All About The Jewish Day School Social Media Academy 2013-14

The Jewish Day School Media Academy – an exciting initiative to help schools advance their work in the connected age – is a year-long program that provides schools with new tools and strategies for fund development, recruitment, and alumni engagement in the social media age, and creates a framework to put the schools’ new skills to work, and mature their internal operations. Schools that are accepted participate in an intensive year of training, coaching and project-based learning, and are encouraged to share their learning and accomplishments with the field.

If you are wondering if this program is something worth joining, read The Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy’s Social Media Journey. In this piece, Carri Garelick, Advancement Associate of Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy in Beverly Hills, California, discusses how this program has generated—amongst many other things—increased traffic to their website. She also illustrates how the goals of their social media venues are now multi-tiered.

Components of The Jewish Day School Social Media Academy include:

• Webinar series to build skills and explore social media and network strategies;

• Three “action oriented” projects: Social media experiment, social fundraising experiment, and developing (or updating) a social media policy;

• One-on-one coaching and consulting to support each school team in its project work and organizational progress in this area;

• Knowledge sharing and peer support through “Sharefest” webinars, blog posts, and a facilitated Facebook group;

• Up to $10,000 matching funds for the social fundraising experiment. These funds are distributed at the end of the Academy for schools that complete all Academy requirements.

The Jewish Day School Media Academy is currently accepting applications for 2013-2014. The cohort will be approximately 20 day schools. Qualified schools will have an interest in social media and network building, be willing and able to dedicate 5-10 hours/month to the program, and be willing to take risks and try new things.

The Jewish Day School Social Media Academy has a unique fee structure. Thanks to the generosity of The AVI CHAI Foundation, which is significantly subsidizing the costs of the program and offering important matching funds, the cost per school is only $10,000. Funds raised by participating schools as part of the The Jewish Day School Social Media Academy’s social fundraising project, will be matched by AVI CHAI up to $10,000, for a possible total of $20,000 in revenue for the school.

Schools are also welcome to engage local donors, foundations or federations to sponsor their participation, but a $10,000 commitment is required upon acceptance to the Academy. Organizers are happy to provide support as you reach out to local funding partners. This means that you have the potential to not only recoup your investment in the training and coaching, but to also come out financially ahead!