12 & 13. Jewocracy and Universal Jewish CRM Login
One of the greatest causes of alienation and disaffection by Jews from the organized Jewish community is the feeling of being misrepresented by our communal institutions on issues of religious and political import. Which is not to say that Jews disagree with each and every position mainstream organizations take — for they agree with many — but rather that the process by which our de facto representatives set our communal agenda is non-democratic and therefore not honestly reflective of the public will. Rather, it is the will of the wealthiest and most powerful members of our community, those who financially influence our institutions, that is represented as “mainstream Jewish public opinion.” Such was the subject of a widely-read debate between the Jewish Federations of North America’s Vice President for Public Policy, William Daroff and myself on Twitter some months ago.
Obviously, I’ve struggled with this issue since I first got involved with the organized Jewish community. While, on the one hand, I sincerely believe that, by and large, our communal institutions strive to do right by us and don’t deserve a lot of the heat they take, on the other, they at times take positions so upsetting that it is impossible not to speak out and declare, “You do not represent me.”
And so, a number of years ago, inspired by the then recent success of MoveOn.org and its model of online community organizing, I decided that I wanted to start an organization like MoveOn for the progressive Jewish community. Originally called PJPAC — The Progressive Jewish Political Action Committee — my idea was to create a political advocacy organization to represent the policy positions of existing progressive Jewish organizations on Capitol Hill.
However, as I began reaching out to these groups to inquire of their interest in building a coalition, I discovered that none of them were terribly eager to cooperate with one another. In fact, they were outright hostile to the idea of another advocacy organization entering the fray all together, because they felt it constituted a threat to their own funding. And then, of course, they all kept saying “JCRC.”
So I decided to go independent and began researching constituent relations management (CRM) software with advocacy and fundraising tools, like Convio, Salsa, Blackbaud and CiviCRM. I soon realized, however, that the investment and expertise required was greater than that at my disposal, and so I tucked the idea in my pocket to perennially pitch to potential partners.
The idea has taken on several iterations since that time, though I have more or less shelved it in deference to J Street, which, if not perfectly democratic, at least adequately represents a voice on Israel with which I resonate. They have also been far more successful than I in bringing these stand-offish organizations under its tent.
That said, here’s the idea, presently codenamed Jewocracy:
When Barack Obama was elected, his transition team setup a section of their Web site called the Citizen Briefing Book, wherein members of the public could post and vote for the issues which they wanted the President to act upon on his first day in office. The most popular issues were then compiled into a briefing book that was presented to the President.
I wish to create a similar Web site, with a lobbying arm attached, whereby the most popular issues voted for by the community determine the organization’s advocacy efforts. A staff of paid lobbyists and strategists would then, with the community’s participation, craft policy statements, petitions and press releases, and coordinate visits to Capitol Hill.
Now that’s democracy in action. And, at this point, kind of a pipe dream. So I’m taking this idea and stripping it down a bit to create for my present employer, Repair the World, the next iteration of SocialAction.com.
The new SocialAction.com, will, like Obama’s transition site, allow users to post issues and vote for the ones they care most about. But, instead of resulting in an advocacy campaign (for Repair the World is not, by any means, political, let alone a political advocacy organization) the top issue each week will be explored by Repair staff in a blog post that evokes the Jewish connection to the issue and which links to related service opportunities for which individuals can volunteer in order to take direct action on that which they care most about.
In the process of exploring this vision, another idea also occurred to me: The need for a universal login for CRM software in use by Jewish advocacy organizations and a one-stop shop where users can explore advocacy issues and act upon them.
Nearly every Jewish advocacy organization today uses a platform, again, like Convio, Salsa, Kintera or CiviCRM. I would like to see, perhaps an OpenID-based login system, where an individual can create one account, and so long as they’re logged into that account, they can get one-click access to be logged into all said CRM platforms and any others. Think of it like “Login with Facebook” button you see all over Web apps and blog comment forms today. But instead of using Facebook as the authentication system, it would be a custom Jewish Web login that could be implemented by all Jewish organizations.
As a result, you could create a petitions page, where all the advocacy initiatives of all the different Jewish organizations in the country would be listed, and you could just check off each one you want to sign, and with one click, send them all off.
Another compelling benefit: If properly datamined (obviously, with the utmost respect for individual privacy), you could gain exceptional insight into which kind of organizations, initiatives and policies appeal to certain Jewish demographics.
Now that, too, would be something.
