New portfolio includes planning, partnership
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New portfolio includes planning, partnership

As the Jewish Federation of Monmouth County’s newly hired manager of community impact, Ariella Lis Raviv will tackle the three P’s: planning, partnership, and programming.

In the new post she will oversee planning for programs ranging from PJ Library and Taglit-Birthright Israel to overseas partnerships between the community and Arad-Tamar in Israel.

The creation of the new position emphasizes the federation’s commitment to collaborating with its partner agencies and ensuring strategic impact on the community, said executive director Keith Krivitzky.

“We are really excited to have Ariella join our professional staff,” he said. “She has a diverse set of experiences in grant making and programming, particularly with Israel and young adults, which really embodies federation’s new face and new direction.”

Originally from Detroit, Raviv worked in Boston as a marketing and communications manager for the Israeli high-tech company HBR Labs. She has served as a volunteer with the Jewish federations in Detroit and Boston and with a number of grant-making committees and foundations, including Jewish Women’s Foundation in Detroit, Slingshot Fund in New York (which develops next-generation Jewish donors), and Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston’s young adult planning committee.

Raviv moved to Highland Park in August with her husband, Tzvi, who also holds a new position in Jewish community service as director of Israel engagement with Rutgers Hillel on the university’s New Brunswick campus.

Raviv started her new position on Oct. 26. She “greatly enjoyed” her involvement with Jewish federations, “even more than my day job. I always hoped to work in the Jewish world,” said Raviv, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Jewish studies from Brandeis University. “I’d like to help enable people to have positive, meaningful Jewish experiences in their community, just like I did while growing up.”

In her new position, Raviv is overseeing planning for such federation programs as PJ Library (which provides free Jewish-themed books and music to young children), Taglit-Birthright Israel (which provides free trips to Israel to young Jewish adults), and Partnership2gether (formerly Partnership 2000), which builds bridges between a cluster of NJ-Delaware Jewish communities (including Monmouth) and Israel’s Arad-Tamar region.

A primary focus of her new position is to coordinate Birthright alumni programs, together with Evan Levitt, director of financial resource development.

“Federation has sent about 2,800 young adults from Monmouth County to Birthright Israel, and my goal is to engage these young people in leadership-building social opportunities and to ensure a return on federation’s investment in this valuable program,” Raviv said. “By engaging them through Shabbat dinners and alumni events, we can help build their professional development and their affiliation with the Jewish community. Unaffiliation is really rampant among young adults.”

Raviv will also oversee the allocations process and will review grants from beneficiary agencies, together with federation’s assistant director of finance, Linda Choate, and the overseas, local, and day school allocations committees.

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