8 | JUNE 30 • 2022 

PURELY COMMENTARY

guest column
A New Strategic Plan for 
Jewish Family Service
H

appy New (Fiscal) 
Year! It’s not early 
this year. It’s always 
right on time. We Jewish 
organizations have lots of years 
to organize us: Jewish, secular 
and, yes, fiscal.
We also have 
lots holding us 
accountable. 
Funders. 
Contracts. The 
community. The 
people we serve.
Contrary to 
what many believe about us 
so-called “nonprofit” Jewish 
human service organizations, 
we are complicated businesses, 
with multiple bottom lines. The 
“nonprofit” moniker is a tax 
status.
Jewish Family Service’s 
bottom lines are 1) Financial 
and 2) Impact. Please don’t 
define us by what we are not, 
but rather, by what we are … a 
social impact organization.
A year ago, Jewish Family 
Service exited merger talks 
with JVS Human Services and 
Kadima, which now, together, is 
Gesher Human Services. With 
this exit, we needed to define 
ourselves and our future and 
hold ourselves accountable to 
our bottom lines. We embarked 
on a strategic planning process 
and adopted a strategic plan 
that we have implemented as 
of June 1. (That’s right, the 
beginning of our fiscal year) 
We did all the things: 
gathered a steering committee, 
hired a consultancy (Veralon, 
veralon.com) to shepherd us 
through (thanks to the Jewish 
Fund for its support on this 

[and all things JFS!]), conducted 
focus groups …
And now we have a five-
year strategic plan that will be 
our roadmap amidst what will 
undoubtedly be challenging 
times. 
Before I declare some of the 
strategic plan’s directions, let 
me expand my already too-long 

context-providing preface.
Jewish Family Service always 
aspires to act strategically. 
Arguably, we’re successful at 
this a lot of the time. Part of 
the strategic plan then is to 
take a step back and be more 
intentional than we can be from 
our day-to-day reactive perch.
Not everything that Jewish 
Family Service does strategically 
made it in to this strategic plan. 
Nor should it have. What is 
called out here is what needs to 
be called out here. For example, 
that the population of people 
identifying as Orthodox is 
growing, and that Jewish Family 
Service needs to continue to 
strategically be relevant to and 
welcoming of the Orthodox 
communities, is not in the 
strategic plan, but is how we 

strategically function daily.
The strategic plan helps chart 
Jewish Family Service’s future, 
but we can’t know everything. 
Pandemics, wars, floods and 
recessions come to mind. When 
(and if) bad things happen that 
are not known or knowable, 
Jewish Family Service will 
respond, if it’s true to our 

mission, even if not specified in 
the plan.

OUR FIVE-YEAR PLAN
Starting with the mission, the 
rest flows from there. Jewish 
Family Service’s mission 
statement is: Inspired by Jewish 
values, we improve lives through 
service.
Next, we looked at and did 
not alter our vision statement, 
the words that describe 
our ultimate aspiration: A 
community in which no person 
faces life’s challenges alone.
Then, we thought about how 
we want to do our work and 
landed on this values statement:
JFS honors its Jewish values, 
including recognizing the 
dignity of all people (B’tzelem 
Elokim) and the call to care for 

others (Chesed) to strengthen 
the Jewish community and the 
broader community. We do this 
by focusing on:
• Respect — We honor 
the dignity of all people, 
empowering those we serve 
with care that is sensitive to 
individual and cultural needs. 
• Kindness — We believe 
in the good of all people. We 
serve others with compassion, 
empathy, generosity and 
without judgement.
• Diversity — We embrace 
diversity in all its forms and 
serve and employ people of 
all backgrounds. We foster an 
equitable and inclusive culture 
allowing individuals to thrive 
on their own terms.
• Integrity — We hold 
ourselves to the highest 
standard in all aspects of our 
work. We are dependable and 
accountable to each other 
and pride ourselves as good 
stewards of the agency. 
• Collaboration — We 
work together to cultivate 
relationships with those 
we serve and the broader 
community to provide 
comprehensive and high-quality 
service. 
From here we identified 
several critical planning issues 
as the scaffolding of the plan:
• Mental Health Needs
• Team (i.e., the JFS 
workforce)
• Diversity, Equity and 
Inclusion (DEI)
• Financial Sustainability 
From here we landed on 17 
initiatives, which we will tackle 
for five years. The ones we 
landed on to start this (fiscal) 

Perry Ohren

