Letter from the President

It has been about a year since the conclusion of the 2017 Indianapolis Jewish Community Study, and what a year it has been! The results from the Study in turn informed our Strategic Planning efforts, and we have been busy making plans and taking action.

Among the things we learned was that we have nearly 10,000 unaffiliated Jews living in the greater Indianapolis area. We saw this as an indication that we needed to ramp up our engagement efforts in our programming, communications, and importantly, our collaboration with other local Jewish organizations.

With the help of the expert consultants at PlanningPlus and with input from more than 100 community members, we created a strategic plan for our organization, including new mission and vision statements, which you can learn more about on pages 12-13. Most significantly, we have also formalized our values as a Federation serving our Jewish community. Along with our Jewish values of tikkun olam (repairing the world), tzedakah (justice, fairness, and righteous giving), and gemilut hasadim (acts of loving kindness), they are:

• Collaboration

• Compassion

• Diversity and Inclusion

• Engagement

• Innovation and Creativity

• Responsible Stewardship

These values cement JFGI’s dedication to the present and future of our Jewish community. We will continue our work to build and maintain a vibrant, engaged, and inclusive Jewish community where everyone is welcome by offering diverse points of entry. We must also offer services that enable community members to not only survive but thrive. We will be working together with our agency partners to help them flourish and ensure that community needs are met, for we understand that a rising tide lifts all boats.

This is where you come in: we need your financial support and your involvement in order to make these big dreams come true. Thank you to everyone who has helped bring us closer to this year’s Annual Campaign goal of $4 million; you can see how close we really are on page 6.

To help streamline our message and fundraising efforts, we are changing our Annual Campaign schedule from a 16-month campaign to a 12-month campaign. In order to meet our goals, we will need to raise more donations in less time, from more donors. A gift of $18 from each new donor to JFGI would be transformational — we thank you in advance for making a meaningful gift.

On behalf of the JFGI Board of Directors, I sincerely thank you for your support of our Federation and the community.

Chanukah sameach!

Michael J. Rubin, President