college friends, grad school friends, people we volunteer with and more!
MH Warsaw
We at MH Warsaw just love to organize events! The process of discussing the cuisine or deciding who to invite for a lecture is usually almost as much fun as the event itself ;)
But even the best planned event without any guests is like a plant without water. There are many ways to invite people but only a few both work and give satisfying results.
Going around the streets and inviting random people what probably make our events the biggest in the MH family but it's not what we're after, is it? On the other hand choosing who to invite to rigorously would make them elite but to small.
Before you decide what method of inviting people to pursue, you should think how big an event you want to organize. If it's between three and ten (not counting MH residents) probably the best way to invite them personally. This gives you an opportunity to choose people by hand at the same time guaranteeing that you will know who will come. It has another advantage - people like being invited, it makes them feel special.
If your goal is ten - twenty people the best way to achieve it is by sending mail. It’s still somewhat personal but much easier than to call everyone.
When you organize medium sized event it's not important that everyone invited will come so a mailing list fits perfectly.
Last but not least if you want to organize a big event the best way to do so is through facebook. I don't think I have to explain this one :)
We also often (for medium and big events) invite members of the Polish Jewish Youth Organization of which we're all members through their forums and sometimes mailing list.
But even the best planned event without any guests is like a plant without water. There are many ways to invite people but only a few both work and give satisfying results.
Going around the streets and inviting random people what probably make our events the biggest in the MH family but it's not what we're after, is it? On the other hand choosing who to invite to rigorously would make them elite but to small.
Before you decide what method of inviting people to pursue, you should think how big an event you want to organize. If it's between three and ten (not counting MH residents) probably the best way to invite them personally. This gives you an opportunity to choose people by hand at the same time guaranteeing that you will know who will come. It has another advantage - people like being invited, it makes them feel special.
If your goal is ten - twenty people the best way to achieve it is by sending mail. It’s still somewhat personal but much easier than to call everyone.
When you organize medium sized event it's not important that everyone invited will come so a mailing list fits perfectly.
Last but not least if you want to organize a big event the best way to do so is through facebook. I don't think I have to explain this one :)
We also often (for medium and big events) invite members of the Polish Jewish Youth Organization of which we're all members through their forums and sometimes mailing list.
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