I don't know how many of you reading this post feel this way but...

The fellows are awesome! They are young, energetic adults, with great ideas, who are very passionate about what they are doing. In reading through their projects online before they arrived, and getting to know them the first week they were here, all I could think of is, how can I offer them any assistance? I have never had an idea that is as innovative as theirs, what could I ever do for them? 

And of course that was a ridiculous thought! The fellows are very smart, and they are extremely creative, but similar to anything else that is new and just starting up, help is always needed.

I offered to help a few of the fellows (I offered to help all, by offering office hours for them, but I have started with a few). I have gotten to know Naomi Grumet’s project, the Eden Center, and started to think of models of how to build it up. I got to know Micha Kurz and his project, Grassroots Jerusalem, and suggested ways for Micha to use google apps in working with his staff and volunteers. I have gotten to know a few more and very much look forward to offering them any assistance I can as well.

You too can offer to help. You can give ideas to help build up their projects, you can meet with them and offer your time and efforts, and you could offer to help with their venture once it is launched. No matter what you can do, even if you don’t think it is a lot, it will be a big help. Plus, if you get involved now, you will be part of the start of making the Israeli and Jewish community one step closer to being better!

Just food for thought for your Shabbat table!

To be an innovator does not mean that one time a person came up with a grand idea and it was a huge success; to be an innovator means to constantly be searching and finding better ways to do things. It can be an original way that one thinks of to do something, it can be taking a method of how we do something in one field and applying it to another, it can even be finding a way to bring those that do together with those that need. The point is, that no matter how one innovates, they are always seeing need for improvement and searching for ways to make that improvement happen. 

The best example of true innovation is a school called Beit Issie Shapiro, located in Ra’anana, Israel. Beit Issie Shapiro started out as a school for 16 disabled students, in someone’s house, and today their work affects more then 30,000 people. Mr. Shapiro, who was from South Africa, had a friend whose daughter was disabled. He saw a lack in services to help her and decided that Israel would be the place to create the change his friends’ daughter needed. Though he did not see his desire for innovation come to fruition, his idea created the base for what now has become one of the most influential, both politically and educationally, organizations in Israel and even in other parts of the world.

Beit Issie has designed and offers an education system for children with disabilities that starts from the time of initial diagnosis (usually around 6-8 months). It has brought new ideas to better this education not only within it’s own facilities but to over 400 facilities around the world. Beit Issie has created programs at Universities to educate disabled adults, so they too can participate equally in the workforce. Beit Issie has built one of the strongest, most long lasting coalitions in Israel, of organizations, that Knesset turns to when creating legislation for disabilities; a coalition that not only influences the making of laws but the implementation of laws. Beit Issie has affected communities, not only in their physical structure, such as the Park Chaverim, but also the social structure of how people view those with disabilities in their communities. This of course is just a small part of the list of changes and affects Beit Issie has had.

At Beit Issie you will not only find an administration and staff that have not only found a number of ways to make Israel, and even the world, better for those with disabilities, you will find one of the only nonprofit organizations that has an in-house research center that is constantly searching for how to make life for those with disabilities even better. Beit Issie is an example of true innovation, and we should all learn from this example to make the world a better place!

         Last Semester I took a course on Human Resource Practices for nonprofits. The course did not focus on hiring, firing, and evaluation practices, that was just one lesson; it did not focus on employee manuals and benefits packages, that was also just one lesson; what the course focused on was the need to create an interdisciplinary team among your staff and volunteers to provide a better service for your stakeholders (the people you serve). Throughout the course, students expresses frustration; frustration for not receiving an education in what they saw as "needed" for someone to hire us. Though we saw the team building as important, we were not convinced our current or potential employers would also see it this way. No matter what the employers think, though, I have discovered that team building is one of the most important things any organization could have in in Human Resource Management.

         Nonprofit workers, especially in smaller nonprofits, often see their sole purpose as getting their job done; fulfilling all the objectives and goals listed on their job description. If their job is to build a program, they put everything they have into building it. If their job is to oversee the finances, they make sure they are doing this to the very best of their ability. Everyone knows a nonprofit worker has to go above and beyond, however are they actually performing above and beyond?

         I recently observed an organization, an educational institute. This organization, for the most part, employs teachers, Rabbis, a CFO and an office manager. Like most nonprofit organizations, it does not employ anyone with experience in managing human resources, or anyone even without the experience to at least try. The result of this situation is a group of educators who are so passionate about education, who have such great ideas of how to revolutionize the way they teach their students, but who can not actually make this revolution happen. In this organization, each person is on their own to "try out their ideas" and everyone is trying something different. This lack in a unified method for educating results in the students not receiving the message the school intends to send. The students often play "good cop vs. bad cop" with their teachers; the students seemed to have learned that pitting two disparate views against each other is acceptable; and the students don't seem to have learned how to respect the teachers, what the teachers have to teach, or even how to respect themselves. Had this school brought the teachers together, as a team, created an environment where each teacher could contribute his or her expertise, and together developed a plan for educating their students to get across their message, the school may have actually had a positive affect on its students.

         The management of human resources is not only about the management of benefits and salary packages or overseeing the hiring and firing processes. The management of human resources is about managing the human capital you have in your organization, the value that each person has to offer, and ensuring that the individuals who work so hard for your cause, are working together for the greater cause. As with anything, you are greater then the sum of your parts when all the parts work together.

As part of PresenTense's commitment to transparency we would like to present to you our teams quarterly reports on what we did in January to March 2010, and plans for April through June 2010. In many ways it was a very successful quarter and we look forward to being able to continue this success. 

To find out how you can become part of the community work PresenTense does email deborahfishman@presentense.org. In the meantime enjoy our presentations!

By: Nate Fein