The Impact You Create

Your communities are the reason any of this matters, and the data says so plainly.

These numbers tell a powerful story: JCCs and JCC Camps are the places people go to find connection, deepen their identity, and feel a true sense of belonging.

Bringing the JCC Movement Together

Eighteen months of gathering as one movement, in person and at scale.

The Professional Conference, ProCon 2025, marked the unofficial start of a new era of leadership for the JCC Movement. This conference for JCC professionals of every type and tenure was relaunched and rebuilt from the ground up. It welcomed more than 500 attendees from 95 communities and marked the first in-person ProCon since 2019, our full return to gathering as a movement. A steering committee of colleagues from across the field built it with us, setting the standard for collaboration among JCCs, JCC Camps, and JCC Association, and designing the gathering in a spirit of partnership, hospitality, and forward-moving energy. It became a gathering rooted in Jewish joy and pride, a celebration of the work we do and the people who do it every day, strengthening their connection to mission and to the JCC Movement.

To kick off this year’s gatherings, the Mifgash 2026 Executive Leadership Forum in Atlanta drew 132 CEOs and senior executives representing more than 90 JCCs and JCC Camps from across North America, along with several from JCC Global communities. The gathering was planned by a committee of more than 20 executives who gave their time week after week to bring it to life, connecting leaders, building knowledge community by community, and recharging our shared commitment to the JCC Movement.

Three regional conferences hosted by JCCs across North America carried that same energy across the continent. This year we will close out with six conferences across the United States and Canada, with more than 900 JCC professionals participating, and one event is already on deck for 2027.

In February we opened the Sharon and David Wax JCC Association Mercaz | Center, our training and convening hub in New York. More than 500 professionals have already come through its doors for trainings and meetings, with more than 1,000 expected by December. For affiliated JCCs and JCC Camps, Mercaz programming carries no program fee, giving your teams access to a continental learning center built for the movement, by the movement.

Connection also came alive through this summer’s JCC Maccabi Games^® in Kansas City and Toronto. Nearly 3,000 Jewish teens from 12 countries competed, built friendships, and experienced Jewish community together, with Israel sending its largest delegation ever and almost 12,000 people participating as spectators, volunteers, and host families. In 2028, the Games will return to Israel as the country marks its 80th year of independence.

These experiences are different by design, and the value is shared. Your professionals, lay leaders, teens, and families build relationships that reach beyond their own community.

Center for Talent Development

Investing in the people who make JCCs and JCC Camps thrive.

Your ability to serve your community depends on the people who lead it.

Through Kivunim 2026, our annual cohort for new JCC and JCC Camp executive directors, 15 new leaders received extensive onboarding, mentorship, and leadership development. Across the Martin Pear Israel Fellowship, Tzedek (Repair the World), the Merrin Teen Fellowship, JCulture Intensive, the M² Aleh Summit, and other experiences, professionals from every affiliated center and camp have enriched their skills, expanded their Jewish knowledge, and strengthened their impact back home.

The Sheva Center supports 183 early childhood centers, 30,000 children, and 5,000 educators across the JCC Movement. This fall, a new cohort experience for early childhood directors will convene at the Mercaz, creating another opportunity for leaders to learn together, strengthen their practice, and bring new ideas back to their communities.

Thousands more participated in JCC Association’s Peer Communities, connecting professionals who share roles, challenges, and opportunities. New communities for security directors and chief financial officers came directly from what you told us you need. When a challenge arises at your JCC or JCC Camp, there is enormous value in having colleagues across the continent who have faced it too and who can share their expertise to help you navigate yours.

We are now building this work further and faster, including the search for the Center’s executive director and expanded opportunities for professionals and lay leaders at different stages of their leadership journeys.

Many of these experiences are offered at no fee or substantially subsidized through philanthropic investment and partner collaboration. Your professionals can access high-quality leadership development, learning, and peer networks that your community would otherwise need to build and fund on its own.

And because strong organizations require talent across every function, our commitment extends beyond executive leadership. We are expanding opportunities in Jewish and Israel education, advancement, finance, operations, marketing, and other areas essential to helping your JCC or JCC Camp thrive.

Center for Jewish Peoplehood

Deepening Jewish identity, Israel, and connection.

Recognizing the extraordinary reach of this network, JCC Camps of North America is now a dedicated department within the Center for Jewish Peoplehood, shaped by a task force of camp lay leaders and executives from across the field. Newly led by Rabbi Bill Kaplan, senior vice president, with more than 30 years of leadership experience within the JCC Movement and Jewish camping, this renewed continental effort will strengthen connections among camps, expand training and leadership development, and bring greater resources and expertise across the movement.

Through JCC Association’s JWB Jewish Chaplains Council^®, your partnership also supports an opportunity unique to the JCC Movement: serving Jewish military members and their families wherever they are stationed. This summer, Operation Summer Camp sent more than 160 children from Jewish military families to 30 JCC-affiliated day and overnight camps, and generous philanthropic support allowed us to extend the program to day camps near military bases. Your camps are opening new pathways of understanding and Jewish connection for these families.

We are also expanding the resources available to your professionals to lead some of the most important and complex conversations in Jewish life today. New investment in Jewish and Israel education will bring additional professional development, learning opportunities, and microgrants into communities, strengthening the knowledge and confidence of the people doing this work every day.

And when strong ideas originate in the field, the continental network is ready to help them grow. Three New York CEOs brought us their vision for a Jewish Teen Summit, and more than 200 teens from 12 New York JCCs gathered for a day planned and moderated by teens themselves, a model now being prepared for other communities. Four Texas JCCs brought nearly 70 professionals together for M² Values in Action, applying timeless Jewish values to questions their communities are wrestling with today.

Your partnership allows a promising idea in one community to become an opportunity for many. 

Center for Innovation and Impact

Building what your JCC or JCC Camp needs for the future.

Some of the most consequential investments we are making happen behind the scenes, and they are designed to give your leaders better information, stronger tools, and more capacity to make decisions.

Through the Center for Innovation and Impact, we are building a new CRM, so we can respond to your requests faster, track your impact, and measure our collective force as a continental network. Benchmarking, the salary survey, and the movement workforce survey will give your leaders better data for decisions about compensation, staffing, operations, and organizational performance, while giving the movement a clearer picture of our collective strengths and opportunities.

Alongside these investments comes JBrand 2.0, and we are rebuilding it with the field and for the field. Research from JCCs and JCC Camps will shape practical campaign tools around critical business priorities, from early childhood and camp enrollment to fitness and membership, along with one shared movement-wide campaign that lifts every community at once and shows how the brand flexes across every kind of JCC and JCC Camp. An AI-powered shared visual asset platform will support all of it, so every JCC and JCC Camp can draw on resources built once for the whole movement.

Your partnership also puts money back into your budget. Leveraged group purchasing through OMNIA Partners in the United States and Kinetic GPO in Canada gives JCCs and JCC Camps access to competitively awarded contracts with trusted suppliers across dozens of categories, from food service and facilities to furniture, fitness equipment, and technology, along with online tools that make ordering faster.

Bringing More Resources to the JCC Movement

One of the clearest measures of the value of Stakeholder Partnership is what our collective strength allows us to bring back to you.

Over the past eighteen months, JCC Association has secured more than $14 million in restricted philanthropic investment to advance priorities across the JCC Movement, in addition to nearly $5 million raised through Chazon. These investments expand programs, create grants and microgrants for communities, subsidize professional and leadership development, strengthen Jewish and Israel education, and build shared resources and capacity that your JCC or JCC Camp can access.

The investments matter because of what they make possible, and the partners behind them are named in Partners in This Work.

The Stakeholder Partnership potential:149 JCCs and JCC Camps come together as one movement, giving us the scale, reach, and credibility to attract significant additional investment and turn it into greater resources, expertise, opportunities, and impact for your community.

Partners in This Work

Philanthropic partners invest in the JCC Movement because 149 communities standing together can deliver something no single organization could. Their support reaches your JCC or JCC Camp directly.

Each of the investments below was secured on behalf of the field, and each one funds work that affiliated JCCs and JCC Camps can access: leadership development, program growth, Jewish and Israel education, grants, and shared infrastructure built once for the whole movement.

The investments are significant because of what they make possible.

$1.5 million from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation is accelerating the Center for Talent Development and Mercaz programming, expanding the leadership and professional development infrastructure available to the field.

More than $11 million from The Marcus Foundation and Samueli Foundation, joined by additional support from Schusterman Family Philanthropies, is fueling the growth of JCC Maccabi and its return to Israel in 2028.

Another $1 million investment from Schusterman Family Philanthropies is expanding Israel education and engagement through professional development, learning, and microgrants for communities.

And new partnerships are putting resources directly into local JCCs. Through our partnership with the Michael J. Fox Foundation through the Tampa JCC, 10 JCCs will each receive $18,000 grants to expand Parkinson’s programming in their communities. Additional opportunities, including expanded work with Blue Square Alliance, will bring microgrant opportunities to JCCs and JCC Camps in the year ahead.

These investments are in addition to the expertise, staffing, systems, and shared infrastructure that outside philanthropy helps underwrite on behalf of the field. The Stakeholder Partnership represents your community’s vital contribution to supporting all of this work.

The Year Ahead

Over the next year, the Center for Talent Development will grow under new leadership, with expanded Mercaz programming and more ways to develop professionals and lay leaders. JCC Camps of North America will begin its next chapter under Rabbi Bill Kaplan, with new resources, training, and connections for camp leaders. Jewish and Israel education will expand through new professional development, learning opportunities, and microgrants for communities. Data, benchmarking, digital, and marketing tools will start reaching the field through the Center for Innovation and Impact. And philanthropic partnerships, including our work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation and the Blue Square Alliance, will bring new resources and opportunities to your communities.

And we will keep bringing you together. Mifgash 2027 will convene executive leaders in San Diego in January, regional conferences will continue across North America, and JSummit 2027, April 4 to 6 in Boston, will bring lay and professional leaders together to connect leaders, strengthen communities, and build what comes next.

Most importantly, we will continue working directly with you and your community, listening to your professionals and lay leaders, learning what is working and where you need more from us, connecting you to colleagues and resources, and turning what we hear into action.

That is the promise of Stakeholder Partnership: your community gains the resources and relationships of a continental network, and together, 149 JCCs and JCC Camps have the collective strength to build, attract, and accomplish more than any one of us could alone.

Together, stronger, smarter, and successful for our future.

Questions about renewal?

Write to us at [email protected] and we will get back to you.