September 15, 2025 • 34 mins
Reuben D. Rotman is the founding President and CEO of the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies. The Network was established in 2017 following the merger of two predecessor associations, as an international membership association, with the mission of strengthening and advancing the Jewish human service sector.
Today, The Network serves as the leading voice for the sector; the go-to for best practice research, innovation, and partnerships. Supporting its 180+ member organizations, The Network’s goal is to strengthen the capacities of its member agencies and to advance the scope and impact of the Jewish human service sector.
Reuben came to the Network having served as the CEO of Jewish Family Service of MetroWest New Jersey, where he held several increasingly responsible positions for 21 years. Previously, Reuben held positions with UJA Federation of New York, Jewish Family Service of Metropolitan Detroit and Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
Reuben currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of SourceAmerica, which connects the non-profit sector to the US Federal government and commercial sectors to secure employment opportunities for persons with disabilities, and also serves as the Treasurer of the Board of Directors of Social Current, a national organization which seeks to activate the power of the social sector by bringing together a dynamic network of human service organizations and partners. In 2021, Reuben was included among the listing of the international listing of the 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life, as published by the Algemeiner Publication.
Reuben earned a double Master of Arts from Brandeis University; in the Management of Human Services from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management and in Jewish Communal Service from the Hornstein Program for Jewish Professional Leadership. Reuben also earned his Bachelor of Arts in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and in Sociology also from Brandeis University.
Today, The Network serves as the leading voice for the sector; the go-to for best practice research, innovation, and partnerships. Supporting its 180+ member organizations, The Network’s goal is to strengthen the capacities of its member agencies and to advance the scope and impact of the Jewish human service sector.
Reuben came to the Network having served as the CEO of Jewish Family Service of MetroWest New Jersey, where he held several increasingly responsible positions for 21 years. Previously, Reuben held positions with UJA Federation of New York, Jewish Family Service of Metropolitan Detroit and Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
Reuben currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of SourceAmerica, which connects the non-profit sector to the US Federal government and commercial sectors to secure employment opportunities for persons with disabilities, and also serves as the Treasurer of the Board of Directors of Social Current, a national organization which seeks to activate the power of the social sector by bringing together a dynamic network of human service organizations and partners. In 2021, Reuben was included among the listing of the international listing of the 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life, as published by the Algemeiner Publication.
Reuben earned a double Master of Arts from Brandeis University; in the Management of Human Services from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management and in Jewish Communal Service from the Hornstein Program for Jewish Professional Leadership. Reuben also earned his Bachelor of Arts in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and in Sociology also from Brandeis University.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and T Bank presents CEOs. You should know Howard
by iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Let's meet Ruben Rotman. He is the president and CEO
for the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, also known
as the Network, a membership association of over one hundred
and seventy nonprofit organizations in the United States, Canada, and Israel.
It's a leading voice for the Jewish human service sector,
focusing on strengthening its member agencies and amplifying their impact.
(00:27):
The Network provides support, resources, and advocacy to its members,
who offer a wide range of services to both Jewish
and general communities.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Before we talk more about.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Ruben's nonprofit, I first asked him to talk a little
bit about himself, where he's from and his origin story.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm from the Greater Boston area outside of Boston, Massachusetts,
and I grew up there and I went to Brandeis
University for my undergraduate degree and two separate graduate degrees
as well.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Outstanding and when you were coming out of school, what
did you want to do?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
So initially I thought I was interested in the field
of community relations, and I was looking for a position
that put me in a role that would facilitate some
programmatic and advocacy efforts between the Jewish community and the
(01:21):
non Jewish community. And I also was very interested in
the role of helping nonprofits access funding from government. And
I ended up right out of right out of undergraduate
having a position with a new startup nonprofit that grew
(01:45):
out of an internship that I held when I was
working when I was a student. And the internship that
I that I enjoyed was with the State's Office of
Affirmative Action, and that internship, which I held for about
three different semesters, morphed into an invitation to join a
(02:08):
new startup nonprofit that was being established at the time
to help minority in women own businesses and nonprofits secure
contracts from state government. And I did that for a year.
It was a fascinating learning experience. I did a lot
of training and consulting with small nonprofits and small for
(02:34):
profit corporations, helping them to figure out contracts that made
sense for them, how to position themselves, how to write grants.
It was, you know, I was the only white male
on the team. I was the only Jewish individual on
(02:56):
the team. For lots of different reasons. It felt like
a great beginning, but it didn't feel like the right
spot where I wanted to grow and go further, and
it ended up happening. Turns out that about three years
later the nonprofit closed, so I got out before it
(03:22):
ended up, you know, needing to get out, you know, purposely.
So anyway, that's how I began, and that led me
to a graduate program, one in Jewish communal service, a
master's degree in Jewish Communal service, and the other a
master's degree in the management of human services. And I
(03:46):
really learned through that first job that the place where
I felt most comfortable was working in an organization that
was in the human service space, working in an organization
rooted in the Jewish community, but one that did work
(04:07):
beyond the Jewish community, outside of the Jewish community. And
so that's the career that I developed. And you know,
I've held positions since then in Jewish Federation systems as
well as in direct service agencies under the Jewish community auspices,
(04:30):
but always with the human serve as focus. Even when
I worked at Federation, I worked in agency planning and
relations and the focus was on the social service agencies
in the community.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, it's a not standing resume if you don't mind
me saying. And it also leads to my next question.
And we always love to hear the story of the
origin about why you join an organization. And with your
resume and all the incredible things that you've done, Ruben,
I can see why they were inter did in you
to join the network, but why were you interested in
joining them?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
So the network is first, You've got to understand the
origin story of the network itself. The network is right
now in its eighth year and it's the result of
a merger that happened in twenty seventeen between what was
the National Association that supported Jewish Family Service Agencies. There's
a network of about one hundred and twenty Jewish family
(05:25):
service agencies throughout the US and Canada, and that association
merged with the Association that supported the Jewish Vocational Service Agencies.
That was a smaller association, but again they operated in
the US and Canada and supported a network of vocational
(05:48):
service providers that provided workforce development and employment services. And
they were supporting organizations in the US, Canada and in Israel.
And the vision for the network really grew out of
your recognition that in many, many, many local communities there
(06:10):
had been either a merger locally of the Jewish family
Service and the Jewish Vocational Service already, or there were
Jewish family service agencies delivering vocational services, or there were
vocational service agencies feeling that they needed to expand their
service offerings to include things that would typically take place
(06:34):
in a family service agency. So the seeds of the
need were bubbling from the local communities. And then beyond that,
there was also a recognition that there were other nonprofits
that were operating under Jewish community auspices that were identified
(06:56):
as human service providers but were neither a family service
or vocational So these are agencies that are, for example,
disability providers, elder care providers, food and security providers, refugee
resettlement providers, addictions domestic violence, and they were never part
(07:20):
of either of the two predecessor associations. So all of
these conversations were like bubbling for a few years, and
there were the time came where the right people were
sitting at the right table at the right time, where
(07:41):
everybody felt, you know what, like, we've got to have
this conversation. These two associations aren't meeting the needs necessarily
of their own members and they're also not meeting the
needs of the broader sector. Is it time for something different?
What is that time? And all this was happening, I
(08:02):
was serving on the board of the Family Service Association,
and I was serving as the CEO of the Jewish
Family Service Agency, and I myself was asked to serve
on the steering committee that led to the group that
had these conversations. And as these conversations continued, and it
(08:26):
was they took place over a series of about three years.
Actually it didn't happen in ten minutes, and the vision
for what this new entity was beginning to gel and
think about. I thought, well, wait a minute, I think
i'd like to leave that new entity. And so I
(08:46):
resigned from serving on the steering committee. And I said,
you know what, I don't think I should be on
this committee. You're about to launch a search for CEO.
I shouldn't be sitting at the table where they're deciding
the job description and what they want to do and
who they want to hire, because I think I might
be interested in the buying. And that's what happened. I
(09:09):
removed myself. I let that committee continue meeting on their
own for a few a year, or so and until
they they announced the search for CEO, and then I
went through the interview process and I was hired and
asked to lead the new entity. And so we're both
(09:32):
a combination of a startup and all the fun and
excitement and scary stuff that comes with being a startup,
and we're also the result of a merger and all
the legacy and the issues and the drama and the
whatever that come with a merger. And so that's where
(09:54):
we are. And it's been eight years of both building
something new well at the same time delivering services and
content and responding to issues. And our sector has lived
through a tremendous amount of issues and challenges in those
eight years, and we've evolved as an organization to address them.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Standing well, thank you for all that. It's a great story.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
And before I ask you about what do you exactly do,
because I think that's really important to give context everybody.
It sounds like you know in your situation, not only
the timing part of it, but you had intimate knowledge
about what was going on as this would be created.
And I only have enough to be dangerous as you're
telling the story, but this was a very large umbrella
of a lot of different entities, Yeah, trying to be
pulled together, but you had knowledge about what was going
(10:40):
on which made you a really good fit and why
you saw this could be the gig for me.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was ready for a change.
I had been in my previous organization for twenty one years,
and I was serving as the CEO for fourteen of
those twenty one years. I was ready for a change.
And I was beginning to think, you know, I'm not
(11:05):
ready to be retiring in this role. What would be
the next logical step for me? Where do I want
to go? And you know, I thought about do I
go to a larger agency? And then I thought, well,
I'm going to pick up and move my family to
another city, a different zip code, same set of issues,
(11:27):
but maybe different issues.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I didn't know if that was going to be the
right fit or not. And this opportunity felt new and
different and a significant challenge, but still in the focus
that I was passionate about working in, still in my
field of practice. And yeah, and it came down to
(11:52):
you know, you may choose to leave this in the
interview or not. It came down to me and another
candidate who was outside of the network, outside of our world.
And you know, ultimately this search committee needed to decide
did they want somebody who was perceived as internal but
(12:15):
only partly internal. I didn't come from the vocational service world,
and there was a perception that perhaps I was too
family service oriented, so I needed to address that perception,
or did they want somebody completely different on the outside. Anyway,
I'm glad that the committee chose.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Me right, And I've seen that in my industry too,
where you always wonder as a hiring manager, do you
get a fresh set of eyes that really don't know
the industry well or do you need somebody that knows
it intimately, And that's always the wrestling back and forth
that we would go through too. You kind of talked
about mission and vision, and I think we should do
this for everybody, because I know a lot of people
are being introduced to the network for the first time
(12:55):
that they're listening to this fantastic interview. So if you
were to give Rubin kind of a thirty five point
of view about what the network is, what would you
say that you do?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
The Network is a capacity building organization. Our focus is
to help our member organizations elevate the work that they do.
We help them solve the challenges that they encounter, and
we work on bringing them capacity building resources so they
could do their jobs better, easier, more efficiently and serve
(13:26):
the communities that they serve. We also, though simultaneously, serve
as the thought leader and the voice, the Jewish voice
of the human service sector. And so we care about
organizations in our sector that are not members of our
network because we believe that we have a strong role
(13:47):
to play to advocate for and elevate the scope and
the impact of the sector.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Well, let's talk about advocation.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I think this is a great segue because this is
really big on your list among other things that you
do with your almost team of twenty people there at
the network. When it comes to advocation, what does it
look like? What does it sound like? What's either a
week or a month look like for you, whether you're
doing Capitol Hill or you're in your region with people
there or different agencies, what does it look like when
(14:15):
you advocate?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, well, you know, the nonprofit sector right now is
under tremendous, tremendous scrutiny and tremendous pressure right now we're
living through a stage where the federal government in the
US is revisiting its historic partnership with nonprofit social service
(14:38):
providers and rethinking to what degree do they believe it's
the federal government's role to support those services or is
it the local state role to support those services? And
in many ways, social services and human services at large
are becoming bifurcated, so that in one state you might
(15:01):
have a certain array of resources and they're completely different
or not as extensive in a different state. So our
role at the national level is to advocate on behalf
of the entire sector and to speak to members of Congress,
the administration, federal departments about what are the issues that
(15:23):
we're navigating, what are the needs not only nationally, but
what are the needs locally, and we provide we provide
access to federal decision makers with a deep understanding of
local needs. We also, at the same time help to
educate our member agencies locally about how they could communicate
(15:47):
the impact of what they do with their local constituents,
with their elected officials, with their local media, with other
coalition partners. They need to be able to tell the
community who they they are and what they do, and
so we view advocacy not only in terms of elected
officials and government. We view advocacy in terms of promoting
(16:12):
the scope and the impact and the resources of the
Jewish human service sector to any potential user. The local
community needs to know what the agency does. The local
community needs to know who to reach out to when
they need help, and other organizations need to know who
to partner with. You know, when you're looking to help
(16:35):
an individual or a family in need, chances are those
needs are complex, they're multi layered, and in order to
deliver response, it's often the role of an agency to
help an individual put a patchwork of supports together. And
sometimes those supports come from one organization, but oftentimes they
(16:59):
come from multiple organizations and it's super complicated. And until
you run into a challenge you yourself as a community member,
you often don't realize how hard it is. If you
have an aging parent, or if you have a child
that's struggling in school, if you're dealing with a difficult
(17:21):
situation at work, if you're having issues with navigating resources
for a friend or a neighbor, you often need some
help with that navigation. Our agencies excel at that role
of helping people navigate resources in the community and finding
(17:44):
ways to strengthen and support individual and family life. We
also focus on supporting people throughout the life cycle because
it's often that you know, as visual, as children grow
at different stages, they have different needs. As adults grow
(18:08):
and get older at different stages, they also have different needs.
And so our agencies often will see clients coming in
and out of their organizations over the course of ten, fifteen,
twenty years, and that's very important. And the last piece
I'll share is that there is a perception that the
(18:31):
agencies that deliver services only serve the most low income,
the most at risk, the most vulnerable, and that is very,
very true, but they also serve people at any income
level at any stage. We are serving six figure you know,
(18:51):
wage journers who are having difficulties navigating support for our
aging parents, as well as people who are having a
hard time, you know, keeping food on their table. So
it's important to really lay that distinction out because I
think that community members often don't.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Realize that, well, that's amazing stuff, and I know you're
only hitting the tip of the iceberg, but I think
it's also another great segue Ruben to talk about funding
and how you are funded, because there are a lot
of balls in the air and it takes money.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So how does that work for you?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yes, yes, So, first of all, I want to answer
that question in two ways, because like any nonprofit, the
best practice is to have diversified revenue sources. And so
we do receive grants from private foundations, from corporate foundations,
from government, but we also receive donations from individuals, from
(19:52):
the members of our board, from individuals who have used
the services that participated in the offerings that we and
from others who just care about the sector. And we
also receive revenue from fees that we charge for different
services that we provide. First, as a membership association, we
(20:15):
charge membership dues or investment contributions that we call them,
where organizations that are part of the network agree to
pay some type of a fee to participate in what
we do. When we have a whole formula that we
use to apply and determine what that fee is, and
(20:36):
we charge fees to participate in offerings, not all of
the offerings, but some of the offerings we host an
the annual conference every year, there's a registration fee, etc.
Beyond that, and we provide some trainings that come with
continuing education units that we provide that we charge fees for.
(20:59):
And then we also do consulting and we help organizations
in our network with challenges that they're encountering where they're
asking us to lean in and work with them in
a meaningful way for an extended period of time, and
we serve as consultants and we'll engage with the organizations
(21:20):
as consultants to help them navigate a challenge, strategic planning,
a consideration of a merger, succession planning, you know, whatever
the project is. Local organizations, though, require the same diversification
of funding. So they depend on grants, they depend on fundraising,
(21:45):
they depend on fees, and they're delivering services to individuals.
So they're billing insurance, they're billing medicare, you know, they're
building long term care insurance, they're billing acade. So there's
a wide range of fees of different revenue sources. And
(22:07):
what I would say is that our organization today, when
we opened our doors eight years ago, we had basically
one main revenue source, which were the membership dues, and
now we probably have about twenty revenue sources.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
And the same thing with our local member agencies. The
typical nonprofit is tends to have, you know, a range
of twenty to thirty different revenue sources because they all
have their own you know, stream of funding and their
own requirements. And you know, when you have a grant,
(22:49):
for example, each grant has its own focus, its own
term meaning, its own year period, its own reporting requirements,
its own pain and structure. It becomes the whole thing. Yeah,
so we're managing about twenty of those.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I also remind people you never know when it's going
to dry up. And part of your job is a
salesperson for the network and here's what we're doing, and
here's how you can help, and that's its own job
in itself. I did want to talk about maybe a
great story, and I imagine over the eight years, you've
got some wonderful ones. And I realized that everybody else
rumined that the world is on fire right now and
all the heck is breaking loose out there. But I
(23:29):
imagine there's also some great things that you and your
small team are doing out there. And I know team
is everything, and I do want to talk about leadership
in just a moment. But I always ask people about
this is why we get up stories, this is why
we get up in the morning. You have something you
can share with us that was memorable to you and
meaningful that you'd like to share with them with the audience.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yes, absolutely, I'm going to talk with you about the
dynamic which has really become part of the fabric of
the network and part of the fabric of every local
agency that constitutes the network, and we're supporting about over
one hundred and seventy organizations today. And that dynamic is
the dynamic of crisis response. So the network launched on
(24:11):
May first, twenty seventeen, and about three months later, at
the end of August was Hurricane Hervey in Houston, and
we have a member agency in Houston, the JFS of Houston,
and that organization found itself literally overnight in the epicenter
(24:34):
not only of needing to become instantly a crisis responder
for their local community, but in need needing to navigate
the impact of what it meant to have your staff
and your board, and your volunteers and your donors also
be impacted by the crisis, so much so that they
were staff who lost their homes. There were clients who
(24:58):
lost their lives, and there were donors who today don't
live where they used to live and completely change the
way they live because of the impact of that devastating hurricane.
It was generational and life altering for Houston. And as
(25:19):
you know what's going on now in Central Texas, this
is a major dynamic impacting this country. And I would
argue around the globe the impact of climate change and
crisis response. And so what happened when Hurricane Harvey hit
was that we realized within like a minute that we
(25:42):
needed to support that agency, and we needed to do
it as a network. And so what that meant was
we at a network office, we got other members of
our network lined up to help our member in Houston
to be able to do the work that they did.
We had somebody who did their back office data processing.
(26:04):
That agency was in Philadelphia. We had another agency we
put together a Google line to be able to help
them to take intake calls. And we had social workers
from throughout the country who answered the phone on the
Google line to be able to address community needs.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
It all it was all hard on deck, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
All hands on deck?
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
We had our agency in Chicago providing support groups for
people living in Houston. We had our agency like it
was everybody. And I took from that example a realization
that wait a minute, prior to the network, we never
operated that way. We never had a structure and a
(26:48):
system and a philosophy of care to be able to
do that. We've morphed that into a bunch of different areas.
One is in the employment domain. When COVID launched, there
was a recognition that there were thousands of layoffs happening
all across the country, and we have agencies scattered throughout
(27:11):
the country, and people started reaching out to those agencies
that didn't live in those communities because they agencies started
to deliver services online instead of only in person, and
so the client would say, yeah, I need help finding
a job. Oh, by the way, I don't live in
your city. Does that matter? Like, I see what you
(27:32):
do online, I need help. And so we took that concept,
and we took that recognition of what was happening again
bubbling up from community members who were asking, and we
convene the agencies and we said, we think there's a
there there. We think that we have an opportunity to
restructure how we deliver employment services and to do it
(27:56):
as a collective system. Fast forward. We now have a program,
a National Workforce Program that we at the Network are
administering with nineteen agencies delivering services as a integrated continuum,
all online. They're connecting people with individual career counselors, They're
(28:17):
offering workshops and training. Every month, we are helping thousands
of people throughout the country fund jobs, and this is
continuing that you know, there are always people in need
for help with jobs, and those job searchers are happening
at all income levels, entry level, minimum wage and six
(28:37):
figure earners and everything in between. And so I think
what I take from this is we position the Network
not only as a capacity building resource for individual organizations,
but the network is a capacity building resource for national challenges.
And we're helping agencies navigate things that like a local
(29:01):
crisis response, a hurricane, a shooting, an anti submitted and
you know, an anti submitic incident that happens in a community.
We just rolled out an online Emergency Response Toolkit TELP
agencies to become better at preparedness because like it or not,
(29:22):
these crises that are happening in every city.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Right right, Well, listen, I appreciate you sharing that story.
It's extraordinary, And it also comes down to communication and leadership,
and that's something I want to ask you, if you
don't mind indulging me just for a second, rumen, because
we have a lot of CEOs and presidents and entrepreneurs
who listening to the series, but we also have a
lot of future entrepreneurs and presidents and here to listen
(29:45):
about leadership and what it takes to be a good leader. Now,
it's documented that you have a small team, but you
have a very wide net. So communication, leadership, culture, your passion,
a lot of things come into place. So when I
talk about leadership and it's specific why you doing what
does it mean?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
So for me, it means first and foremost understanding that
no individual, and I would argue no leader could do
their job alone. You need to surround yourself with a team.
You need to have resources, people that you could turn
to for guidance and support, and people that you could
turn to for inspiration and information. And so I am
(30:23):
constantly making sure that I am surrounding myself not only
with the staff who I work with and my team
but my broader team, which means the colleagues that I
have within our network and the colleagues that I have
outside of our network. That's the first thing. The second
thing is transparency and honesty. Again our sector, and I
(30:47):
would argue any industry that a CEO works in the
world today is way more complicated than it used to be.
Things are just intense on any level, from an economic perspective,
from a workforce recruitment and retention perspective, from a crisis
(31:09):
response perspective, from a view of government and intergroup relations,
and how people live and connect with others in their community,
in their family. And so I would argue that being
able to listen first to what people are saying without
(31:30):
speaking quickly, but listen, try to hear them, and being open,
honest and transparent about how you feel you're hearing them
and how you feel you could support and advance whatever
the challenge is that you're trying to address. We go
in our sector from challenge to challenge. We are living
(31:54):
through some intensely complicated times right now, and there's no
way I could demicate them alone without being open, honest, transparent,
and without having my own network to complement the network.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Well, that's really well said, and I know it's not
going to surprise you. A lot of the words that
you used are used by our other guests in this program,
but team is always used every single time, and about
hiring people that are smarter than you and trusting them
and all the things that you had talked about. I
do want to get some final thoughts from you, Rubin,
and we also want to give the website to everybody.
It's gorgeous, it is easy to navigate on them. There's
(32:31):
lots of information. But before we do that, maybe just
recap what we've talked about. Sir.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
The floor is yours, sure, so I would I would
say to you that the Network of Jewish Human Service
Agencies is a capacity building resource that works to elevate
the impact and scope of the Jewish human service sector.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
We help organizations navigate challenges and we help them thrive
to become the high impact, efficient providers of service that
they are in their local communities and nationally, we have
a group of national agencies in our network as well.
I would also say that living today in the world
(33:15):
is intense, it's complicated, it can be very very challenging,
organizations exist in the community to help people navigate challenges.
So if someone is listening to this that is running
into a personal challenge, a family challenge, a professional challenge,
there are organizations in the community to help you. Our
(33:38):
website network JHSA dot org has a list of our
member agencies or directory, but it also has sort of
a description of who we are and what we do. Again,
we're operating in a time of great uncertainty and volatility,
(33:58):
and it's my honor and privilege to lead this organization.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Every day outstanding and once again the passion comes through
Reuben and I love that. And this was a great interview,
and please continue to do all the great work of
you and your team are doing. Give my best to
your team, and thank you so much. I'm glad we
could feature you on CEOs you should Know.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Thank you, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs You
Should Know. Is part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
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M and T Bank presents CEOs. You should know Howard
by iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Let's meet Ruben Rotman. He is the president and CEO
for the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, also known
as the Network, a membership association of over one hundred
and seventy nonprofit organizations in the United States, Canada, and Israel.
It's a leading voice for the Jewish human service sector,
focusing on strengthening its member agencies and amplifying their impact.
(00:27):
The Network provides support, resources, and advocacy to its members,
who offer a wide range of services to both Jewish
and general communities.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Before we talk more about.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Ruben's nonprofit, I first asked him to talk a little
bit about himself, where he's from and his origin story.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm from the Greater Boston area outside of Boston, Massachusetts,
and I grew up there and I went to Brandeis
University for my undergraduate degree and two separate graduate degrees
as well.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Outstanding and when you were coming out of school, what
did you want to do?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
So initially I thought I was interested in the field
of community relations, and I was looking for a position
that put me in a role that would facilitate some
programmatic and advocacy efforts between the Jewish community and the
(01:21):
non Jewish community. And I also was very interested in
the role of helping nonprofits access funding from government. And
I ended up right out of right out of undergraduate
having a position with a new startup nonprofit that grew
(01:45):
out of an internship that I held when I was
working when I was a student. And the internship that
I that I enjoyed was with the State's Office of
Affirmative Action, and that internship, which I held for about
three different semesters, morphed into an invitation to join a
(02:08):
new startup nonprofit that was being established at the time
to help minority in women own businesses and nonprofits secure
contracts from state government. And I did that for a year.
It was a fascinating learning experience. I did a lot
of training and consulting with small nonprofits and small for
(02:34):
profit corporations, helping them to figure out contracts that made
sense for them, how to position themselves, how to write grants.
It was, you know, I was the only white male
on the team. I was the only Jewish individual on
(02:56):
the team. For lots of different reasons. It felt like
a great beginning, but it didn't feel like the right
spot where I wanted to grow and go further, and
it ended up happening. Turns out that about three years
later the nonprofit closed, so I got out before it
(03:22):
ended up, you know, needing to get out, you know, purposely.
So anyway, that's how I began, and that led me
to a graduate program, one in Jewish communal service, a
master's degree in Jewish Communal service, and the other a
master's degree in the management of human services. And I
(03:46):
really learned through that first job that the place where
I felt most comfortable was working in an organization that
was in the human service space, working in an organization
rooted in the Jewish community, but one that did work
(04:07):
beyond the Jewish community, outside of the Jewish community. And
so that's the career that I developed. And you know,
I've held positions since then in Jewish Federation systems as
well as in direct service agencies under the Jewish community auspices,
(04:30):
but always with the human serve as focus. Even when
I worked at Federation, I worked in agency planning and
relations and the focus was on the social service agencies
in the community.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, it's a not standing resume if you don't mind
me saying. And it also leads to my next question.
And we always love to hear the story of the
origin about why you join an organization. And with your
resume and all the incredible things that you've done, Ruben,
I can see why they were inter did in you
to join the network, but why were you interested in
joining them?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
So the network is first, You've got to understand the
origin story of the network itself. The network is right
now in its eighth year and it's the result of
a merger that happened in twenty seventeen between what was
the National Association that supported Jewish Family Service Agencies. There's
a network of about one hundred and twenty Jewish family
(05:25):
service agencies throughout the US and Canada, and that association
merged with the Association that supported the Jewish Vocational Service Agencies.
That was a smaller association, but again they operated in
the US and Canada and supported a network of vocational
(05:48):
service providers that provided workforce development and employment services. And
they were supporting organizations in the US, Canada and in Israel.
And the vision for the network really grew out of
your recognition that in many, many, many local communities there
(06:10):
had been either a merger locally of the Jewish family
Service and the Jewish Vocational Service already, or there were
Jewish family service agencies delivering vocational services, or there were
vocational service agencies feeling that they needed to expand their
service offerings to include things that would typically take place
(06:34):
in a family service agency. So the seeds of the
need were bubbling from the local communities. And then beyond that,
there was also a recognition that there were other nonprofits
that were operating under Jewish community auspices that were identified
(06:56):
as human service providers but were neither a family service
or vocational So these are agencies that are, for example,
disability providers, elder care providers, food and security providers, refugee
resettlement providers, addictions domestic violence, and they were never part
(07:20):
of either of the two predecessor associations. So all of
these conversations were like bubbling for a few years, and
there were the time came where the right people were
sitting at the right table at the right time, where
(07:41):
everybody felt, you know what, like, we've got to have
this conversation. These two associations aren't meeting the needs necessarily
of their own members and they're also not meeting the
needs of the broader sector. Is it time for something different?
What is that time? And all this was happening, I
(08:02):
was serving on the board of the Family Service Association,
and I was serving as the CEO of the Jewish
Family Service Agency, and I myself was asked to serve
on the steering committee that led to the group that
had these conversations. And as these conversations continued, and it
(08:26):
was they took place over a series of about three years.
Actually it didn't happen in ten minutes, and the vision
for what this new entity was beginning to gel and
think about. I thought, well, wait a minute, I think
i'd like to leave that new entity. And so I
(08:46):
resigned from serving on the steering committee. And I said,
you know what, I don't think I should be on
this committee. You're about to launch a search for CEO.
I shouldn't be sitting at the table where they're deciding
the job description and what they want to do and
who they want to hire, because I think I might
be interested in the buying. And that's what happened. I
(09:09):
removed myself. I let that committee continue meeting on their
own for a few a year, or so and until
they they announced the search for CEO, and then I
went through the interview process and I was hired and
asked to lead the new entity. And so we're both
(09:32):
a combination of a startup and all the fun and
excitement and scary stuff that comes with being a startup,
and we're also the result of a merger and all
the legacy and the issues and the drama and the
whatever that come with a merger. And so that's where
(09:54):
we are. And it's been eight years of both building
something new well at the same time delivering services and
content and responding to issues. And our sector has lived
through a tremendous amount of issues and challenges in those
eight years, and we've evolved as an organization to address them.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Standing well, thank you for all that. It's a great story.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
And before I ask you about what do you exactly do,
because I think that's really important to give context everybody.
It sounds like you know in your situation, not only
the timing part of it, but you had intimate knowledge
about what was going on as this would be created.
And I only have enough to be dangerous as you're
telling the story, but this was a very large umbrella
of a lot of different entities, Yeah, trying to be
pulled together, but you had knowledge about what was going
(10:40):
on which made you a really good fit and why
you saw this could be the gig for me.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was ready for a change.
I had been in my previous organization for twenty one years,
and I was serving as the CEO for fourteen of
those twenty one years. I was ready for a change.
And I was beginning to think, you know, I'm not
(11:05):
ready to be retiring in this role. What would be
the next logical step for me? Where do I want
to go? And you know, I thought about do I
go to a larger agency? And then I thought, well,
I'm going to pick up and move my family to
another city, a different zip code, same set of issues,
(11:27):
but maybe different issues.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I didn't know if that was going to be the
right fit or not. And this opportunity felt new and
different and a significant challenge, but still in the focus
that I was passionate about working in, still in my
field of practice. And yeah, and it came down to
(11:52):
you know, you may choose to leave this in the
interview or not. It came down to me and another
candidate who was outside of the network, outside of our world.
And you know, ultimately this search committee needed to decide
did they want somebody who was perceived as internal but
(12:15):
only partly internal. I didn't come from the vocational service world,
and there was a perception that perhaps I was too
family service oriented, so I needed to address that perception,
or did they want somebody completely different on the outside. Anyway,
I'm glad that the committee chose.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Me right, And I've seen that in my industry too,
where you always wonder as a hiring manager, do you
get a fresh set of eyes that really don't know
the industry well or do you need somebody that knows
it intimately, And that's always the wrestling back and forth
that we would go through too. You kind of talked
about mission and vision, and I think we should do
this for everybody, because I know a lot of people
are being introduced to the network for the first time
(12:55):
that they're listening to this fantastic interview. So if you
were to give Rubin kind of a thirty five point
of view about what the network is, what would you
say that you do?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
The Network is a capacity building organization. Our focus is
to help our member organizations elevate the work that they do.
We help them solve the challenges that they encounter, and
we work on bringing them capacity building resources so they
could do their jobs better, easier, more efficiently and serve
(13:26):
the communities that they serve. We also, though simultaneously, serve
as the thought leader and the voice, the Jewish voice
of the human service sector. And so we care about
organizations in our sector that are not members of our
network because we believe that we have a strong role
(13:47):
to play to advocate for and elevate the scope and
the impact of the sector.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Well, let's talk about advocation.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I think this is a great segue because this is
really big on your list among other things that you
do with your almost team of twenty people there at
the network. When it comes to advocation, what does it
look like? What does it sound like? What's either a
week or a month look like for you, whether you're
doing Capitol Hill or you're in your region with people
there or different agencies, what does it look like when
(14:15):
you advocate?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, well, you know, the nonprofit sector right now is
under tremendous, tremendous scrutiny and tremendous pressure right now we're
living through a stage where the federal government in the
US is revisiting its historic partnership with nonprofit social service
(14:38):
providers and rethinking to what degree do they believe it's
the federal government's role to support those services or is
it the local state role to support those services? And
in many ways, social services and human services at large
are becoming bifurcated, so that in one state you might
(15:01):
have a certain array of resources and they're completely different
or not as extensive in a different state. So our
role at the national level is to advocate on behalf
of the entire sector and to speak to members of Congress,
the administration, federal departments about what are the issues that
(15:23):
we're navigating, what are the needs not only nationally, but
what are the needs locally, and we provide we provide
access to federal decision makers with a deep understanding of
local needs. We also, at the same time help to
educate our member agencies locally about how they could communicate
(15:47):
the impact of what they do with their local constituents,
with their elected officials, with their local media, with other
coalition partners. They need to be able to tell the
community who they they are and what they do, and
so we view advocacy not only in terms of elected
officials and government. We view advocacy in terms of promoting
(16:12):
the scope and the impact and the resources of the
Jewish human service sector to any potential user. The local
community needs to know what the agency does. The local
community needs to know who to reach out to when
they need help, and other organizations need to know who
to partner with. You know, when you're looking to help
(16:35):
an individual or a family in need, chances are those
needs are complex, they're multi layered, and in order to
deliver response, it's often the role of an agency to
help an individual put a patchwork of supports together. And
sometimes those supports come from one organization, but oftentimes they
(16:59):
come from multiple organizations and it's super complicated. And until
you run into a challenge you yourself as a community member,
you often don't realize how hard it is. If you
have an aging parent, or if you have a child
that's struggling in school, if you're dealing with a difficult
(17:21):
situation at work, if you're having issues with navigating resources
for a friend or a neighbor, you often need some
help with that navigation. Our agencies excel at that role
of helping people navigate resources in the community and finding
(17:44):
ways to strengthen and support individual and family life. We
also focus on supporting people throughout the life cycle because
it's often that you know, as visual, as children grow
at different stages, they have different needs. As adults grow
(18:08):
and get older at different stages, they also have different needs.
And so our agencies often will see clients coming in
and out of their organizations over the course of ten, fifteen,
twenty years, and that's very important. And the last piece
I'll share is that there is a perception that the
(18:31):
agencies that deliver services only serve the most low income,
the most at risk, the most vulnerable, and that is very,
very true, but they also serve people at any income
level at any stage. We are serving six figure you know,
(18:51):
wage journers who are having difficulties navigating support for our
aging parents, as well as people who are having a
hard time, you know, keeping food on their table. So
it's important to really lay that distinction out because I
think that community members often don't.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Realize that, well, that's amazing stuff, and I know you're
only hitting the tip of the iceberg, but I think
it's also another great segue Ruben to talk about funding
and how you are funded, because there are a lot
of balls in the air and it takes money.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So how does that work for you?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yes, yes, So, first of all, I want to answer
that question in two ways, because like any nonprofit, the
best practice is to have diversified revenue sources. And so
we do receive grants from private foundations, from corporate foundations,
from government, but we also receive donations from individuals, from
(19:52):
the members of our board, from individuals who have used
the services that participated in the offerings that we and
from others who just care about the sector. And we
also receive revenue from fees that we charge for different
services that we provide. First, as a membership association, we
(20:15):
charge membership dues or investment contributions that we call them,
where organizations that are part of the network agree to
pay some type of a fee to participate in what
we do. When we have a whole formula that we
use to apply and determine what that fee is, and
(20:36):
we charge fees to participate in offerings, not all of
the offerings, but some of the offerings we host an
the annual conference every year, there's a registration fee, etc.
Beyond that, and we provide some trainings that come with
continuing education units that we provide that we charge fees for.
(20:59):
And then we also do consulting and we help organizations
in our network with challenges that they're encountering where they're
asking us to lean in and work with them in
a meaningful way for an extended period of time, and
we serve as consultants and we'll engage with the organizations
(21:20):
as consultants to help them navigate a challenge, strategic planning,
a consideration of a merger, succession planning, you know, whatever
the project is. Local organizations, though, require the same diversification
of funding. So they depend on grants, they depend on fundraising,
(21:45):
they depend on fees, and they're delivering services to individuals.
So they're billing insurance, they're billing medicare, you know, they're
building long term care insurance, they're billing acade. So there's
a wide range of fees of different revenue sources. And
(22:07):
what I would say is that our organization today, when
we opened our doors eight years ago, we had basically
one main revenue source, which were the membership dues, and
now we probably have about twenty revenue sources.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
And the same thing with our local member agencies. The
typical nonprofit is tends to have, you know, a range
of twenty to thirty different revenue sources because they all
have their own you know, stream of funding and their
own requirements. And you know, when you have a grant,
(22:49):
for example, each grant has its own focus, its own
term meaning, its own year period, its own reporting requirements,
its own pain and structure. It becomes the whole thing. Yeah,
so we're managing about twenty of those.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I also remind people you never know when it's going
to dry up. And part of your job is a
salesperson for the network and here's what we're doing, and
here's how you can help, and that's its own job
in itself. I did want to talk about maybe a
great story, and I imagine over the eight years, you've
got some wonderful ones. And I realized that everybody else
rumined that the world is on fire right now and
all the heck is breaking loose out there. But I
(23:29):
imagine there's also some great things that you and your
small team are doing out there. And I know team
is everything, and I do want to talk about leadership
in just a moment. But I always ask people about
this is why we get up stories, this is why
we get up in the morning. You have something you
can share with us that was memorable to you and
meaningful that you'd like to share with them with the audience.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yes, absolutely, I'm going to talk with you about the
dynamic which has really become part of the fabric of
the network and part of the fabric of every local
agency that constitutes the network, and we're supporting about over
one hundred and seventy organizations today. And that dynamic is
the dynamic of crisis response. So the network launched on
(24:11):
May first, twenty seventeen, and about three months later, at
the end of August was Hurricane Hervey in Houston, and
we have a member agency in Houston, the JFS of Houston,
and that organization found itself literally overnight in the epicenter
(24:34):
not only of needing to become instantly a crisis responder
for their local community, but in need needing to navigate
the impact of what it meant to have your staff
and your board, and your volunteers and your donors also
be impacted by the crisis, so much so that they
were staff who lost their homes. There were clients who
(24:58):
lost their lives, and there were donors who today don't
live where they used to live and completely change the
way they live because of the impact of that devastating hurricane.
It was generational and life altering for Houston. And as
(25:19):
you know what's going on now in Central Texas, this
is a major dynamic impacting this country. And I would
argue around the globe the impact of climate change and
crisis response. And so what happened when Hurricane Harvey hit
was that we realized within like a minute that we
(25:42):
needed to support that agency, and we needed to do
it as a network. And so what that meant was
we at a network office, we got other members of
our network lined up to help our member in Houston
to be able to do the work that they did.
We had somebody who did their back office data processing.
(26:04):
That agency was in Philadelphia. We had another agency we
put together a Google line to be able to help
them to take intake calls. And we had social workers
from throughout the country who answered the phone on the
Google line to be able to address community needs.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
It all it was all hard on deck, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
All hands on deck?
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
We had our agency in Chicago providing support groups for
people living in Houston. We had our agency like it
was everybody. And I took from that example a realization
that wait a minute, prior to the network, we never
operated that way. We never had a structure and a
(26:48):
system and a philosophy of care to be able to
do that. We've morphed that into a bunch of different areas.
One is in the employment domain. When COVID launched, there
was a recognition that there were thousands of layoffs happening
all across the country, and we have agencies scattered throughout
(27:11):
the country, and people started reaching out to those agencies
that didn't live in those communities because they agencies started
to deliver services online instead of only in person, and
so the client would say, yeah, I need help finding
a job. Oh, by the way, I don't live in
your city. Does that matter? Like, I see what you
(27:32):
do online, I need help. And so we took that concept,
and we took that recognition of what was happening again
bubbling up from community members who were asking, and we
convene the agencies and we said, we think there's a
there there. We think that we have an opportunity to
restructure how we deliver employment services and to do it
(27:56):
as a collective system. Fast forward. We now have a program,
a National Workforce Program that we at the Network are
administering with nineteen agencies delivering services as a integrated continuum,
all online. They're connecting people with individual career counselors, They're
(28:17):
offering workshops and training. Every month, we are helping thousands
of people throughout the country fund jobs, and this is
continuing that you know, there are always people in need
for help with jobs, and those job searchers are happening
at all income levels, entry level, minimum wage and six
(28:37):
figure earners and everything in between. And so I think
what I take from this is we position the Network
not only as a capacity building resource for individual organizations,
but the network is a capacity building resource for national challenges.
And we're helping agencies navigate things that like a local
(29:01):
crisis response, a hurricane, a shooting, an anti submitted and
you know, an anti submitic incident that happens in a community.
We just rolled out an online Emergency Response Toolkit TELP
agencies to become better at preparedness because like it or not,
(29:22):
these crises that are happening in every city.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Right right, Well, listen, I appreciate you sharing that story.
It's extraordinary, And it also comes down to communication and leadership,
and that's something I want to ask you, if you
don't mind indulging me just for a second, rumen, because
we have a lot of CEOs and presidents and entrepreneurs
who listening to the series, but we also have a
lot of future entrepreneurs and presidents and here to listen
(29:45):
about leadership and what it takes to be a good leader. Now,
it's documented that you have a small team, but you
have a very wide net. So communication, leadership, culture, your passion,
a lot of things come into place. So when I
talk about leadership and it's specific why you doing what
does it mean?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
So for me, it means first and foremost understanding that
no individual, and I would argue no leader could do
their job alone. You need to surround yourself with a team.
You need to have resources, people that you could turn
to for guidance and support, and people that you could
turn to for inspiration and information. And so I am
(30:23):
constantly making sure that I am surrounding myself not only
with the staff who I work with and my team
but my broader team, which means the colleagues that I
have within our network and the colleagues that I have
outside of our network. That's the first thing. The second
thing is transparency and honesty. Again our sector, and I
(30:47):
would argue any industry that a CEO works in the
world today is way more complicated than it used to be.
Things are just intense on any level, from an economic perspective,
from a workforce recruitment and retention perspective, from a crisis
(31:09):
response perspective, from a view of government and intergroup relations,
and how people live and connect with others in their community,
in their family. And so I would argue that being
able to listen first to what people are saying without
(31:30):
speaking quickly, but listen, try to hear them, and being open,
honest and transparent about how you feel you're hearing them
and how you feel you could support and advance whatever
the challenge is that you're trying to address. We go
in our sector from challenge to challenge. We are living
(31:54):
through some intensely complicated times right now, and there's no
way I could demicate them alone without being open, honest, transparent,
and without having my own network to complement the network.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Well, that's really well said, and I know it's not
going to surprise you. A lot of the words that
you used are used by our other guests in this program,
but team is always used every single time, and about
hiring people that are smarter than you and trusting them
and all the things that you had talked about. I
do want to get some final thoughts from you, Rubin,
and we also want to give the website to everybody.
It's gorgeous, it is easy to navigate on them. There's
(32:31):
lots of information. But before we do that, maybe just
recap what we've talked about. Sir.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
The floor is yours, sure, so I would I would
say to you that the Network of Jewish Human Service
Agencies is a capacity building resource that works to elevate
the impact and scope of the Jewish human service sector.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
We help organizations navigate challenges and we help them thrive
to become the high impact, efficient providers of service that
they are in their local communities and nationally, we have
a group of national agencies in our network as well.
I would also say that living today in the world
(33:15):
is intense, it's complicated, it can be very very challenging,
organizations exist in the community to help people navigate challenges.
So if someone is listening to this that is running
into a personal challenge, a family challenge, a professional challenge,
there are organizations in the community to help you. Our
(33:38):
website network JHSA dot org has a list of our
member agencies or directory, but it also has sort of
a description of who we are and what we do. Again,
we're operating in a time of great uncertainty and volatility,
(33:58):
and it's my honor and privilege to lead this organization.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Every day outstanding and once again the passion comes through
Reuben and I love that. And this was a great interview,
and please continue to do all the great work of
you and your team are doing. Give my best to
your team, and thank you so much. I'm glad we
could feature you on CEOs you should Know.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Thank you, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs You
Should Know. Is part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because When businesses succeed, our community succeed.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
What Are We Even Doing? with Kyle MacLachlan
Join award-winning actor and social media madman Kyle MacLachlan on “What Are We Even Doing,” where he sits down with Millennial and Gen Z actors, musicians, artists, and content creators to share stories about the entertainment industry past, present, and future. Kyle and his guests will talk shop, compare notes on life, and generally be weird together. In a good way. Their conversations will resonate with listeners of any age whose interests lie in television & film, music, art, or pop culture.