August 12, 2025 • 33 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.
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):
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 2 (00:16):
Outstanding and when you were coming out of school, what
did you want to do?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
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
(00:40):
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 as with a new startup nonprofit that grew out
(01:03):
of an internship that I held when I was working
when I was a student, And the internship 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 new startup nonprofit
(01:28):
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 profit corporations, helping
(01:57):
them to figure out contracts that made sense for them,
how to position themselves, how to write grants. It was
it was, you know, I was the only white male
on the team, I was the only Jewish individual on
the team, and for lots of different reasons, it felt
(02:21):
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 so I got out
before it ended up, you know, needing to get out,
(02:44):
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 master's degree in the management of human services.
And I really learned through that first job that the
(03:09):
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 beyond the Jewish community, outside of the Jewish community.
(03:30):
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,
but always with the human service focus. Even when I
(03:54):
worked at Federation, I worked in agency planning and relations
and the focus was on the social service agencies in
the community.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well, it's an 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, Rubin,
I can see why they were interested in you to
join the network, but why were you interested in joining them?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
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
(04:44):
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
(05:07):
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
(05:28):
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
(05:53):
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
(06:15):
as human service providers but were neither a family service
or a 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
(06:39):
of either of the two predecessor associations. So all of
these conversations were like bubbling for a few years, and
there were sort of the time came where the right
people were sitting at the right table at the right time,
(07:00):
where everybody felt, you know what, 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? So when all this was happening,
(07:20):
I 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
(07:44):
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
(08:04):
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 applying. And that's what happened. I removed myself.
(08:29):
I let that committee continue meeting on their own for
a few a year or so and until they they
announced the search for a 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 a
(08:51):
combination of a startup and all the fun and excitement
and scary stuff that comes with being a startup. And
we're all so the result of a merger r and
all the legacy and the issues and the drama and
the whatever that come with a merger. And so that's
(09:12):
where we are. And it's been eight years of both
building something new while 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
(09:34):
address them.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Standing, well, thank you for all that. It's a great story.
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
(09:56):
pulled together, but you had knowledge about what was going on,
which made you a really good fit and why you
saw this could be the gig for me.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
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, and I was ready for
a change. And I was beginning to think, you know,
I'm not ready to be retiring in this role. What
(10:28):
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,
but maybe different issues. I don't know. I didn't know
(10:49):
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. I was passionate about working in,
still in my field of practice, and yeah, and it
(11:09):
came down to, 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
(11:30):
perceived as internal but 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
(11:53):
committee chose me right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
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 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 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 that they're listening to this fantastic interview.
(12:16):
So if you were to give Rubin kind of a
thirty thousand foot view about what the network is, what
would you say that you do?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
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
(12:45):
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
(13:06):
to play to adjucate for and elevate the scope of
the impact of the sector.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well, let's talk about advocation. 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
(13:33):
does it look like when you advocate?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
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
(13:57):
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
(14:19):
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
(14:41):
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
(15:05):
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 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 the
(15:31):
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 an
(15:54):
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 that come from
(16:18):
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 situation
(16:40):
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 community and finding ways to
(17:03):
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 individual. As children grow at different stages,
they have different needs. As adults grow and get older
(17:28):
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 agencies that
(17:50):
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, way
(18:10):
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 make that distinction out because I think that
(18:30):
that community members often don't.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
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. So
how does that work for you?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
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
(19:11):
the members of our board, from individuals who have used
the services and participated in the offerings that we provide,
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,
(19:34):
we 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
(19:54):
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, et cetera.
Beyond that, and we provide some trainings that come with
continuing education units that we provide that we charge fees for.
(20:17):
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
(20:38):
as consultants to help them navigate a challenge, strategic planning,
consideration of emerge or succession planning, you know, whatever the
whatever the project is. Local organizations, though, require the same
diversification of funding, so they depend on grants, they depend
(21:02):
on fundraising, they depend on fees, and they're delivering services
to individuals. So they're billing insurance, they're billing medicare, you know,
they're billing long term care insurance, they're billing medicaid. So
there's a wide range of fees of different revenue sources.
(21:26):
And 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 2 (21:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
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,
(22:07):
for example, each grant has its own focus, its own
term meaning its own year period, its own reporting requirements,
its own payment structure. It becomes the whole thing. Yeah,
so we're managing about twenty of those.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
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
ruined that the world is on fire right now and
all the heck is breaking loose out there, But I
(22:48):
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
get up in the morning. Do you have something you
can share with us that was memorable to you, a
meaningful that you'd like to share with with the audience.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
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
(23:30):
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
(23:53):
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 there
were staff who lost their homes, there were clients who
(24:16):
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
(24:37):
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
(25:00):
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.
(25:23):
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 2 (25:40):
It all it was all on deck, wasn't.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
It all hands on deck?
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
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
(26:07):
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
(26:30):
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
(26:51):
do online? I need help. And so we took that
concept and we took that recognition of what was happening
again bubble up from community members that we're 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
(27:14):
it as a collective system. Fast forward. We now have
a program, a National Workforce program that we have a
network are administering with nineteen agencies delivering services as a
integrated continuum, all online. They're connecting people with individual career counselors.
(27:35):
They're 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
(27:56):
six figure earners and everything in between. And so I
think what I take from this is with position a
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
(28:19):
local 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 to TELP agencies to become better at preparedness because
(28:39):
like it or not, these crises that are happening in
every city.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
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 listen to the series, but we also have a
lot of future entrepreneurs and presidents and you to listen
(29:03):
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 specifically why you do what
does it mean.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
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
(29:42):
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
(30:05):
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
(30:28):
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
(30:49):
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
(31:12):
through some intensely complicated times right now, and there's no
way I could navigate them alone without being open, honest, transparent,
and without having my own network to complement the network.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
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, Reuben,
and we also want to give the website to everybody.
It's gorgeous, it is easy to navigate on them. There's
(31:50):
lots of information. But before we do that, maybe just
recap what we've talked about. Sir. The floor is yours, sure,
so I would I would.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
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. We help organizations navigate challenges and we help
them thrive to become the high impact, efficient providers of
(32:20):
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 is intense, it's complicated, it can be very
very challenging. Organizations exist in the community to help people
(32:43):
navigate challenges. So if someone is listening to this that
is running into a personal challenge, a family challenge, or
professional challenge, there are organizations in the community to help you.
Our website network JHSUSA dot org has a list of
our member agencies or directory, but it also has sort
(33:07):
of a description of who we are and what we do. Again,
we're operating in a time of great uncertainty and volatility,
and it's my honor and privilege to lead this organization
every day.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Out standing in Once again the passion come through, Rubin,
and I love that, and this was a great interview,
and please continue to do all the great work that
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 1 (33:33):
Thank you, thank you very much for having me
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 2 (00:16):
Outstanding and when you were coming out of school, what
did you want to do?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
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
(00:40):
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 as with a new startup nonprofit that grew out
(01:03):
of an internship that I held when I was working
when I was a student, And the internship 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 new startup nonprofit
(01:28):
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 profit corporations, helping
(01:57):
them to figure out contracts that made sense for them,
how to position themselves, how to write grants. It was
it was, you know, I was the only white male
on the team, I was the only Jewish individual on
the team, and for lots of different reasons, it felt
(02:21):
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 so I got out
before it ended up, you know, needing to get out,
(02:44):
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 master's degree in the management of human services.
And I really learned through that first job that the
(03:09):
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 beyond the Jewish community, outside of the Jewish community.
(03:30):
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,
but always with the human service focus. Even when I
(03:54):
worked at Federation, I worked in agency planning and relations
and the focus was on the social service agencies in
the community.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well, it's an 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, Rubin,
I can see why they were interested in you to
join the network, but why were you interested in joining them?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
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
(04:44):
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
(05:07):
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
(05:28):
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
(05:53):
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
(06:15):
as human service providers but were neither a family service
or a 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
(06:39):
of either of the two predecessor associations. So all of
these conversations were like bubbling for a few years, and
there were sort of the time came where the right
people were sitting at the right table at the right time,
(07:00):
where everybody felt, you know what, 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? So when all this was happening,
(07:20):
I 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
(07:44):
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
(08:04):
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 applying. And that's what happened. I removed myself.
(08:29):
I let that committee continue meeting on their own for
a few a year or so and until they they
announced the search for a 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 a
(08:51):
combination of a startup and all the fun and excitement
and scary stuff that comes with being a startup. And
we're all so the result of a merger r and
all the legacy and the issues and the drama and
the whatever that come with a merger. And so that's
(09:12):
where we are. And it's been eight years of both
building something new while 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
(09:34):
address them.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Standing, well, thank you for all that. It's a great story.
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
(09:56):
pulled together, but you had knowledge about what was going on,
which made you a really good fit and why you
saw this could be the gig for me.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
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, and I was ready for
a change. And I was beginning to think, you know,
I'm not ready to be retiring in this role. What
(10:28):
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,
but maybe different issues. I don't know. I didn't know
(10:49):
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. I was passionate about working in,
still in my field of practice, and yeah, and it
(11:09):
came down to, 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
(11:30):
perceived as internal but 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
(11:53):
committee chose me right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
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 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 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 that they're listening to this fantastic interview.
(12:16):
So if you were to give Rubin kind of a
thirty thousand foot view about what the network is, what
would you say that you do?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
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
(12:45):
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
(13:06):
to play to adjucate for and elevate the scope of
the impact of the sector.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well, let's talk about advocation. 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
(13:33):
does it look like when you advocate?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
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
(13:57):
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
(14:19):
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
(14:41):
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
(15:05):
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 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 the
(15:31):
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 an
(15:54):
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 that come from
(16:18):
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 situation
(16:40):
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 community and finding ways to
(17:03):
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 individual. As children grow at different stages,
they have different needs. As adults grow and get older
(17:28):
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 agencies that
(17:50):
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, way
(18:10):
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 make that distinction out because I think that
(18:30):
that community members often don't.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
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. So
how does that work for you?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
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
(19:11):
the members of our board, from individuals who have used
the services and participated in the offerings that we provide,
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,
(19:34):
we 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
(19:54):
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, et cetera.
Beyond that, and we provide some trainings that come with
continuing education units that we provide that we charge fees for.
(20:17):
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
(20:38):
as consultants to help them navigate a challenge, strategic planning,
consideration of emerge or succession planning, you know, whatever the
whatever the project is. Local organizations, though, require the same
diversification of funding, so they depend on grants, they depend
(21:02):
on fundraising, they depend on fees, and they're delivering services
to individuals. So they're billing insurance, they're billing medicare, you know,
they're billing long term care insurance, they're billing medicaid. So
there's a wide range of fees of different revenue sources.
(21:26):
And 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 2 (21:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
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,
(22:07):
for example, each grant has its own focus, its own
term meaning its own year period, its own reporting requirements,
its own payment structure. It becomes the whole thing. Yeah,
so we're managing about twenty of those.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
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
ruined that the world is on fire right now and
all the heck is breaking loose out there, But I
(22:48):
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
get up in the morning. Do you have something you
can share with us that was memorable to you, a
meaningful that you'd like to share with with the audience.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
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
(23:30):
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
(23:53):
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 there
were staff who lost their homes, there were clients who
(24:16):
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
(24:37):
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
(25:00):
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.
(25:23):
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 2 (25:40):
It all it was all on deck, wasn't.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
It all hands on deck?
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
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
(26:07):
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
(26:30):
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
(26:51):
do online? I need help. And so we took that
concept and we took that recognition of what was happening
again bubble up from community members that we're 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
(27:14):
it as a collective system. Fast forward. We now have
a program, a National Workforce program that we have a
network are administering with nineteen agencies delivering services as a
integrated continuum, all online. They're connecting people with individual career counselors.
(27:35):
They're 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
(27:56):
six figure earners and everything in between. And so I
think what I take from this is with position a
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
(28:19):
local 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 to TELP agencies to become better at preparedness because
(28:39):
like it or not, these crises that are happening in
every city.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
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 listen to the series, but we also have a
lot of future entrepreneurs and presidents and you to listen
(29:03):
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 specifically why you do what
does it mean.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
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
(29:42):
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
(30:05):
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
(30:28):
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
(30:49):
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
(31:12):
through some intensely complicated times right now, and there's no
way I could navigate them alone without being open, honest, transparent,
and without having my own network to complement the network.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
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, Reuben,
and we also want to give the website to everybody.
It's gorgeous, it is easy to navigate on them. There's
(31:50):
lots of information. But before we do that, maybe just
recap what we've talked about. Sir. The floor is yours, sure,
so I would I would.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
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. We help organizations navigate challenges and we help
them thrive to become the high impact, efficient providers of
(32:20):
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 is intense, it's complicated, it can be very
very challenging. Organizations exist in the community to help people
(32:43):
navigate challenges. So if someone is listening to this that
is running into a personal challenge, a family challenge, or
professional challenge, there are organizations in the community to help you.
Our website network JHSUSA dot org has a list of
our member agencies or directory, but it also has sort
(33:07):
of a description of who we are and what we do. Again,
we're operating in a time of great uncertainty and volatility,
and it's my honor and privilege to lead this organization
every day.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Out standing in Once again the passion come through, Rubin,
and I love that, and this was a great interview,
and please continue to do all the great work that
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 1 (33:33):
Thank you, thank you very much for having me
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