Building relationships is one essential piece of our organization’s work — but how do we evaluate whether the time and energy we are investing is in fact benefiting the community we aim to nurture? How do we measure our impact and evolve best practices for the specific people in our spaces?

By focusing on the quality of our programs and paying attention to the relationships our community members are forging, we can radically shift how people experience the Jewish community — from a place where they simply attend programs, to a place where they find their people and their home.

No matter how carefully planned and well-executed our programs are, only deep relationships that add meaning, purpose and connection to our lives have the power to keep people engaged long-term in Jewish life.

The question for our community is how do we move from the abstract to the concrete — how do we actually create these deep relationships? What skills, tools and practices of relationship-based engagement can help us sustain relationships over time?

How might we help people connect to their Jewish identities and communities over the long haul, beyond an isolated program or a challenging moment? The Gather, Inc. team has been wrestling with this question for over a decade, and we believe a clear answer has emerged: the power of long-term, meaningful connection lies in the relationships forged, not the programs run. Written by Michelle Shapiro Abraham