TC Jewfolk: Where Are We Going?

This Sunday, August 3rd, will mark FIVE years since we launched TC Jewfolk. That’s absolutely insane. Our baby is starting kindergarten. Those of you with kids who have crossed that threshold know how we must feel. Awe. Excitement. A slight (or major) case of the jitters.

TC Jewfolk has grown from a Facebook group for young people to connect about Jewish events that they would actually want to attend (circa 2008) to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to celebrating “a thousand ways to be Jewish” and committed to providing readers with wide-ranging entry points for engaging outwardly in Jewish life locally and reflecting inwardly on Jewish identity without being proscriptive about what it means to be Jewish today.

We’ve changed from a website with one point of view (mine) to a dynamic hub of diverse Minnesota Jewish voices writing on everything from Israel to Jewish food, local politics to Jewish theater, and everything in between.  We are cultivating new content with new regular bloggers writing about Jewish parenting, local Jewish campus life, and the Jewish elements of the Twin Cities’ happening arts and culture scene.

Most significantly, you, our community of readers, supporters, advisers, and champions has grown exponentially. Approximately 15,000 of you read TC Jewfolk every month, and almost 2,000 of you connect with us in our dynamic Facebook community.  Many of you live in Minnesota, but almost as many of you live in one of the other 50 states, or one of hundreds of other countries.  Some of you have read TC Jewfolk since our humble beginnings, and others have only joined the community in recent weeks. For those who have donated, we’ve been moved by your meaningful donations of everything from $5 to $5000 to help strengthen TC Jewfolk ever the years.  We are SO excited and SO thankful for you, our community.

Speaking of supporters, we are so lucky to have the support of several local foundations including both the Minneapolis Jewish Federation and the Jewish Federation of Greater Saint Paul.  In 2014, TC Jewfolk was awarded a grant from Minneapolis Jewish Federation “Innovation Fund” (Pool for Communal Priorities) to conduct a strategic planning and visioning process.  We brought in a consultant to work with our Board of Directors and several of our key constituents to analyze our mission, vision, goals, and impact.

Because we value transparency, think you will be interested in reading TC Jewfolk’s Full 2014-2017 Strategic Plan as developed with our consultants, and because we are revving up for an exciting wave of change for our organization (more on that Sunday), we wanted to publish the Strategic Plan here. Enjoy, and please feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

Click here to read TC Jewfolk’s 2014-2017 Strategic Plan:

So, as the title of this post asks, “Where are we going?” The Strategic Plan will give you a taste, but more details to come when we turn FIVE this Sunday! 

(Photo: Grant Hutchinson)