Moishe House Chisinau - February Blog - Partnerships

As our Moishe House is not an organization, it unites young people from Sohnut, Hillel, ICC, Haverim, Art Labyrinth, Tolerance Club. These organizations are our main partners. For us partnership can be divided into 3 forms: when we organize an event for our partner, when we take part in partners' event or when we collaborate preparing a big program or project. Working together we share our methods and knowledge. In future we also want to have a financial support from our partners. We are looking forward collaborating with Modern Art Organizations and with Eshcol (Jewish education). We want to have close partnership with Hillel, using its recourses and space for our programs.

MohoDen

What role do partnerships play in your monthly programming?

Big role in terms of tikkun olam events. We're also new, so have been interested in exploring what else goes on in our community -- this often leads to new partnerships.

What do you look for in a potential partner?

"Like-minded" organizations with potential synergies that are mutually beneficial

What organizations do you work with in your community?

HEA, Ramah in the Rockies, Rose Community Foundation, Homeless shelters, etc

How have other organizations influenced your Moishe House?

All organizattions we've worked with so far have been a positive experience.

Who would you like to partner with that you haven't yet and why?

Ramah of the Rockies -- time more than anything --- we're doing a fundraiser for them this month.

Stl MH Feb Blog Prompt

I would say here in St. Louis, partnerships more find us than we look for Partnerships. St. Louis has an overabundance of organizations trying to program to the young adult. We try to have an event with an outside person atleast once a month whether its a shabbat out of the house or an event being put on by another organization. In the past, we have had partnerships with a good amount of organizations including young adult groups, temples, charitable organizations, and organizations that fall outside of the Jewish category. Attendance to those events has been relatively stable, we don't seem to pull more people when we have partnered up, but there are so many other factors involved that its hard to tell. When we have partnered, it has always been compromises in terms of the planning so we end up with a better event that caters to more types/groups than we would have had. In the future, we are looking forward most to partnering with SLIC in regards to the Yom Haatzmut event we are planning, we would like to partner with possibly some more charitable organizations and maybe some entertainment establishments to get a better variety of events in.

Partnerships at Moishe House Boston

Here at Moishe House Boston, partnerships play an essential part of monthly programmings. Boston is such a vibrant community, with so many cool programs, social justice groups, institutions already in place. So many of our community members are also involved in many of these organizations, whether they be Jewish, volunteer-related, or professional associations. So, we at Moishe House Boston have quickly realized that we can maximize our energy, resources, and impact by teaming up with partner organizations, rather than compete with them.

Our partnerships take many forms. One form is collaborating with existing non-profits to promote social justice. For instance, one of our most longstanding partnership is with City Life, Vida Urbana, an outstanding housing/tenants rights group that has a proven track record for helping people stay in their homes in the Boston area. We teamed up with City Life over two years ago. City Life provides the addresses of foreclosed properties, the canvassing training, and the organizing strategy; we at Moishe House bring people eager to volunteer!

Another form of partnership is with organizations similar in mission, values, or membership base. For instance, many of our community members are involved in Boston's Workmen's Circle, a secular, Jewish, progress community that is just down the street from our house. Like us, the Workmen's Circle is committed to social justice and has a long tradition of labor organizing. We have partnered with Workmen's Circle on a number of programs, including a bi-monthly skill-share, a peace vigil for the Gaza War, current Jewish-Muslim programming, and our efforts on housing justice.

Finally, we have established partnerships with organizations that may differ from us in significant ways, but with whom working together represents a specific value, in and of itself. For instance, we have ongoing projects in coordination with young Muslim adults in the Boston area. Though our stances on a range of topics may differ, we believe that partnering with Muslim counterparts sends a powerful message to the broader Jewish community (and larger community in general) that we can and will rise above tensions, rivalries, or feelings of mistrust and that we are committed to building relationships, dialoguing, and finding points of commonality.

Each of these partnership forms are valuable in their own way, and, of course, pose their own challenges. But I think the challenges are well worth it!

Partnership in Warsaw

We, as a Moishe House residents all the time are thinking about potential partners. Currently we are working with almost all of Jewish organizations in Poland. We are very close with Polish Jewish Youth Organization and it's feel natural because Agnieszka was previous chairperson and Ania is present. We are planning our events together, when someone new is coming to us we're telling him about that organization and when new people are their events we're inviting them to us.
Our another close partner is Jewish Community in Warsaw. We'are attending their events, lectures,parties, MH residents and participants are volounteers and employees inside of the community. We are working with Jewish Agency for Israel as well (because we want all the people from Taglit at our events) With JDC we're using their space for our lectures and screenings, we once even had cooperation with Jewish Theatre in Warsaw- great shabbat at their patio!
When we are talking about Jewish organizations in Poland we need to mention that partnership is obvious, mostly because we're so small and of course together we can have bigger impact on potential members.

Moishe House SF - Let's be partners!

The word "partner" is thrown around frequently these days. Does that mean your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, lover, or all of the above? I'll leave that up to you. But for Moishe House, that means teaming up with another organization and co-sponsoring an event. We've been around a while in SF so a bunch of other organizations know about us and want to use us for our 450 person email list. However, it's not just a one way street because we often benefit from meeting new people from different organizations. For instance, we typically do a lag b'omer bonfire on the beach with Bay Area Tribe, a different jewish organization that focuses on many of the same goals as Moishe House.

Partnerships are wonderful when everyone provides an equal share of the effort with regards to promoting, inviting, setting up, and all the good stuff that goes into a good event. But when one of the groups involved is just looking to put up another name on the list of "co-sponsors," we'd recommend thinking twice about joining up. It's not a reason to not join in, but it's certainly something to consider.

Houses developing their email lists should try to partner as much as possible because it's a great way to show off Moishe House's strengths and to try and recruit folks for future events. That said, good luck with your partnerships!

MH Cape Town February Blog - Partnerships

As the centre of the Cape Town Jewish youth community, we are heavily involved with other organisations. First and foremost, we work in the Herzlia schools, as the house is situated directly below (or near to) 3 of the United Herzlia Schools family. As the only Jewish day school in Cape Town, we feel that it is very important to stay well connected to the school and we often run programmes for them, both educational, as well as being interactive and fun. We are also very involved in all three of the Jewish youth movement; Bnei Akiva, Habonim Dror and Netzer. When we run events for the house, often members of these youth movements take part in the activities with us and we have a very good relationship with all of them. Furthermore, we work with SAUJS (South African Union of Jewish Students) and Hagshama (which focuses very much on Zionism), both of which we, as a house, feel are important to the youth in the community, mainly those of university students and graduates, as the organisations focus very much on this age group. In terms of international organisations, we work with Ameinu, an American-based organisation which also focuses on Zionism and peace within Israel (last month we had the President of the American branch, Kenneth Bob, come and talk to us about the organisation) and Equal Education, an organisation with which we have very close bonds. Moishe House Cape feels extremely passionate about education and it is the focus of many of our discussions and events. Towards the beginning of the year, a few members of Equal Education came to talk to us about the organisation and ran some activities for us, as a way to be more involved in the concept of an equal education for all, as well as to have some knowledge of what the organisation does. Partnerships play a large role in our monthly programming and as previously mentioned, we often run events that involve other organisations, such as the ones for Ameinu and Equal Education. In terms of potential partnerships, we look for an organisation that embodies our beliefs and who will equally support us and attend our events and remain involved with us, as we do with them. As a house, we feel extremely passionate about working in the Herzlia schools, as well as with the youth movements, as they are the organisations that will shape the future of our community. Such organisations have influenced our Moishe House in that they allow us to remain involved in the community, as well as gear us towards being passionate and educated people. Moishe House Cape Town is extremely happy with the partnerships we currently have, but would like to branch out more and perhaps get involved in more South-African based organisations, as we feel this would be extremely fulfilling and beneficial to the house as a whole.