The following is a guest blog post by Joelle Kaufman, President of the Board of Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City, CA.

My day job is to create and manage marketing organizations for Silicon Valley start-ups, and in all cases, my strategy must be based on messages that are both true and emotionally compelling. Likewise, as President of the Board of Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City, CA, I advocate for the school in my community and think about what messages will work best here.

While I know what it is about day school that resonates most deeply with me, my marketing experience tells me that there is no one-size-fits-all message that demonstrates the value of our school to everyone in my community. So, when I think about crafting my messages about Wornick, I segment my message to appeal to different audiences.

Here are five messages that I find to resonate with different people in my community:

“Thrivalism”: Many prospective parents want their children to thrive as adults and resonate with the idea that day school will give their child that edge that will better ensure their lifetime prosperity and happiness. To these parents we can emphasize the competitive edge of Wornick’s bi-lingual Hebrew-English curriculum: in a “flat world” connected by technology and trade, multi-culturalism, and multi-linguism are key competitive advantages. And I spread this message through my blogging and ambassadorship (e.g. this post on the success of our students in high school).

Critical Thinking and Discourse: As a senior executive for multiple companies, I have interviewed well over 500 candidates over the last 10 years—and the ones I recommend and hire can articulate a point of view, demonstrate leadership and flexibility and have outstanding communication skills. Experts argue that critical thinking skills represent the biggest gap in the American education system; but Jewish education shines in this regard since it is based on the principles of Talmudic discourse. In every subject, students are expected to ask good questions, give thoughtful answers based on facts in text, engage in debate, defend their position and respect other perspectives. These are the skills I seek in every individual I hire.

Jewish Community & Connection to Israel: Many of the Israeli parents at Wornick resonate with the community, Hebrew language, and connection to Israel that are essential components of our school.

Continuity: It’s also important at times to emphasize continuity, since grandparent and community donors often connect with this message.

STEM: Finally, the news is full of alarms regarding the U.S. competitive advantage in STEM—Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  Jewish education ties closely with Israel, one of the world leaders in STEM education and innovation. At Wornick, our students are collaborating on STEM projects with their peers at our twin school, the Reali School of Haifa.

What messages do you use to promote the value of your school? Which audiences are you reaching with these messages? Is there an audience you’d like to approach but aren’t sure what messages will resonate with them? Send us your comments, and let’s start a conversation!

Sooner or later, every day school professional has to deliver the Elevator Pitch.

You know, the efficient, brief story designed to enchant a prospective donor (or parent or Board member) into saying YES to your JDS.

The problem with pitching: It’s impossible to see yourself in action. JDS pitches are usually private affairs, just between you and, say, the would-be donor. There is no footage to be reviewed in the after-game analysis. Who can remember exactly what was said, let alone how you looked or if you delivered a compelling pitch.

Until now.

We are offering you, at the 2012 North American Jewish Day School Conference, the rare opportunity to get a good look at your pitching style and some informed feedback from your own personal pitching coach. That is, a seasoned day school professional with enough experience to say what is and isn’t a persuasive verbal proposal. We call it the PEJE Pitch Slam. (Turns out, some joker went and made an animation about said Pitch Slam!)

Here’s how it will work…

You’ll sign up at the PEJE booth for a slot.

At the allotted time, you’ll meet with our videographer and the two of your will adjoin to—where else?—the elevator. Then you will record your pitch. Afterwards, a PEJE pitching coach will assess your skills.

Now, for those of you who are interested but aren’t sure what goes into a good presentation, think of the following as you prepare your pitch:

1. Be concise. Shouldn’t take more than a minute. Time yourself.
2. Be honest. There’s no room in the elevator for phoniness. Stick to the facts. 
3. Be excited. You’re trying to drum up interest here. Now is the time to showcase your enthusiasm.
4. Be targeted. If you’re talking to, say, an Israeli who believes in the centrality of Hebrew language skills, perhaps deliver your pitch in Ivrit. Don’t sell someone on your school’s social action work if they’re really focused on instilling a sense of Jewish history in kids.
5. Be proud. You’re pitching for a great cause: Jewish education!

If you’d like to throw your hat into Pitch Slam ring, send us an email to reserve your place in the elevator!

The following is a guest post by Jon Mitzmacher, Head of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, in Jacksonville, Florida.

It all started a few weeks ago, when I was digging up material for a “Parent University” course I teach with some parents in our day school. I somehow unearthed this piece, from The Jewish Week, about the creation of Yeshivat He’Atid, a school that, according to its website, “aims to be a leader in re-envisioning the classroom to incorporate 21st century educational approaches.” The article sparked off some great conversations about the connection between affordability and 21^st century technology, something this new model of JDS seems to represent. It even carried over to a meeting with our school’s 21st century learning team, which then evolved into a hearty debate on the educational merits of devoting some portion of the curriculum to distance learning experiences. This idea, different from the “flipped classroom” (I like this blog post’s definition best) may reduce contact time between teachers and students and thus runs counter to how our school understands 21st century learning.

A few weeks later, with these ideas still lodged in my head, I attended the Day School Leadership Training Institute’s (DSLTI) Alumni Retreat. This wonderful program brings together alumni and current fellows from all the cohorts—there are now seven—who have attended the 18-month program that prepares people to run a Jewish day school. It represents a cross-section of relatively new or soon-to-be Heads of every flavor, size, and model who have the chance to learn from various mentors and thought leaders.

During the retreat, we were blessed to spend some quality time with Rabbi Joshua Elkin. Rabbi Elkin, who recently stepped down as PEJE’s Executive Director, presented to us some fascinating ideas—one of which was the theory of “entrepreneurial leadership” and how it might apply to leading Jewish day schools. For definitional purposes, Rabbi Elkin pointed us to a classic Harvard Business Review article, in which authors Stevenson and Gumpert state that general entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources one currently controls. He also cited a 2011 article, “Entrepreneurial Leadership: What is It and How Should It Be Taught?”, which suggests that entrepreneurial leadership “should be about developing appropriate abilities with which to combine, exploit, and maintain the particular capabilities of entrepreneurial teams, especially balancing creativity, influence, a particular attitude to risk, and an ability to access scarce resources strategically.”

All of which—the critical thinking, reflective practice, and collaboration—sounds pretty 21st century, no?

Yes.

Rabbi Elkin encouraged us to employ the theory of entrepreneurial leadership as leaders of Jewish day schools because it frees us from a false choice. Sometimes it feels like we can either bemoan our lack of resources or we spend our time trying to acquire resources. But what would it mean to pursue “opportunity” beyond the resources one currently controls?

Yeshivat He’Atid is striving to build a model that moves “beyond resources”: by employing technology and innovative classroom design, this “yeshiva of the future” aims to reduce costs (presumably in teacher salaries) to make JDS more affordable. It refuses to accept that Jewish day schools must be either expensive or inferior and it is easy to see why it has attracted so much hope and attention.

But Yeshivat He’Atid is not alone.

Margolin Hebrew Academy/Feinstone Yeshiva of the South, another Orthodox Jewish day school, is walking a similar entrepreneurial path. They employ technology to connect students throughout all its programs, but especially through its JcoonecT program, which bridges middle and high school students from small Jewish communities in meaningful academic ways.

In my school, the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, we eased on down yet another road. MJGDS has recently undergone a three-year process in which we redefined job descriptions of non-classroom teachers to include 21st century learning profiles. Our “Technology Teacher” has become a “21st Century Learning Consultant.”  Our “Librarian” is now a “21st Century Media & Literacy Specialist.” We call the “Academic Resource Teacher” a “21st Century Pedagogy Consultant.”  In this way, we maintain the core elements of each person’s job—we still have books to catalogue in the library, keyboarding skills to teach, and remediation to perform—while stretching each into coaching and collaborating relationships with faculty in their areas of expertise. This has allowed us to transform teaching and learning in our school without adjusting the budget at all.

In addition, having been bit by the prosumerism bug, we are currently exploring research grants and for-profit partnerships that would allow our teachers and students to create apps and games. As we have bumped up against the edge of the possible, we are eager to teach our teachers and students how to create apps that do not yet exist that would allow us to take our teaching and learning to the next level (that’s how we incorporate STEM). We are also beginning to explore with a new thought partner, Rabbi Owen Gottlieb, opportunities to pilot applications of gaming theory to Jewish day school curriculum. Both of these ventures bring with them commercial possibilities that could help the school grow its resources. It takes Alan November’s “digital learning farm” out of the metaphor and into reality. Not only would students be making meaningful contributions to society through their work; they might be making financial contributions to their school as entrepreneurial student-leaders.

To conclude, here are some questions for you:

• What are some examples from your schools? What would it mean for you day school’s leadership team or board to adopt an entrepreneurial leadership stance? What might this mean for the field?
• Tell us, in the Comments section, about how your school’s current (or future) adventures in entrepreneurial education.

One of the things PEJE learned from poring over 141 Challenge Award applications—Yes: 141!—is that there’s a considerable amount of innovation in the Jewish day school world. Schools are pushing themselves like never before to rethink their approach to development, admissions, and advocacy, with a clear eye on long-term financial sustainability.

Reading all the great work you’ve done, we thought, “Why aren’t schools doing more to make this public?” And then we realized: We can help publicize your efforts!

We want to work with you to create an online celebration of your innovation. This is a chance not just to get the word out to your online kehillah, but to step out in front of the entire field and show what great work you’ve done. To get you started, here are several ideas:

1. Shoot a quick video, with your smartphone, of the happy person/people who drove your innovation project. Then email it to PEJE (ken@peje.org) and we’ll share it with the entire field, via social media. (BTW: When we do post your stuff on the PEJE FB page, please encourage your community to visit and comment and in general show a lot of love.)
2. And/Or … shoot a video of your school community lighting the menorah. Your innovations have brightened the Jewish day school field—let the light shine out!
3. Write a blog post telling your Board, parents, and donors what you’ve been up to—and why. This will be a chance for you to go into the details of what made your project so great.  You’ve already put so much work into writing those award applications. Why not refashion them into a blog post! Psst: If we like what you’ve written, we may cross-post it on the PEJE Blog.
4. Transform your post into an email blast. Not everyone in your world will be checking Facebook, so it’s a very good idea to, say, repurpose your blog post and send it off to the many in-boxes in your JDS community.
5. For the Twitter-users out there: Post a series of celebratory tweets using the hashtag #jdsinnovation. I can see this leading to some interesting conversations! We see this as a way for all you innovators to meet each other: we’d love for you folks to compare notes and see what else we can learn.
6. Innovation Celebration at NAJDS. Quite a few Challenge Award applicants will be attending the North American Jewish Day School conference, in Atlanta, next month. Please RSVP at Facebook page.  We can’t wait to make our first offline Challenge Award introductions.

Wait: Do you have an innovative idea about getting the word out? If so, what are you waiting for? Let’s hear about it in the Comments section!

Are you a collaborator?

I’m talking about collaboration between day schools—something smart and vital to the fiscal health of Jewish day schools in 2011, and beyond.

Well, perhaps you are a collaborator. After all, Jewish day schools all over North America are starting to understand how to maximize the power of community collaboration. Still, there are many communities out there that have yet to fully embrace this model. But it works: schools that collaborate are able to access many more communal resources—and different types of community resources—than any one school can on its own.

But don’t take our word for it.

Look at the Baltimore Jewish Day School Consortium, a collaboration of four Baltimore area schools (The Shoshana S. Cardin School, Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, Krieger Schechter Day School, and The Day School at Baltimore Hebrew), facilitated by Baltimore’s Center for Jewish Education (CJE). Their collaboration has enabled these schools to pursue broader and more sophisticated marketing strategies with THE ASSOCIATED as a result of the CJE connection.

Joan Feldman, Communications Director at Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, told me that, on its own, her school has previously been able to get an hour of THE ASSOCIATED staff’s time for a marketing consultation. “But,” she says, “collaboration has been a game changer for us.” It all began in 2009 when these schools came together to jointly develop a website and advertise in local media. The schools had begun this work on their own but turned to THE ASSSOCIATED for help in improving their website and growing their social media presence. Maayan Jaffe, Marketing & Communications Manager at THE ASSOCIATED, has been working closely with the Consortium during the past year and has leveraged many of THE ASSOCIATED’s resources to help the schools access a larger market. She has been able to provide these resources in large part because, as she puts it, “It’s not one school versus another.”

With Maayan’s help, the Consortium has created a multi-touch marketing campaign that incorporates both online and brick-and-mortar messaging for these schools as a collective. Their website now boasts a brand created with the help of THE ASSOCIATED’s marketing department. Not only that: they’ve been able to move beyond merely having a static website to having a blog that features rotating stories from all four schools, a Facebook page, displays at local JCCs, and emails that market the schools to THE ASSOCIATED’s lists of thousands of young families and community members dedicated to Jewish learning. These four schools, which otherwise might have had difficulty getting the word out about open houses or their value propositions, are now able to spread their message to literally thousands of families within their potential market. They even get THE ASSOCIATED’s favorable ad rate when marketing at the JCCs or the Baltimore Jewish Times.

As Joan Feldman explained, “We all realize that having a common front is to the benefit of each of our schools.” The community might say no to a single day school asking for this or that, but saying no to the Jewish Day School Consortium is like “saying no to motherhood and apple pie.” The key here:  only through collaborating with each other, the CJE, and THE ASSOCIATED have the schools in the Consortium been able to access these resources.

Let us know if you are a collaborator, of if you’d like to become one.  And if the schools in your community are collaborating, don’t be shy about it! Tell us, here in the friendly Comments section below, how collaborating has changed the way you approach the business of Jewish day school.

Guest blogger Amy L. Sales, Ph.D., is senior researcher at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University.

“Think globally, act locally.” The mantra of the early environmental movement continues to hold great wisdom. The phrase instructs us to think: to gather, analyze, and interpret information in order to gain perspective. It tells us that our thinking is to be global, to extend beyond our current horizons and take into account the potential impact of our actions on the systems and society of which we are a part. It also tells us that our action is to be local—targeted to the immediate setting in which we operate. The expression suggests that, if our view is large enough, our actions (as local as they may be) will change the world.

I am reminded of this saying when I speak with Jewish day school administrators about working with PEJE and JData on our joint data-collection project. Often the administrator asks, “Why should I put my school’s numbers into JData? I already know them.” The answer is that until your numbers are aggregated with those of other day schools, you cannot get perspective on the field in which you are operating, nor can you comprehend your school’s place in the larger system.

In many regards, JData is like the U.S. Census. Citizens complete their census form because it is required by law. But like the day school administrator, they might ask, “Why should I fill out the form? I already know how many people live in my household.” The answer is that our democracy relies on the U.S. Census and critical decisions are based on it. These range from how many representatives each state has in the U.S. Congress to how $400 billion in funding is allocated to communities each year. The data are also used by state and local governments to decide the location of new housing and to plan transportation, health, and education systems. Businesses use the data to forecast future demand or to determine locations for expansion, to name just two more applications. Any one of us might feel that not filling out the form will make no difference. But if many people embrace this attitude then, as a nation, we would lack sufficient information to make critical decisions.

JData’s mission is to collect statistics on the field of Jewish education—namely, the people who deliver and receive this education, and what the education costs. The statistics available from JData are used by national agencies and foundations as well as local federations and central agencies for Jewish education. As with the census, the data from any one school is most valuable when it is aggregated with those from other schools. Only then can we get an accurate picture of the size and shape of the field; track enrollment and cost over time; compare population figures to school enrollments; identify communities for day school expansion; and see the total cost of Jewish day schools—a number that underscores the enormity of the enterprise and makes the best case for outside funding.

Unlike the U.S. Census, JData is building tools that help day school professionals use the data. The new longitudinal report, for example, displays the school’s data year-by-year, giving school leadership a top-line view of change over time. With this view it is possible to identify positive trends that can help make the case for the school or more problematic trends that might suggest action to be taken. The newly redesigned comparison report juxtaposes the school’s own data with that of similar schools. This report can inform discussions about next year’s tuition, the success of recruitment efforts, or any other topic related to the various metrics in the JData profile. Easy access to these reports has obvious benefits for the school’s communications, fundraising, staff transitions, board training, planning, and the like.

Daniel Elazar, political scientist of the Jewish world, wrote of locals and cosmopolitans. Locals understand the Jewish world through the lens of their own school, synagogue, or community. Cosmopolitans, in contrast, are interested in the big picture. They appreciate historical and contemporary trends; they participate in Jewish public discourse; and they see their place in the larger Jewish world. The problem is that locals do not see the need for common information systems that enable the rest of us to get the big picture—the data we need to support the system overall and to make change.

Kania and Kramer, in the Winter 2011 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, describe the success of collective impact initiatives in solving the intractable problems of public school education. Their research shows that a condition of success is the existence of a shared measurement system. If you have a technical problem, you can solve it from a local perspective. For example, if you need to improve parent involvement in the school or raise parent satisfaction, your school can do so on its own. But if the problem is an adaptive one, then collective action may be the only way to solve it. Adaptive problems are complex, the solution is not known, and no single entity has the resources or authority to make the necessary change. The long-term sustainable funding of Jewish day schools is proving to be just such a problem. The same may be true of the need to convince those outside of the Orthodox world of the importance of an intensive Jewish education. No school will solve these problems on its own.

Putting your information into JData means that you understand that you are part of a field of practice. It suggests that you appreciate the efforts by national foundations and organizations like PEJE to build the capacity of the field, to articulate its value and purpose to the public, and to set a vision for creating and maintaining high quality Jewish day schools for each and every Jewish child. Keeping your data to yourself might help you understand your own school. But putting your data into JData can serve your needs while also helping to draw the national picture and providing basic information needed to strengthen the entire Jewish day school field.

Yes, act locally. But think globally. When it comes to collective impact, we all depend on each other.

I’m a newbie on Twitter.  We’ve recently created a flashy Twitter handle @pejeadvocacy for PEJE’s Advocacy Initiative (please follow us!), and a zippy profile to match. I’m still learning about this alternate world of communication, with retweets, replies, and miniscule URLs being thrown around like torn wrapping paper the first night of Chanukah.  (If you’re new to Twitter, here’s a tutorial from PEJE’s Sustained! webzine.)

My favorite aspect of Twitter-ese is the hashtag, which is the means by which people identify remarks and conversations in Twitter. In its most literal sense, a hashtag is a word preceded by a pound sign (#).

So, if I go into Twitter and search for “#Israel” I will be able to read any and all tweets that use that hashtag. In fact, I will be able to participate in a worldwide conversation about Israel, even if I’ve never met the person I’m tweeting with before. The hashtag aligns all the conversations around a given topic and allows everyone to participate.

So, why am I talking hashtags? Because I think the hashtag mirrors the way PEJE works and what we are trying to do with advocacy in the day school world. For almost 15 years, day schools have looked to PEJE to support their critical work: increasing enrollment, disseminating innovative fundraising practices, marketing, and advocating for their schools in the community. PEJE’s role has been to “hashtag” these practices. That is, we’ve created designated places and times for these specific day school conversations, and helped to lead the field in key dialogues. For instance, through the Communities of Practice (CoPs), PEJE convenes day school leaders across the continent through email lists and conference calls, uniting the field in a conversation about particular aspects of day school administration. PEJE creates community around these ideas—annual campaigns, enrollment, etc.—and spurs innovation by connecting day school leaders and providing our own expertise.

While PEJE has always been in the business of day school advocacy, it is only now that we are beginning to hashtag it (try #jdsadvocacy). We are now naming advocacy as a discrete category of day school administration and we’re committed to transforming the way communities advocate for day school. Like we’ve done with development and admission, we are creating a toolkit that will provide the field with best practices and expertise around effective advocacy. We are also bringing this advocacy conversation to our blog to highlight best practices. And I will be traveling to communities to advance local advocacy efforts through on-the-ground guidance and support.

The time to act is now. Let’s join forces in our communal day school advocacy efforts to create a body of knowledge around what works. I’ve had the pleasure of learning from several communities about their techniques and tactics, and I look forward to speaking with more of you in the days and weeks ahead. If you have a great idea to share, share it! Write a comment here, or you can always reach me on email at ross@peje.org. Or, of course, you can tweet us @pejeadvocacy . . . but don’t forget the hashtag! #jdsadvocacy

The following is a guest blog post by Dan Cohen, Board President of Oakland (California) Hebrew Day School;  Debbie Bamberger, Board President of Tehiyah Day School; and Lisa Sadikman, Board Secretary of  Contra Costa Jewish Day School.

Put 40 Jewish education leaders in a room and surround them with good food and a collaborative environment… What do you predict will happen? Will they engage in a six-hour debate about the phrase “sustainability”? Or perhaps begin to address some of the thorniest problems in the day school field?

Last week, three Bay Area day schools (Oakland Hebrew Day School, Tehiyah Day School, and Contra Costa Jewish Day School) decided to find out. We convened—with the assistance of Cheryl Alpert, PEJE’s Strategy Manager for Advocacy and Marketing—for a first-ever Joint Board Meeting, to look for sustainability solutions for our whole community.

The result was greater—much greater—than we had planned. In fact, the enthusiasm generated among our three workgroups was so overwhelming that we plan to continue shared efforts in the months ahead. The meeting was electric in feeling and charged with possibility. Please consider this to be our initial report to the day school world. We hope it can be useful to other schools/communities facing similar challenges.

1. Finance/Financial Sustainability Group

The Financial folks invested much time on three central ideas:

Building a community endowment to support financial aid. This idea has been built in communities across the country.  We’d like to do the same. One interesting wrinkle we explored: a pre-tax feature that could enable lower tuition to fund (collectively) financial aid/scholarship. The question we asked ourselves, “Could we lower tuition and instead collect contributions to a charitable endowment collective?”

Exploring every cost-sharing option available. The participants warmed to this idea but found that there may be limited near-term savings. However, collaborating on joint marketing efforts at preschools and community-wide advocacy might yield enrollment, marketing, or development successes yet unidentified.

Finally, the burden on families today requires creativity beyond the resources of the individual schools. To that end, we wondered if an interest-free, or low-interest, tuition loan program might appeal to the general community. 

2. Marketing/Community Advocacy Group

“How do Jewish day schools get on the short list for consideration by Jewish families looking at kindergarten?” the Marketing Advocacy group asked itself. Which led to a sub-question: “How do we get Jewish preschools and the rabbinate to advocate for Jewish day schools?”

The lack of obvious answers prompted Cheryl Alpert to say, “A lot of what we need to do needs inventing.”

We concurred. After much conversation, the group produced the following big ideas: 

Leveraging Our “Finished” Product. Our most salient proof points for the value we offer are our graduates and our graduating students.  We will explore ways to engage our 7^th and 8^th graders in community service/education efforts at Jewish preschools.

Make Choosing a Day School an Easier Decision. We talked about offering monetary credit for families who are about to enroll their first child in a day school. This program has been attempted in other communities and even by one of our schools, but we can’t sustain this on our own—it has to be a community commitment. 

Take Digital Marketing Up a Few Notches. Each of the schools uses social and digital media for marketing. While we recognize face-to-face communication is crucial, having a strong on-line presence, especially as we reach out to prospective parents and donors, will be a crucial tie-breaker. We discussed creating a joint marketing effort, collaborating on Facebook/YouTube pages that aggregate our successes, and conducting interviews with former skeptics who have become our strongest advocates.

3. Development/Endowment Group

One of the schools, OHDS, has recently completed a successful launch of an endowment campaign with over $2 million raised. Another school, CCJDS, has been able to identify and make deep connections with donors with vast means, but no prior connection to day school. Tehiyah has recently added capacity on the professional and lay side to target leadership donors. Each of the schools also participated in a community-wide legacy giving effort sponsored by the Jewish Federation and Foundation of the East Bay. 

Each school realizes that we must exhaust every opportunity to sustain our schools through endowment and legacy. However, there are many possible donors who have yet to connect with our shared mission and we recognize that only through joint efforts can we connect to them. 

We talked through the notion that we have an “at-risk” Jewish population here in the East Bay. We felt we could work together to highlight day school as a crucial solution to the high risk of assimilation so prevalent here. Through this effort, we may be able to address our fundraising efforts to a wider circle of philanthropies and donors, especially to those who otherwise tend to give to local needs.

Many of the ideas that emerged from this workgroup echoed the Finance & Marketing group—not a huge surprise. Much of the discussion centered on creating a community endowment.  However, what was noteworthy was the urgency and immediacy of the next steps this group felt.  We brainstormed names of possible donors, foundations, and key connectors, and concluded:  The fight for our shared future begins with contacts we make today.

Newly Opened Paths

Our East Bay effort is just taking its first steps, but we’re thrilled at the new paths that have opened for us. What gives us special hope is that we know we’re not the only ones walking this road: there are other areas around the country in which this sort of communal approach is moving forward.

If you’d like to know more about how our collaborative project turns out, keep an eye on this blog (you haven’t heard the last from us!); and if you’d like to share your own collaborative experiences, please respond them in the comments section below.

The more we share, the more we’ll learn—and the more financially sustainable we will ultimately become. We are excited about the possibilities!

Happy collaborating!